Budgeting for transfers to my US Account

Brian175

I have accounts in $Cdn and $US. I have a budget setup in $Cdn and $US. I would like to budget for transfers I need to make between my $Cdn and $US account. I identify cross boarder transfers with the Action identifier 'CROSS' in my Canada and US chequing accounts. Is there a way I could separately identify these transfers in my budget?

jacobs

Transfers between account move money but aren't income or expense. The budget only tracks income and expenses, so transfers are not included.

However, you can force transfers into your budget: go to Edit Budget > Select Categories and search for Transfer. Here you can select individual accounts for Transfers in or Transfers out of the account. If you include the transfer FROM a US account and TO a Canadian account, the money in and out would zero out if you were able to see both budgets combined— which is correct because the transfers don't affect your bottom line of income minus expenses. Of course, Quicken Mac isn't going to help you with currency conversion, so you'll have a little funkiness having to do the conversion yourself in the budget. So if you budget a transfer FROM a US account for $1,000 on your US budget, you'd record a transfer TO a Canadian account of $1,367 or so in your Canadian budget. But since each budget is competing a budgeted value to an actual value, it should be good enough for your needs.

Brian175

thank you for replying to my question. Your solution would work if the only transaction occurring in the account were North South transfers, however all activity in the account is shown. No way of filtering on one transaction type. Thank you.

jacobs

Your solution would work if the only transaction occurring in the account were North South transfers, however all activity in the account is shown. No way of filtering on one transaction type.

@Brian175 Sorry, but I'm confused about what you're wanting to show or something in what you're saying. You said, "I would like to budget for transfers I need to make between my $Cdn and $US account."

Okay, so you have a budget in $US. It doesn't show the activity in your $Cdn accounts. In your $US budget, you can add one or more Transfers To: [$Cdn account] and/or Transfers From: [$Cdn account] categories in the budget. If you wish, you can do the same thing in your @$Cdn budget, adding Transfers To: [$US account] and/or Transfers From: [$US account] categories. So how does that not accomplish "budget for transfers I need to make between my $Cdn and $US account"? In the $US budget, adding these transfers to or from the $Cdn account(s) won't reflect any of the transactions in the $Cdn account; in the $Cdn budget, adding the transfers to or from the $US account(s) won't reflect any of the transactions in the $US account.

Brian175

I use my Cdn account to transfer money to my other Canadian accounts so all those transfers show up in Cdn side of budget. Transfers from on the US side is similarly affected as I transfer money to my US chequing account from other US accounts. What I need is a filter that would only show my cross border transfers.

jacobs

The Transfer To and Transfer From "pseudo-categories" in the budget are specific to each account. In your US budget, you would only include Transfers to and/or Transfers From your Canadian account. The transfers to or from your other US accounts would not be included in the US budget. Similarly, in the Canadian budget you would include the transfers To and/or Transfers From the US account. All the transfers between your Canadian accounts would not show up. Isn't that what you're looking for?

Let me show an example. Let's say you have these accounts:

$US Checking
$US Savings
$US Visa
$US Amex

$Cdn Checking
$Cdn Savings
$Cdn Visa
$Cdn Amex

Your "cross border" transfers, as I understand it, only happen between one US and one Canadian account, correct? So let's use the two checking accounts for this example.

In your $US budget, you'd add the categories Transfers In: FROM [$Cdn Checking] and Transfers Out: TO [$Cdn Checking]. This would make any transfers between your $US Checking account and $Cdn Checking account show up in your $US budget. The transfers between your $US Checking and other $US accounts would not show up here; the transfers between your $Cdn Checking and other $Cdn accounts would not show up either.

In your $Cdn budget, you'd add the categories Transfers In: FROM [$US Checking] and Transfers Out: TO [$US Checking]. This would make any transfers between your $US Checking account and $Cdn Checking account show up in your $Cdn budget. The transfers between your $US Checking and other $US accounts would not show up here; the transfers between your $Cdn Checking and other $Cdn accounts would not show up either.

If that isn't accomplishing what you're wanting to do, please explain where it misses the mark.

Brian175

I now understand what you are suggesting. I tried it and budget item was set up, ie in Cdn budget I set up From US Checking and To US Checking.

Problem is no transactions show up.

Went to my Cdn account and looked at how Quicken does Cdn to US transfers and visa versa. They go to an account called Transfers as it is called an unlinked transfer. Even if I select US Checking as the transfer account it still defaults to Transfer as the account.

As a result the budget does not recognize these transfers as going to US account. There is no ability to select To Transfers or From Transfers as an account. I can not figure out a work around.

At least this way I can budget my transfers to US to cover my US expenses even if I can not see actual transactions.

Thanks.

jacobs

@Brian175 Yes, you're correct about the transfers becoming unlinked transfers. I forgot about that because I don't typically work in multiple currencies. This is something the developers have said they plan to address in the future, but we of course have no idea when — and that doesn't help you now. So apologies for leading you down this path which doesn't fully accomplish what you want. As you noted, you can at least use it for budgeting purposes, but you can't get it to show budget versus actual.

You could probably create a category to use for your currency exchanges, with the idea that money out of one account would match money into another account and zero out in the bottom line. But then you'd have to deal with making adjustments for the currency conversion (e.g. $1,000 US = $1,367 Cdn, so two offsetting money in/out transactions wouldn't offset without an adjustment), and I think that would end up creating more complications and work than it's worth.

Brian175

Look forward to an upgrade that will address issue.

just so you know I like the idea that Cdn and US expenditures are not co-mingled. I was using PC version and at first I found it inconvenient, but now I like it. Do not mess this feature up.