How do I add or remove budget categories?

Customizing your budget to fit your current financial situation is an essential part of personal finance management. Quicken simplifies this task by allowing you to add or remove categories from your budget. Tailoring these categories helps you to track your finances more accurately, ensuring you can make informed decisions about your spending and savings.

Follow the steps below to modify your budget categories to better reflect your financial activity.

Adding or Removing Budget Categories

1. Access the Budget: Navigate to the Planning tab and select the Budgets button.

2. Choose Categories: Go to Budget Actions and click Select categories to budget.

3. Locate Categories: In the Select Categories to Budget window, select the tab for the category type you're interested in modifying. For instance, select Personal Expenses to view and edit your personal expense categories.

4. Edit Selections: Check the boxes next to the categories you want to add, and/or uncheck the categories you wish to remove.

5. Save Changes: Click OK to save your updated budget preferences.

6. Allocate Funds: Within the budget window, assign specific amounts to each of your chosen categories.

Additional Notes

• Shortcut to Categories: You can also access the category selection by clicking Select Categories to Budget at the bottom of the budget window, or by right-clicking a category name and selecting Choose Categories.

• Visibility of Changes: Categories that are added will be highlighted in bold. For instance, Auto will appear bold once added. If you add a subcategory like Auto: Fuel without its main category, only the subcategory will be bolded.

• Understanding Removed Categories: When you remove categories from your budget, they are not deleted from Quicken. These categories are simply no longer part of the budget's calculations, and their associated transactions will contribute to the Everything Else totals.

• Creating New Categories: If you need to budget for a category that doesn't exist, you can create a new one by selecting Tools menu > Category List and clicking Add Category. After creation, you can add it to your budget through the Select Categories to Budget option. Quicken also offers a preset list of categories.

• Managing Category Groups: For broader customization, you have the option to add and remove entire category groups to your budget as needed.

Adjusting your budget by adding or removing categories is a dynamic way to stay on top of your finances as your life and spending evolve. Quicken for Mac provides the tools to make this process intuitive and effective.