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Estimating Bills where the amount varies seasonally.

DOWYTCAMINO

Here's the situation. Within the Projected balances I like to look out a full year to see if my checking account is growing or shrinking. Within this outlook is a monthly power bill that I've set up within the "Bills and Income reminder" page. On that page there is the option to "estimate bills based on time of year". This does a descent job of estimating the next months bill, but unfortunately projects that "next months" as a constant throughout the year making a year-long outlook in error.
I'm not sure if there is a simple way to get those projections correct or not. Please comment if you can imagine a better way than described below.
I've considered creating 12 seperate bill entries e.g. Power Bill - Jan, Power Bill - Feb and then having Quicken estimate based on the last 1-2 entries and I think that will work, but it seems like more work than necessary. In order to get the estimate to work I have to go back and edit 12-24 entries. That is not too bad, but in the future, I'd have to rename the power bill every time it gets downloaded. Is there a method to get Quicken to rename the bill based not only on keywords in the downloaded transaction but also the date of the transaction….e.g. if the transaction contains the power company name and a date in February rename it to "Power Bill - Feb"?

Any other suggestions would be appreciated. The goal is to get a year long projection accurate when there is a bill with significant variation seasonally.

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Comments

[Deleted User]

@DOWYTCAMINO - I have found the "Time of Year" estimates do not work in all situations especially when the amounts vary significantly as in your situation. Have you thought about "Average Monthly Billing" from your utility company? I had gas and electric bills that varied significantly depending on the time of year. I signed up for "Average Monthly Billing" for both and now I get billed a consistent amount from both. The averaged about changes one or two times a year based on your usage.

I know it doesn't directly help with the Quicken issue, but it could help with your budgeting and forecasting.

DOWYTCAMINO

Thanks QuickUserPSP. That's a valid suggestion that would at least help with budgeting. Being a penny-pinching engineer I've always be reticent to do the average billing because it felt like an escrow arrangement where they company (power company in this case) got to hold on to my money instead of me. On paper it's silly because the difference likely amounts to a few dollars….just a hang-up I've had in the past.

What I'm surprised about his the Time of Year estimate is really deceiving. It doesn't really make an estimate based on the time of year except for the next-upcoming bill. All the others through the year are equal to that next-month's value. It seems it would be a pretty simple thing for Quicken to code to work properly.

[Deleted User]

The "Time of Year" estimates seemed to go off kilter in recent years. I am not sure why. But in my experience, it was always "touchy" and the numbers it came up with didn't make sense, especially if you tried to do long range forecasting.