Budget Reports Don't Include Principle Payments on Loans

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rwmol
rwmol Member ✭✭✭
in Reports (Windows)
I've been using Quicken for over 20 years now and just noticed that principle payments are not included on loans. As an example I have three loans, a mortgage and two autos. If I run a Current Budget or Historical Budget report, the three accounts appear at the bottom of the reports but include only the Categories of each each loan, eg: interest, insurance, taxes etc. The only report that shows the correct values is: Where did I spend my money during the period? Am I doing something wrong or is it a software issue?

Best Answer

  • Tom Young
    Tom Young SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2021 Answer ✓
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    The traditional notion of a "budget" focuses on income and expenses.  Loan principal payments are not "expenses", they are "transfers."  You don't include the money received from taking out a loan as income so symmetry suggests that loan principal repayments aren't expenses.
    That said, you certainly can include principal payments as a form of "expense" in a budget report if you want to.  They will show up in the Expenses as "TO NAME of LOAN ACCOUNT."  You do this by customizing the report using the "Advanced" tab and allowing transfers to be included in the report.  Getting this exactly right will take some fine tuning on your part as you probably don't want every single transfer showing up, (e.g., the payment to your credit cards) and you do this fine tuning by customizing what Accounts show up as "Categories" in the report, customizing what Accounts "feed" information to the report, and how you select your options on the Advanced tab of what transfers to show.

Answers

  • Tom Young
    Tom Young SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2021 Answer ✓
    Options
    The traditional notion of a "budget" focuses on income and expenses.  Loan principal payments are not "expenses", they are "transfers."  You don't include the money received from taking out a loan as income so symmetry suggests that loan principal repayments aren't expenses.
    That said, you certainly can include principal payments as a form of "expense" in a budget report if you want to.  They will show up in the Expenses as "TO NAME of LOAN ACCOUNT."  You do this by customizing the report using the "Advanced" tab and allowing transfers to be included in the report.  Getting this exactly right will take some fine tuning on your part as you probably don't want every single transfer showing up, (e.g., the payment to your credit cards) and you do this fine tuning by customizing what Accounts show up as "Categories" in the report, customizing what Accounts "feed" information to the report, and how you select your options on the Advanced tab of what transfers to show.
  • rwmol
    rwmol Member ✭✭✭
    Options
    Thanks Tom. I had "Exclude Transfers" selected in the Advanced tab. Changing it to "Include All Transfers" solved the issue.
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