About planning features in Quicken

Quicken Classic for Windows includes planning tools that help you assess your long-term financial future. Whether you're preparing for retirement, funding college expenses, purchasing a second home, or building savings, Quicken helps you evaluate your goals and understand what it takes to reach them.

What the planning tools help you do

Quicken’s planning features help you:

Estimate how much money you’ll need for retirement or other life events
Determine whether your current income and spending support your long-term goals
Make informed decisions today that shape your financial future

How planning works in Quicken

Quicken automatically builds a foundation for long-term planning based on the data you've already entered:

When you add checking, savings, credit card, loan, or investment accounts, Quicken uses that information in your financial plan.
When you set up paycheck details or create property and debt accounts, Quicken integrates that data into projections.
Every transaction you enter helps Quicken adjust your plan to reflect your actual financial activity.

This real-time connection between your daily finances and long-term goals gives you a more accurate picture of your future financial health.

If you haven’t added much data yet

You don’t need a complete financial profile to get started. You can:

Enter account information directly while using the planning tools
Add missing items—like loans or assets—as needed during plan setup
Begin with simple estimates and refine your plan as you go

For example, if you want to include your home in your retirement plan but haven’t yet created a mortgage account, Quicken will prompt you to add one while setting up your plan.

Using Quicken’s planning tools, you can gradually build a more complete and actionable financial roadmap—no matter where you’re starting from.