Add Setting to STOP Monthly Budget Amount from automatically changing to Actual Amount at EOM (Q Mac

PSmacintosh2

I'm astonished at how Budgets in Q for Mac are now operating: that at the end of each month the Budget Amount gets automatically removed forever and changed into the Actual Amount spent/earned in that category.

I want to be able to look back at the prior months of the year and see how my Actual Monthly Income & Expenses measured up against my Planned Budget for that category in those prior months. Was I successful in meeting my budget or not? I don't want that information to disappear and get wiped out in an irretrievable fashion!

There must be a LOT of people that want to have the Budget Amount remain FIXED, like I'm describing! Am I right?

In fact, I can't see any reason at all why I would want the Monthly Budget Amount to change once the month is past. (There must be some reason someone thinks it's a good idea …. because that's the way Budgets has been programmed to operate.) But please don't explain this "reason" to me, because I'm not interested in having it operate that way at all: I think that method sucks. If it is such a vital need for some people to have the Budget Amount wiped out, then allow us to have a CHOICE as to which method we would like to have for ourselves by making this behavior controllable by a SETTING (or maybe a TOOGLE switch).

A BUDGET AMOUNT that disappears on you is …… well, ridiculous. Sorry to have to be so blunt!

Right now, your entire Budget Section is worthless to me!

How long is it going to take to fix this basic fundamental problem in Budgets!?! Please give me a timeframe on this. (It can't be that hard to fix.)

jacobs

@PSmacintosh2 I'm not observing anything like what you're describing. Are you saying that at the end of each month, the budget amount for each category is changing to be the actual amount? So you see budget and actual amounts which are the same, in every category?

When I look at my budget, the values for the budget amount and actual amount are different. I don't know if you have your budget configured to use side-by-side or stacked view, so here are screenshot of both formats for three categories in my budget so far this year:

In either view, you can see the actual values, in bold, compared to the budget values (in gray) underneath or to the right of the actual. In no place has the budget amount been reset to be the actual amount. Budget amounts never change unless you go to the Edit Budget screen and manually change them.

(In fact, one of the features many people have asked for is the capability to "rollover" from month to month, which would push the budget overage or shortfall from month to month — but this feature option doesn't yet exist in Quicken Mac.)

So I'm not sure what you're seeing and railing against. Could you show an example, or further explain?

PSmacintosh2

I haven't opened my Budget, or come to this posting, since April 15 when I made the OP.

I wrote a full response last night, but when I clicked the Post Button somehow it did not post (it disappeared … and I had not save it), so it was all lost.

Jacobs, you requested that I ADD a "picture" of my Budget layout to show the problem, but I was unable to figure out how to do so. I can't see how to select a small area of the budget and copy/paste it.

Yes, the problem still exists: it is still there.

1. When I create a New Budget, Q fills in last year's actual amount as the current Budget Amount. However, if I create my Budget in May 2026, for the months of Jan, Feb, March, April, it shows the 2026 Actual Amount as the Budget Amount for those months which have already past. I think this is horrible as I want to see my 2025 Actual Amounts as the Budget Amount of those months, not the 2026 Actual Amount as the Budget Amount.

(I already see the 2026 Actual Amount as the Actual Amount. Why do I ever want to see it twice? To see, January Gasoline Cost of $526.50 / $526.50. This makes no sense!)

I want to see the Jan Gasoline Cost of $526.50 / $600.00, so that I can see how I'm actually spending in comparison to what my Budget Amount was.

2. For a budget created in May 2026 (while I'm still living in May 2026), the Budget will show the 2025 Actual Amount as the 2026 Budget Amount. And the 2026 Actual Amount will show the current total that is spent/earned as May progresses. This is good!

3. However, the moment that May passes and I move into June 2026, the 2026 May Budget Amount automatically changes to the 2026 May Actual Amount. (I think this is what happens. I'll have to double-check.)

This is a huge problem in my opinion. This completely ruins the Budget usage for me. I want to see the historical data for the budget amount, so that I can see who I did last month: the actual versus the budget. NOT the actual verse the actual.

