Budget reports are including payments to a loan account as both income and expense

Question

on windows 11, latest Quicken update, have validated file, issue is new so far as I know.

I have always had a loan paymnet as a budget item, but as I updated the budget for 2026, one of the categories is showing up both as an expense and as an income item. And, it is showing entries that, so far as I can tell, don't exist - they are  described as balance adjustments, but they make so sense.

Another issue that has occured for years is the in the budgeting section, income items show up at the top of the expenses and within a section at the bottom label income. THis makes it had to figure total expenses without running reports.

How do I fix these problems?

Steve Brown · Answer

Thanks, but I don't think I explained it well. I've used Quicken for around 25 years and never had this problem.  I have changed nothing from what I have done in the budget from last year to this year. I have only made adjustments to the monthly aamounts.  I totally understand that loan payments have two componets. What is happening this year is that the loan repayment portion of the payment is being report in the budget report as both an expense and as income. It is not that way in the budget!  In addition, when I look at the components of these totals, not only is the loan payment showing up but so are several items described as balance adjustments.  This is only happening on one of two loans and the balance adjustments depicted do not show up when I look for them within the loan account.  Further, today while running some category reports for income tax prep, I noticed that within some of the categories, items were randomly showing up that didn't belong there and, within at least one expense category with mulptle subcategories, not all of the subcategories are showing up. Something seems to be terribly wrong with the report generation process and I cannot trust it, making Quicken rather useless.

NotACPA · Answer

A loan payment consists of 2, or more, components.  The Interest is an expense, but the principal portion is a transfer from your checking account to the loan account  … NOT an expense.  If principal were an expense,  it would be counted twice …  once when you bought the item and again with the payment.

A transfer is conceptually no different than moving your wallet from one pocket to another,  it makes you neither richer nor poorer.

Likewise any payments to an escrow account (if applicable in your situation) are transfers to the escrow account NOT expenses.  The expense is when you pay the Real Estate taxes,  or whatever, FROM escrow.

What you need to take a look at is a Cash Flow report, which will include these transfers and more accurately depict where your money is going.