Understanding Your Spending Dashboard Totals

Overview

The totals and insights in the Spending Dashboard are based on the period, accounts, and transactions included in your current view. Understanding what counts as spending can help you interpret the dashboard and investigate a total that doesn’t look as expected.

What’s Included in Spending Dashboard Totals?

The Spending Dashboard focuses on transactions that represent actual spending.

Transaction	Included?	What to know
Purchases and expenses	Yes	Included when the applicable account and period are selected
Loan payments	Sometimes	Can appear when the associated loan account is included
Transfers	No	Moving money between your accounts isn’t considered spending
Refunds	No	Review the account register to see the original purchase and refund
Excluded transactions	No	Transactions excluded from reports or spending calculations aren’t shown
Investment activity	No	Buying, selling, or transferring investments isn’t treated as everyday spending

For example, transferring $1,000 from checking to savings doesn’t increase Total spent. The money moved to another account, but it wasn’t spent.

Choose Which Accounts to Include

The accounts selected in the Spending Dashboard determine which transactions contribute to its totals and breakdowns.

Use the account selector to include all relevant accounts or focus on specific accounts, such as:

Your checking and credit card accounts
A particular credit card
Your business accounts
A loan account

Changing your account selection can affect:

Income
Total spent
Remaining
Savings rate and Spending rate
Category, payee, and tag totals
The transactions shown in each view

Before drawing conclusions from a total, confirm that the accounts you want to review are included.

Investigate an Unexpected Total

If Total spent seems too high, too low, or different from another Quicken view, check the following:

Period: Confirm that you selected the intended month, quarter, or year.
Current period: Look for an asterisk indicating that the selected period is still in progress.
Accounts: Confirm that the applicable checking, credit card, or loan accounts are included.
Excluded transactions: Check whether a missing transaction was excluded.
Transaction details: Look for uncategorized, miscategorized, or duplicate transactions.
Transaction type: Remember that transfers, refunds, and investment activity aren’t shown as spending.
Tool: Make sure the view you’re comparing uses the same accounts, dates, and inclusion rules.

A difference doesn’t necessarily mean that a transaction is missing. The Spending Dashboard, Spending Plan, account registers, and reports may organize or calculate information differently because they serve different purposes.

Review Uncategorized Spending

If the Spending Dashboard finds uncategorized transactions, you’ll see a notification prompting you to review them.

Select Review to find and categorize those transactions. Uncategorized transactions may still be included in Total spent, but they won’t appear in the most useful place in your category breakdown.

For example, uncategorized restaurant purchases can prevent you from seeing the full amount you spent on Dining. Categorizing them gives you a clearer picture of where your money went.

Review and Correct Transactions

Select a chart element, amount, or item to see the transactions behind it. If something looks incorrect, you can edit the transaction without returning to the account register.

Look for:

A missing or incorrect category
An incorrect payee
A missing tag
A transaction that should be excluded
A duplicate transaction

Correcting a transaction may update the totals and breakdowns throughout the Spending Dashboard. Reviewing downloaded and uncategorized transactions regularly helps the dashboard show more meaningful spending patterns.