Understanding the Lifetime Overview Report

The Lifetime Overview report provides a comprehensive analysis of your financial situation over the entire period of data recorded in Quicken. It is especially useful for users who have been tracking their finances for several years.

How to Use the Lifetime Overview Report

By leveraging the Lifetime Overview report, you can gain valuable insights into your financial journey, track your progress, and make informed decisions for future financial planning.

Access the Report

To access the Lifetime Overview Report, select Reports menu → Net Worth & Balances → Lifetime Overview Report.

Customize Your View

Choose the accounts you want to include or exclude from the report for targeted analysis. Select the Customize icon in the top right of the report.

From there you can adjust both the Display and the Accounts that will be reported on.

Adjust for Inflation

Select inflation adjustment to get a representation of your financial data in today’s dollars, with amounts in earlier years adjusted upwards to account for the effect of inflation. This is especially useful if your records go back many years.

Specify What Information is Displayed

By checking or un-checking the relevant options, you can exclude or exclude these items from the report.

Regular Income - Amounts recorded in non-investment transactions or cash-type investment transactions with categories of type “Income”. For example, salary income.
Investment Income – Dividends and Interest, including reinvestments.
Realized Gains – Capital Gains distributions, including reinvestments, and gains/losses on sale of securities.
Unrealized Gains – Changes in the market value of securities due to price changes.
Funds Added/Removed – Balance Adjustments/Self-Transfers in non-investment accounts and Added or Removed amounts in investment accounts.
Market Value shows Added or Removed amounts at the Market Value instead of at the Cost Basis.

Transfers to Assets/Investments – Shows Total net transfers to and from Other Asset and Investment accounts.

If you do not track investing in Quicken, you should deselect the income options other than “Regular Income” to avoid clutter. Note that Quicken will include a column called “Other Income” to sum up the value of any of the columns which you are not displaying.

Interpret the graph

Use the graph to get a quick visual understanding of your net worth progression and annual percentage changes. The light green bar reflects the change in your net worth for the year. The darker green bar represents your net worth for that year.

Understand Report columns

By understanding each column in the Lifetime Overview report, you can better understand your financial reports to match your specific needs.

Year: Indicates the fiscal year for which the financial data is being displayed.
Starting Net Worth: Represents the value of all assets minus liabilities at the beginning of the year.
Regular Income: Amounts recorded in non-investment transactions or cash-type investment transactions with categories of type “Income”. For example, salary income.
Investment Income: Income generated from investments over the year, from dividends and interest, including reinvestments.
Realized Gains: Profits from the sale of investments or assets sold and converted into cash during the year. Also, Capital Gains Distributions, including reinvestments.
Unrealized Gains: Increases in the value of investments or assets that have not been sold and thus the gain is not yet realized as cash.
Total Income: The aggregate of Regular Income, Investment Income, Realized Gains, and Unrealized Gains.
Expenses: All amounts categorized by an expense category.
Net Income: The total income minus expenses, reflecting the actual money left over at the year's end.
Funds Added: Balance Adjustments/Self-Transfer transactions that add to Net Worth plus Investment Added transactions.
Funds Removed: Balance Adjustments/Self-Transfer transactions that reduce Net Worth plus Investment Removed transactions.
Ending Net Worth: The value of all assets minus liabilities at the end of the year, which is the result of the starting net worth plus net income and net transfers.
Net Worth % Change: The percentage change in net worth from the beginning to the end of the year.
CAGR: Compound Annual Growth Rate that shows the compounded annual growth rate of an investment over a specified period longer than one year.

Understand report options

Use the options listed here to customize your report to suit your individual needs.

Regular Income: Include or exclude Regular Income from your report, which can help in focusing solely on investment-related income if preferred.
Investment Income: Add or remove income specifically from investments, useful for users who want to separate investment earnings from other income sources.
Realized Gains: Display or hide the profits made from the sale of assets during the year.
Unrealized Gains: Include or exclude the increase in value of unsold assets, which can be useful for a more conservative financial overview.
Funds Added/Removed: Show or hide any funds added to or removed from your accounts during the year.
At Market Value: Evaluate your investments at their current market value, rather than the purchase price or book value.
Transfers to Assets/Investments: Include or exclude significant transfers made towards purchasing assets or other major investments, which is beneficial for tracking substantial financial moves.
Adjust for Inflation: This adjusts all financial figures to account for inflation, providing real-terms value for money and investments over time.
Hide Graph/Report: These let you hide the graphical representation or the tabular report, respectively, to focus on the type of data display you prefer.