4. When I created my New Budget I let Q fill in last year's actual amount as the current Budget Amount.

I don't know what happens if I EDIT and manually change "Gasoline Cost"'s Monthly Budget Amount from $600 to $700. When the month passes, will the Budget Amount change to the Actual Amount with a manually edited budget amount. Probably. (I haven't checked this.)

Quicken has CHOOSEN to program the Budget to do this automatic change of the Budget Amount from budget to actual. It has designed the Budget to not maintain the historical budget data. This means that Quicken can program the Budget to STOP DOING THIS AUTOMATIC CONVERSION OF HISTORICAL DATA.

IMO, it was a horrendous mistake to ever have programed the Budget to do this behavior in the first place. I still have never heard any "reason" for why someone would want a Budget to behave this way. (If there is any value to this current approach, then make it an option for users to select how they want the Budget to operate. Let them be able to switch the Budget between (A) keep showing the Historical Budget Data or (B) wipe it out and show the Actual Budget at the passing of each month.

I would think that this would be the TOP PRIORITY for Q to fix this problem and give their budget feature some actual value to us users.

jacobs

However, the moment that May passes and I move into June 2026, the 2026 May Budget Amount automatically changes to the 2026 May Actual Amount. (I think this is what happens. I'll have to double-check.)

This is the part of your complaint that I was questioning. I have never been aware of Quicken changing budget amounts once they are entered, and I haven't hear any reports of this that I can recall.

Please check this at the next month-end. Take a screenshot of a screen in your budget at or near the end of May. Then re-open Quicken in early June and take a screenshot of the same section of your budget. Have the budget values for May changed?

Does your May column show budget and actual exactly identical, with zero variance? That is, if you show the January to May column, like this at the top…

…are you saying that instead of showing differences between actual and budget income ($3,617 in this example), yours shows the same values an a $0 difference. And the same for Expenses? I've never seen that or heard anyone else describe it happening to them, if I'm correctly understanding what you're saying.

Taking a step back to the creation of your budget, when you first set up a 2026 budget, you should have sene a screen like this, which asks what values Quicken should use for the budget values.

Which option did you select? And after creating the budget, were your budget and actual values through the current month different? But after the next month started, the budget values magically changed into the YTD actual values? Again, I'm just trying other understand what you're seeing.

I don't know what happens if I EDIT and manually change "Gasoline Cost"'s Monthly Budget Amount from $600 to $700. When the month passes, will the Budget Amount change to the Actual Amount with a manually edited budget amount. Probably. (I haven't checked this.)

No, it doesn't ever change the budget values automatically, in my experience. You should try the and see if you see it change.

Jacobs, you requested that I ADD a "picture" of my Budget layout to show the problem, but I was unable to figure out how to do so. I can't see how to select a small area of the budget and copy/paste it.

Taking screen shots is a macOS feature. If you press Command-Shift-3, the Mac creates a screenshot of your entire screen. (You'll find the screenshot with a file name like "Screenshot 2026-05-03 at 10.11.55 PM" in the location you have downloads set to go to, such as your Desktop or Downloads folder.) Double-click the screenshot (a .png file) to open it in Preview, where you can crop it down to only the portion you want to share. Or, press Command-Shift-4 and notice that your cursor changes to a crosshairs; drag from upper left to lower right (or opposite corners in any order) to select the area you want in the screenshot; this way you don't have to edit it to crop it. Once you have your screenshot, you can also click Markup in Preview's top menu line, and then set fill colors and draw rectangles if you want to hide certain data. Here's a post by a fellow user about how to take the screenshot and how to include it in one of your posts:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7663259/faq-how-do-i-post-a-screenshot-in-the-community-from-a-mac

I would think that this would be the TOP PRIORITY for Q to fix this problem and give their budget feature some actual value to us users.

There are a lot of different things we users think should be a top priority for Quicken developers! 😉 Even just within the area of the budget, which has quite a list of user requests. I personally think a working actual-vs-budget report for a user-specified time period would be at the top of the budget features list, but we can all identify our top feature requests.

But what you're describing isn't how I have ever seen Quicken work, and isn't how it is supposed to work, so I don't think it's a top priority for anyone because I don't know if anyone use seeing what you've described. I don't know whether there is a bug, a design flaw, or something you may be doing wrong, but hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.