To work with a budget, you must first create a budget. After you've created a budget, you can view and work with it as described below.
At the top of the window is a budget summary for the selected date range.
|
A budget category is a Quicken income or expense category, transfer, savings goal, or loan payment that you track in your budget. Budget categories are listed and organized into category groups such as Personal Income, and Personal Expenses. For each budget category or category group you can easily see the amount you've budgeted, spent or received, and how much remains. Click a category group name, such as Personal Expenses, to hide and show the categories within. |
In Graph View, each category group and category has a either a green, red or grey bar next to it.
In Annual View, each month has either a green or red line under its column header(s).
|
You'll see a lot of different numbers in the Budget window. Here is a brief description of where they appear and what they mean.
|
Rollover icons appear on the selected category row in both Graph (Monthly) and Annual Views. Here's what the icons mean:
|
Everything Else within a category, such as AutoEverything Else appears within a category if you've selected the parent category and at least one, but not all subcategories within that category. It represents the sum of amounts spent or received in the unbudgeted subcategories within a category. Here are some things you can do with the amount:
Everything Else within a category group, such as Personal ExpensesIn Graph View only, Everything Else within a category group represents the sum of amounts spent or received in the unbudgeted categories in a category group. Here are some things you can do with the amount:
|
To set or copy budget amounts
|
In Annual View
|
If you have more than one budget, choose the budget you want to work with at the top of the window. |
Select Graph View from the options at the top of the window to assign budget amounts and analyze your spending using a simple bar chart presentation. You can also choose Budget Actions > Switch to Graph View to change to Graph View. |
Select Annual View from the options at the top of the window to assign budget amounts and analyze your spending using an yearly, tabular presentation. You can also choose Budget Actions > Switch to Annual View to change to Annual View. |
Click Select Categories to Budget at the bottom of the budget window. You can also right-click a category name to add or remove categories, or click Budget Actions > Select categories to budget. |
Use the options at the top of the window to select a date range (in Graph View) or a specific year (in Annual View). |
You can create budget categories that rollover from one month to the next into a cumulative balance. This means you can start a month with more money in a category if you've underspent in previous months, or with less money in a category if you've overspent. Use rollover categories when:
Interested in using rollovers? |
If you underspend in one rollover category, and overspend in another, you can easily subtract from, add to, or reset your rollover amounts to compensate. Here's how:
Note: If you decide later that you want to remove the changes you've made to your rollover amounts, click (the Rollover On icon), and choose Undo all rollover edits for [Year]. This will reset all of your rollovers for the year to their calculated, default values. |
Click Budget Actions > View options > Show parent category rollup to display parent categories for the subcategories you've added to your budget. Each parent category displays the sum of all subcategory amounts under it. Because it functions as a roll-up, the parent category is not editable. Tips:
|
Click Budget Actions > View options > Show cents. When selected, all Graph View and Annual View budget amounts will include cents. No rounding will occur. |
Click Budget Actions > View options > Include reminders. |
If you're tracking a loan in Quicken using a detailed loan payment reminder, here's how to budget the total amount of the payment (as opposed to the individual line items of the payment):
|
Here's how to budget the transfer of money between your accounts:
|
In Graph View, click any red or green bar, or click to see your monthly spending or income history for a category. In Annual View, click any actual amount to see your monthly spending or income history for a category. |
Click or hover over the red and green bars to view more detail. For example, to learn what a color means in a category line, hover over it. |
To filter the columns displayed under each month: at the top of the Annual View window, select Details, Balance only, Budget only, or Actuals only. To display the Actual and/or Balance columns for future budget months: at the bottom right of the Annual View window, select Show [detail or balance] for future months. This can be helpful if you've entered transactions for future months in your register. To insert a column that displays your budget balances as of today's date: at the top of the Annual View window, click Budget Actions > View options > Show To-Date column in Annual View. |
This is useful when you want to budget money moving TO or FROM your savings accounts and other account types, but do NOT want to budget money moving between your savings accounts. This preference applies to all of your budgets. Click Budget Actions > Budget Preferences, then select Don't include savings account to savings account transfers. |
This is useful when you want to budget money moving TO or FROM your savings accounts and other account types, but do NOT want to budget money moving between your savings accounts and savings goals. This preference applies to all of your budgets. Click Budget Actions > Budget Preferences, then select Don't include savings account to savings goal transfers. |
The first time you view a prior year's budget in a new year, Quicken asks you if you want to extend it to the new year. Just click OK and Quicken creates a new budget for you automatically, copying all of your current budget categories and budget values to the new budget. If you want to get an early startIf you want to create next year's budget before the start of the new year, or if you want more control over how the budget is created:
Notes
|
It's possible to budget for an entire category group instead of entering a separate amount for each category within it. If you do this, any difference between the amount you enter for the category group and the total of the individual amounts for the categories in that group will be assigned to Everything Else line in your budget.
For more information, see Working with category groups. |