Quicken Not Doing Budget Report Math Correctly

Question

I pulled a monthly budget report from my saved folder per usual and noted that my expense totals seemed to be high. I pulled a different type of saved monthly budget report and noticed that thesse two didn’t agree at all, both expenses and income totals were too large and different from each other.  I was both puzzled and horrified.

I spent an hour checking for the proper accounts and categories.  I could find no error in my setup.  I pulled a cash flow report and got the proper figures.

I also exported my saved budget reports to Excel and did the math there.  These figures match the cash flow, not the saved budget reports.

I created a brand-new monthly budget report.  Here, the expenses match the cash flow as they should.  I double checked all of the accounts and categories in the saved reports.  I can find no error, but the totals are hugely off.  The expenses are wrong by almost a factor of three.  Suddenly Quicken can’t do math.

I also have that weird “Everything Else” phantom category already reported.  (

https://community.quicken.com/search?domain=all_content&query=Everything%20Else&scope=site&source=community

), but I’ve got bigger issues if Quicken can no longer handle arithmetic. I don’t know if this is related.

I’ve been using Quicken since the 90’s. How many reports do I have in which the addition is wrong?  I’ve always assumed the reports to be accurate.  What am I to make of this?  And I have a lot of saved reports.  Are they trustworthy?

Thanks.

Quicken Classic, Windows 10

WSC · Answer

Hey Chris and Ukr,

Thanks for responding.  Yes, I’ve read that you sometimes do have to recreate corrupted reports, which is why I recreated mine.  I'm also very specific about what I want to appear, so yes, I chose my categories carefully.  I’ve never heard that selecting the parent categories in the budgeting arena is a bad idea.  I did de-select a couple that have that annoying “Everything Else” error on my budget report and the error disappears.  I have other parent categories still selected and this message doesn’t appear there.  Odd.

I did check the “Show parent category rollup" under selected in Budget Actions / View options.  It was previously unchecked, but I could already see the subtotals by parent category, if I interpret this option's meaning “subtotals by parent category” correctly.  What difference does selecting this option make?

The reason I would select the parent category in a budget report is in case I have an entry that doesn’t have a subcategory.  That’s not common, but it does happen.  As for the “Everything Else” category, that is brand new.  It’s never appeared before and it offers no value or information.  It seems like a bug to be fixed.  I do have all of my parent categories checked in the budget report as I always have for the reason I mentioned above.

What concerns me the most is that reports will be corrupted and it may not be as obvious as it was this time.  The errors may be small and I won’t notice.  Reporting is the reason people use Quicken, so if this isn’t trustworthy, where does that leave us?

Thanks again….

UKR · Answer

Based on the number of reports with "budget is messed up" I can only repeat one suggestion I read in one of the discussions:

In the Planning Tab / Budgets view click "Manage Budget Categories" and select only those categories that you wish to see in the view and the reports. Only select the subcategories at the lowest level, not their parent categories or the dreaded "Everything else" will appear and give you incorrect rollup numbers.

Make sure that "Show parent category rollup" is selected in Budget Actions / View options so that you will see the subtotals by parent category.

I'm not sure where the messed-up totals come from and how they can be cleaned up, but doing the above should give you valid totals. It appears to me that programmers made a change with unintended consequences …

Chris_QPW · Answer

Well, I have very few saved reports, and seldom run them, so I have no direct experience in this, but based on past comments in this forum I would say that you can't trust them over the long run.  This is based on the fact that people have reported such problems, and the "fix" given is always "recreate your report".

I believe the underline problem is that as the years go by and they change the reports/saved formats they aren't always doing it in a way that is backwards compatible.