What is the best way to see how my actual vs budget has done?

Question

I want to see how my actual spending has done compared to what I budgeted from 1/1/2020 to 12/31/23.  Has my net cashflow been positive or negative and by how much.  I have one "Master" budget but each budget year amounts are different. I assume the different budgeted amounts will average out in the report.  Or, will I have to select a specific budget year?

netguydave · Answer

Thanks for the answer Chris. It's greatly appreciated.

I forgot to state that I'm using Quicken Classic Premier for Windows R57.26

Chris_QPW · Answer

The budget reports don't seem like the right tool for this.  In both cases you are restricted to using one year's budget to compare to.

What you can go though is go to the Annual View (provided you aren't using the Starter edition) and then just look at the year summary total at the bottom right for any given year (use the < button at the top left to move back one year at a time).  That will give you the per year numbers.  You can then add the numbers for the years in question and see if over that period of time it has been positive.

Note this is showing you how good you did your budget prediction, not if you actual had a positive income flow.  For that running "Income/Expense by Category" report over the given period of time, and with interval of None would probably be what you would want, if you just want the summary of all the period, or maybe an interval of year if you want to see what years were positive and which were negative.