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Monthly average spending on credit cards

TerryAntle

I am running Windows Classic Deluxe R69.26.

I would like to generate a report of average monthly spending per credit card account.

I envision something like a spreadsheet that would look like months across the top and credit card accounts down the side with monthly averages

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Jim_Harman

Try the report at Reports > Banking > Cash flow by Tag. (The name is deceiving) Set the date range to Last 12 months or whatever you want and the column to Month.

Click on the gear at the top right to customize the report.

Next to Row, select Account

On the Accounts tab, select just your credit card accounts

On the Advanced tab, next to Transfers select Exclude all. This will ignore payments to the credit card accounts, assuming you are entering them as transfers from a bank account.

The report will show the total spend per month for each account. The last column will show the total spend for the period you selected, which is proportional to the average spend.

Does that work for you?

Sceptic

@TerryAntle I think the Banking Summary would work well for what you want. With copilot's help I wrote some step by step instructions, but they are not posted yet because they need approval (?). Until they are posted, you can take a look at the report and play around with it.

Reports → Banking → Banking Summary

For the averages, you would need to export the report to Excel and add a column for the calculation there.

Jim_Harman

@Sceptic I hope you carefully verify the instructions yourself before you post AI-generated instructions.

As we all know, AI makes mistakes sometimes, and wrong or incomplete instructions cause confusion and waste everyone's time.

Sceptic

@Jim_Harman yes I tested them. I created a report. Everything looked good.

Sceptic

@Jim_Harman when I use Copilot to generate an answer, I always state that in my response. Yes Copilot is sometimes wrong, and I don't ever take it at face value.

Sceptic

@TerryAntle here is a sample report it produced

EDIT: One important thing to mention - make sure to select "Exclude all transfers" on the Advanced tab.

Sceptic

[comment deleted by Sceptic - formatting issues prevented editing - posted new comment]

Jim_Harman

@Sceptic Starting with the default Banking Summary report is a good idea, but following your instructions, the rows are still Categories.

In the Heading section of the Display tab, next to Row you must select Account.

Sceptic

@TerryAntle here is a better step by step process to create your report (without AI's help) -

Create the Report

Select Reports→ Banking → Banking Summary.
On the Display tab
- Set Rows = Accounts. Set Columns = Months.
- In Date Range: Choose the period you want analyzed (for example, Last 12 Months or Custom Dates).
- You can also change the Date Range and Columns in the report toolbar after the report is created.
On the Accounts tab: Select only your credit card accounts.
On the Advanced tab: Set Transfers as desired (typically exclude transfers if you're interested in spending only).
Click Show Report

Calculate Monthly Averages

Quicken does not directly provide an "average monthly spending by account" column in this report. To calculate averages:

Export the report to Excel (Export > Export to Excel Worksheet). In Excel, use an AVERAGE() formula across the monthly columns for each credit card account.
Alternatively, if you only need the overall average monthly spending per card for the selected period, divide the account's report total by the number of months in the report.

Note: Depending on how your credit card payments and transfers are categorized, you may need to adjust the Advanced filters so that you're measuring spending transactions rather than payments to the credit card accounts themselves. This often produces more meaningful results.

Sceptic

I decided to create new report instructions. The formatting was not editable and every time I tried to make a change the post got caught in "limbo".

AI is a good thing. I like Copilot a lot. But it does need to be reviewed.

Let me know if you see any changes in the new version. Thanks!

Jim_Harman

@Sceptic That's much better.

What is the report toolbar? I think you have to click on the gear in the report or Customize in the Reports and Graphs Center to customize the report.

For some reason the customization window is a little different depending on how you access it. From the Reports and Graphs Center, you click on Show Report when you are done customizing but from the gear, you click on OK. When there are multiple paths to do something or demonstrate a problem, I think it is more sure-fire to just describe one of them.

Often I find that people substitute their own descriptive names for functions, buttons, column names, etc. To avoid confusion, I take pains to use the exact Quicken names for things.

