Current Budget Report Integrity Issues Ticket 11107211

Greg Gilfoil

Ticket # 11107211 - Current Budget Report Integrity Issues.pdf

Please see the attached which include details of two Budgeting/Planning and Reporting integrity issues and provide a fix. Thanks.

Jim_Harman

This is a user to user forum.

To have someone at Quicken review this issue, you should also report this using Help > Report a Problem from within Quicken if you have not done so already.

If there are multiple issues you should submit a separate report for each.

Greg Gilfoil

I called support. They sent me a link to this forum…

Jim_Harman

OK, I have reviewed you document.

For your first issue, is the _UnrlzdGain Category included in your budget? Normally the Current Budget report will only include Categories that are included in your budget, and unrealized gains are not included by default. If you want the report to include unbudgeted Categories, go to the Advanced tab and next to Categories, select Include all.

To include a Category in your budget, go to the Planning > Budgets page and click on Manage budget Categories. In the Personal Income section, click the Show hidden Categories box and select _UnrlzdGain if you really want to include that as income in your budget. You can't spend unrealized gains until you realize them by selling the underlying security; I assume that is why they excluded from budgets by default.

I don't have much experience with your loan payment issue; someone else may be able to help with that.

Greg Gilfoil

Jim, I appreciate your response. I added _Unrlzdgain category to the Budget. Now a line appears for it on the Current Budget but the amounts appearing monthly are goose eggs. Drilling down on the zeros produces a detailed list of _Unrlzdgain with the actual, correct amounts…

I’ll upload as you first suggested through Help/Report a Problem.

Thanks!

Jim_Harman

OK good.

Out of curiosity, can you explain why you want to include unrealized gains as income in your budget? They are part of the balance of your investing accounts, but I think most people would not consider then as income.

Greg Gilfoil

I am using Morgan Stanley to manage my investments. Quicken can track market value of securities, bonds, etc., in great detail. I run monthly Current Budget Reports to track performance and share with my FA team to keep them on their toes and let them know I’m paying attention.

NotACPA

I concur with @Jim_Harman, Unrealized gains aren't income. You actually haven't received anything … and when the market is open they can change without limit and second by second.

Income and Expense items are what's included in a budget. When the security is sold, and becomes Realized Gain/Loss, that's income (or negative income i.e., a loss).

Consider sending your FA an "Investment Performance" report instead. Do they really need to know what you spent, from your budget, on Groceries or Entertainment?

Jim_Harman

Unrealized Gain is not very useful IMO for tracking investing performance. For example if you have a security that has performed well it will have a lot of unrealized gain, but if your advisor sells it and buys something else in a taxable account, you will pay capital gains tax on the gain and the unrealized gain will drop to zero.

Another alternative would be to set up an Investing > Portfolio view to track the Morgan Stanley accounts. Group by accounts and click on Customize to select the accounts and columns to include.

I would suggest Shares, Cost basis, Market Value, Gain/Loss, ROI (%) YTD for short term performance, and the Avg Annual Return (%) columns to track longer term performance. You can also add the Estimated Income column to show the projected annual income for each security. There are some new preference settings to make this easier to set up.

You can click on the little plus sign next to each security to see the tax lots you hold.

The Avg Annual Return columns do an annualized IRR calculation, which takes into account your purchases, sales, and dividends and other distributions. They are most useful for periods of one year or more.

Greg Gilfoil

Understood and good points. I will consider sharing the Investment Performance report with my FA and a rollup Current Budget quarterly. And, yes I understand that unrealized gains/losses are not income till realized, but I look at the Current Budget and Income & Expense reports both with and without unrealized gains/losses. I also budget for investment income as part of my 10-year financial plan which includes both realized and unrealized gains. All this notwithstanding, the unrealized gain category and function are a Quicken feature that ought to work properly so the user does not have to download to Excel and rebuild the reports affected, which is my point and request of Quicken development…

Greg Gilfoil

Jim, All good stuff. Thanks!

NotACPA

But, again, Unrealized Gain isn't income. It's an increase in your Net Worth, not in your bank account which you can spend.

Greg Gilfoil

Correct. Thanks!

Jim_Harman

Also if you are looking at a 10-year plan, you might try Quicken's Lifetime Planner. Its modeling leaves something to be desired, but for planning purposes, it has the benefit of access to all the income and spending data that is already in Quicken.

Any plan will only be as good as the assumptions it uses.

Greg Gilfoil

Thanks, Jim. I’ll take a look at that. I built an annual budget and 10-year plan model in Excel by downloading from Quicken. I have been using Quicken since it was first released. Managing Your Money by Andrew Tobias before that. As you said, some of the features and reports leave some to a lot to be desired. I am a retired CFO, BTW.