BUDGET TOTALS INCORRECT and I can't figure it out... (Q Mac)

JoSheem

I have a "Master Category" in my budget which includes six sub-categories, and all of the figures are correct except two. The twelve-month totals for all of the sub-category rows in the "Jan. to Dec." column - both actual and budgeted amounts - are the correct total for the year. In each individual month's column, the individual entries and totals for both actual and budgeted amounts are correct. The problem is with the "Jan. to Dec." Master Category annual total budgeted amount number. Instead of correctly adding up the sub-category budgeted amounts, it instead reproduces the total actual amount. I ran a report for this category, and all of the transactions seem to have been properly categorized - their didn't seem to be any orphan, un-categorized transactions - of the kind that Quicken labels "Other". I am, once again, very confused! Any help would be greatly appreciated…

jacobs

If I understand your description correctly, I'm not sure I understand how that could be happening. I'm not seeing it in my budget. You're saying the full year budget amount is the actual amount? So the same number appears in bold (actual) and light gray (budget)? If you switch to year-to-date, does the budget value remain unchanged? (If it's truly reporting the actual total, the full year and year-to-date values would be the same.) If you switch in Settings between Stacked and Side-by-Side layout, does that change anything?

Instead of correctly adding up the sub-category budgeted amounts, it instead reproduces the total actual amount.

So you're saying that adding up the 6 subcategory budget full year amounts does not equal the master category budget full year amount, right? What about summing the 12 values on the master category row? Is that sum equal to the value in the full year total column or not?

JoSheem

Thank you very much (again) jacobs for you prompt reply. Rather than describe what I'm seeing, here are two screen shots of the Master Category & Sub Categories. TBH I've re-named them for privacy purposes, but didn't change anything else. Except the time frame: at your suggestion I took the problem budget (which is for last year) and created a copy budget with the start date moved up to 1/1/2024. As you'll see the results changed: it appears that the "actual" amount is now correct (I say appears because I didn't look at the underlying figures), AND the budgeted amount is the SAME incorrect sum of the Sub-Category budgeted amounts. [Insert emoji of tearing out hair !]. I throw myself at the mercy of the court / Quicken community….

JoSheem

I hope these pictures are legible

JoSheem

Update…

I ran into the same issue in another Master Category. I went into the "Edit Budget" screen, and re-set the (weirdly all over the place) Monthly Budgeted Amount Total Figures in each of the Month columns to the correct amount (annual total / 12). After saving that change, the Category looks OK. I don't know if it will hold. I realize that from a past experience with budget problems I was assuming that I should not do that kind of over-ride of the automatic math; that the "appearance" of errors was always a sign of an underlying problem, such as not-correctly-Categorized transactions.

Still - I welcome any perspective you have to offer on this confusing wrinkle.

JoSheem

Update #2

While the "Edit Budget" fix described above worked for the additional example of the problem (and a couple of other Categories as well) it is not working for the original Category. I suspect that there's corruption of some kind in that specific area of the Budget. I'm going to try to transfer the underlying transactions to a freshly created "new" Sub-Category. I hope there is a way to do that without editing individual transactions, because that would be a TON of work…

Do you think this would work @jacobs ?

JoSheem

Success at last!

Transferring all of the transactions in the problematic Category to a freshly created matching Category seems to have worked. In the Budget, the Annual Total Budgeted Amount is displaying correctly! I haven't checked the calculations for the various Actual amounts, but they're a mix of odd numbers, so it's looking good.

Thanks again @jacobs