Also people often like to take shortcuts. In one multi-step process for reconnecting Vanguard accounts after they had been disconnected, I found I had to add things like "Do not click on “Set up now” after deactivating, you must go through the following steps." and "DO NOT SELECT THE DEFAULT OF ADD TO QUICKEN. Instead, select Link to existing account and select the Quicken account to use. Do not guess here. If you don't know which account to select or there are Vanguard accounts that you don't want to track, select Don't add to Quicken and only do the accounts you are sure of. You can pick up at step 7 later and reconnect any other accounts later if necessary."

I hope this helps.

Chris_QPW

This is one of the reasons I like pictures with arrows pointing at buttons. 😁

Sceptic

You don't click on the gear if you go through Reports→Banking→Banking Summary. The report toolbar is on the header of the report window once the report is created. You can also change the date range and the columns there.

I usually provide screen shots and highlights; but this whole fiasco got the best of me. I have updated Copilot to a newer version and it seems much better. The other version I had was getting kind of goofy. It was giving me obviously incorrect answers and then apologizing. It was amusing only at first. This newer version is an improvement. But yes, still needs to be scrutinized.

Sceptic

Whether or not you need to click on the gear icon depends on your settings in Preferences. I have it set where the report settings come up before the report is generated. I had it the other way around and it became a pain when I opened large reports.

Chris_QPW

It is ironic that you have to know enough to know when AI is giving you the wrong answers.

This is one of the big dangers of the tool; it is definitely going to be used by people who will believe whatever it says without checking. They already do that with social media, "news" headlines, …

Chris_QPW

But in general, for this actual discussion one of the big problems is that in Quicken there are a ton of preferences and ways of doing things that sometimes it is hard to pin the instructions down to be sure someone will not run into problems.

This is something that people seldom think about when they say "just as it as an option".

Sceptic

Yes, that's the scary part. But this new version I have seems better. I have been testing it with various Quicken questions, and troubleshooting. The reports it creates are much better. I don't know where all of this AI stuff is heading but they need to at least be arcuate and provide updated information.

Jim_Harman

@Sceptic Until you explained your process, I had never tried the Reports and Graphs > "Customize report/graph before creating" option. It is not the default, so I always have to explicitly open the customization settings.

The report toolbar is on the header of the report window once the report is created. You can also change the date range and the columns there.

I was talking about the Rows setting. That is only on the customization Display tab and your instructions did not include that step.

Sceptic

Maybe I'm not understanding, it's there in the instructions -

Jim_Harman

I think those two lines in your instructions imply you can go to the "report toolbar" (which you have explained means the top of the report} and set Rows to Accounts and Columns to Months. Not true. You can set the Date range and Columns but not the Rows. Unless you have set the Customization window to open automatically, you must click on the gear to open it before you can set the Rows.

[adding] Or maybe you mean that the "report toolbar" includes the icons at the top, which include the Customize report gear. You must click on that to change the Row setting to Account.

Sceptic

I have updated the instructions to make them clearer. Thanks Jim.

Tom Young

Just ADD it…?

Jim_Harman

@Sceptic In your instructions you are still assuming that the report customization dialog opens automatically. It does for you because you have selected the option at Edit > Preferences > Reports and Graphs > "Customize report/graph before creating". That is not the default, so I think most users have to click on the gear to open the customization settings.

Perhaps you could update your instructions to add a bullet after the first one: "If the report customization dialog does not open automatically, click on the gear at the top right of the report to open it."

Alternatively, you could have people go to Reports > Reports and Graphs Center and select the Banking Summary report then click on Customize. After making the selections they would click on Show report. That is perhaps a more intuitive workflow and appears to be the "new, improved" way to access reports.

Sceptic

Good points, Jim. I really appreciate your input. But at this point I think the best course of action is to leave things as they are. The focus is creating a Banking Summary. I think the gist of it is there. In my opinion, things get unnecessarily complicated if you try to fine tune things too much. I will keep your suggestions in mind when I need to write step by step instructions in the future.