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

Steve Brown · February 6

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?

NotACPA · February 6

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.

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

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