Budget "Other" sub category not included in parent category

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ElayneR
ElayneR Member ✭✭
edited January 2023 in Budgeting and Planning Tools (Windows)
I have a category with 3 subcategories. I budget each of the 3 subcategories and the parent category sums them up. If I budget in the "other" subcategory it is not included in the parent category. I use "other" for miscellaneous expenses. This forces me to create a "misc" subcategory for no reason since "other" is added already by Quicken. Also my actual spending does not include the amounts posted to "other" subcategory.
What am I doing wrong?
Using Windows, latest version of Quicken R45.13

Comments

  • UKR
    UKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓
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    Is the 3rd subcategory really called "Other"?
    In budget views, Quicken uses an internal subcategory "Other" to represent transactions which are recorded to the parent category.
    For example, if you have Food with subcategories Food:Dining Out, Food:Groceries, everything categorized to just Food will appear in budget views under Food:Other to make subcategory rollup to parent calculate correctly.
    Try renaming that 3rd subcategory "Other" to something other than just plain "Other", e.g. "Other Food Exp."
  • ElayneR
    ElayneR Member ✭✭
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    Thank you. Understanding that "other" is internal to Quicken does help. I played around a bit and found that expenses posted to "other" or to "everything else" (a subcategory not included in budgeting) both are recorded correctly in my spending. But those 2 can't be used to record my budgeted amount. All good now
  • Snowman
    Snowman Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @ElayneR I have a very extensive budget with subcategories. In the categories with subcategories I have subcategories for each possible need for that subcategory so there is no need for the "other" which is why in the Manage Budget Categories window I deselect all of the "other" options. If at sometime you need to add another subcategory to the category do that.

    Note that you should never budget anything to the parent category of a budget item that has subcategories, the item should be categorized to one of the subcategory items.
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