Can Anyone Explain This? Is This A Dashboard Math Error?

JoelC

I was reviewing the Home Tab dashboard for January early today and noticed / saw the below card which indicates that my expenses for January 2024 were $83,834 (mainly business and renovation related).

I noticed that the number higher than I thought and confirmed this in two ways:

i) I looked at the Spending Tab dashboard and noticed / saw teh below card whose amount was $3,625 dollars lower

iii) I looked at the spreadsheet that I created for this exact purpose (i.e., to check / test QWin for accuracy) and note that the personal spending + business spending for my two companies totalled $80,208.78 (i.e., $38,679.35 + $34,715.22 + $6,814.21).

In trying to resole this difference it appears that it caused by the following combination of transactions:

i) credit card account charge of $3,625 (i.e., the amount of the difference);

ii) invoice (i.e., a/r) account charge of $3.625 (i.e., billed to the client);

iii) invoice (i.e., a/r) account payment of $3,625 (i.e., client paid the invoice);

iv) checking account deposit of $3,625 (i.e., funds were deposited into my checking account [i.e., consequence of clearing the a/r account])

The $3,625 deposited into the checking account:

i) is categorized as a transfer in (i.e., is not categorized as an expense) and is therefore not being picked up as an expense / expense reversal; hence the overstatement

ii) cannot be recategorized as an expense because the amount / transaction is then removed as form the invoicing (i.e., a/r ) account.

This is bizarre / non-sensical to me because it means that there is no way to enter an expense when charged to a client and then, when the client repays that expense, have the repayment cancel / net the expense out.

Worth noting, I do understand that the amount is "netted to zero" by looking at the expenses net of "income from client reimbursements" but what I was hoping / would like is to have the expenses net out.

THE ASK: Would appreciate feedback / insight into:

i) Why does Quicken above approach / treatment makes sense?

ii) Why does the Spending Tab / dashboard properly net out the amount but the Home Tab / dashboard card does not?

iii) What, if any, workarounds exist to get the Home tab / dashboard to also net out the amounts?

Thank you.

markus1957

I see similar behavior with inconsistent totals in the locations you describe.

Check the total under the transaction list below the graphic in the Spending tab. I found it matched the total from the Dashboard. Wondering if you see the same?

JoelC

@markus1957 I appreciate the response and note that I have found many inconsistencies

For example, for one of my companies, the Home Tab / View / Expenses card shows January expenses of $38,340.38 per the below image

while the Home Tab / View / Income vs Expenses card shows January expenses of $34,715.22 per the below image for the same company

Question 1: How / why can or would two cards show different expenses?

Question 2 : How / why does Quicken not make it priority to get these to be consistent?

Question 3: How / why is the user able to have comfort / faith in teh reliability of Quicken's reporting. This is a major concern / issue to me as one of the key purposes of using an application like Quicken is accurate and timely reporting.

Comments / suggestions / thoughts welcome.

markus1957

Bottom line answer to all questions is that certain categories for reasons unknown are not being included in some Cards and Tab views that purport to show the same information. It's not math errors but inconsistent inclusion of categories included in the totals between the screens/cards.

Adding- for example, in my case the spending categories, Miscellaneous (used in an investment account transaction), Foreign Tax paid and _Accrued Int (also from investment accounts, see a pattern?) are excluded from Totals in the Spending Tab graphic view but are included in the Spending Card, a real Spending report and the register total in the Spending tab view.

For now, I would say that cards/views that do not allow the user to see all of the underlying selections that contribute to the totals cannot be trusted to provide accurate totals. (To the moderators- That's not speculation, it's a demonstrated fact.)

Use a real report when it's important to have correct information. The cards/Tab views that do not show the underlying parameters used to construct the data set should be thought of as just pretty pictures.

Adding- If you click the Show Income/Expense Report, you should be able to compare it with a Spending by Category report to see what categories are excluded.

JoelC

@markus1957 , appreciate the response

Bottom line answer to all questions is that certain categories for reasons unknown are not being included in some Cards and Tab views that purport to show the same information. It's not math errors but inconsistent inclusion of categories included in the totals between the screens/cards.

Agreed.

For now, I would say that cards/views that do not allow the user to see all of the underlying selections that contribute to the totals cannot be trusted to provide accurate totals. (To the moderators- That's not speculation, it's a demonstrated fact.)

Agreed. The issue I have with this is that the average user who does not dig in or use custom / different reports will i) not be aware of this and ii) wrongly assume the cards / views are correct, after all Quicken added them. To me, and others may disagree, this should be happening, things must / should be consistent.

Use a real report when it's important to have correct information. The cards/Tab views that do not show the underlying parameters used to construct the data set should be thought of as just pretty pictures.

Agre and the is exactly what I am doing. That said, it would be nice to be able to rely on the convenient / use of the cards / views.

Adding- If you click the Show Income/Expense Report, you should be able to compare it with a Spending by Category report to see what categories are excluded.

Confirmed the only problem I have is that the volume of transactions is large. I take the sports export the to Excel and then use Power Query to identify the differences! It is a bit of a pain as not all reports have teh same columns which necessities tweaking the Excel Data Queries.

Thank you.

JoelC

Okay, part of the difference / mystery is solved. I was able to get much closer by including transactions whose tags are NOT Categorized. The reason this helped is because the transactions that are entered into the checking account through the A/R account do not have tags, cannot have tags and are therefore were not picked up. Why this is not a customization option in every card is beyond me, how else is one to create accuracy and consistency.

The part that is not solved is that for some reason not all of my categories are being properly picked by the cards (i.e., for some reason, some of teh categories second level / nesting is being ignored). Bizarre.