Work with a budget

After you create a budget in Quicken, you can view, refine, and monitor your financial plan throughout the year. You'll use the Budget window to adjust amounts, track actual results, and customize how your information is presented.

Open your budget

You reach your budget through the Planning tab. If you've created more than one budget, you can choose which one to open.

1. Click the Planning tab.

2. Click the Budgets button.

3. If prompted, select the budget you want to work with.

Understand the Budget window

The Budget window provides a summary of your budget along with a breakdown by category and group. This is where you view totals, compare planned amounts with actual results, and see overall progress.

Budget summary

The summary at the top of the Budget window shows totals for income and expenses, based on your selected date range. Use it to see whether you're under or over budget for the period and how much surplus income is being treated as savings.

Category groups and categories

Budget categories are collected into groups such as Personal Income and Personal Expenses. Click a group name to show or hide the categories it contains, which lets you focus on one area of spending or hide groups you aren't using.

Budget views

You can view your budget in two formats, Graph view and Annual view, depending on how you want to analyze your information. Select the view you want from the view list at the top left of the Budget window.

Graph view

Graph view displays your data using colored bars that represent your spending or income against your budgeted amount. Bar colors indicate budget status:

• Green: On budget or under

• Red: Over budget

• Gray: No activity

• Light green or light red: Includes future-dated reminders

Click any bar to see transaction history for the category.

Annual view

Annual view displays your budget in a monthly table with columns for budget, actual, and balance values. Use it to compare planned amounts with actual results over time, or to make manual adjustments for individual months.

Use the filter at the top to switch between Details, Budget only, Actuals only, or Balance only.

Columns and values

Each column in the Budget window displays a different aspect of your planned and actual finances:

• Budget: Your planned amount

• Actual: Total based on transactions, which you can't edit

• Balance: Difference between budget and actual

• [Year] Summary: Year-to-date balance

• Totals: Combined amounts for the displayed period

• Rollover Reserve (Annual view): Sum of unused rollover balances

Set or change budget amounts

You can enter or adjust budget values by hand, or use built-in tools to copy or calculate amounts.

Edit a single value

You can type a budget amount directly into a category field. Click the budget cell you want to update, then enter a new amount.

Use the amount options menu

Click the arrow next to a budgeted amount to copy, apply, or calculate other values. The available options are:

• Apply forward

• Apply to all months

• Edit Yearly Budget

• Calculate Average Budget

• Set based on average actuals

Copy a full month's column

You can copy all budget values from one month into other months, which is useful when several months share the same plan. Click the Budget column header for a month, then choose a copy option.

Manage categories and groups

You control which categories appear in your budget, and you can budget at the group level instead of entering a value for every category.

To add or remove categories, click Manage Budget Categories, then select or clear categories in the Select Categories to Budget dialog and click OK. You can also right-click any category in the budget to add or remove it.

To roll subcategory amounts up under their parent category, click Budget Actions, point to View Options, and select Show parent category rollup.

Use rollover categories

Rollover categories let unused budgeted amounts carry forward to future months, which helps you plan for expenses that don't fall evenly across the year.

When to use rollovers

Rollovers are helpful when an expense fluctuates month to month, or when you're setting money aside for a payment that comes due later. You might build a surplus in winter to cover higher summer utility costs, or save monthly toward a biannual insurance premium.

Enable rollover on a category

You can enable rollovers on any eligible category, and you can choose to carry forward positive balances only if you'd rather not carry overspending into the next month.

1. Select a category.

2. Click the arrow next to it.

3. Choose Rollover balances or Rollover only positive balances.

Edit rollover balances

You can change the rollover value in any month, either to correct a balance after adjusting spending or to clear a category and start fresh.

1. Click the balance amount.

2. Click Edit.

3. Enter a new value, or enter 0.00 to remove the balance.

4. Click Save.

To reset all rollover edits for the year, click the Rollover On icon and choose Undo all rollover edits.

Everything Else lines

When only part of a category or group is budgeted, Quicken collects the remainder under Everything Else. The line behaves differently depending on where it appears, and so does the way you remove it.

Within a category

An Everything Else line inside a category appears when you've selected the parent category for budgeting along with some, but not all, of its subcategories. It represents the total spent or received in the subcategories you didn't budget.

You can leave the line as it is, add the missing subcategories to your budget, or click the line and enter a single amount to budget all of them together.

Remove an Everything Else line from a category

If you want to budget individual subcategories without tracking the parent category, deselect the parent. The line disappears and your selected subcategories stay in the budget.

1. Open your budget.

2. Click Manage Budget Categories.

3. In the Select Categories to Budget dialog, clear the check box for the parent category.

4. Click OK.

Within a category group

In Graph view, an Everything Else line also appears at the bottom of a category group. It represents every category in that group you haven't budgeted, so there's no parent category to deselect. The line remains as long as the group contains unbudgeted categories, and it shows a zero amount when those categories have no activity.

To budget all of the unbudgeted categories together, click the Everything Else line and enter a total amount. To remove the line instead, add every remaining category in the group to your budget. Click the add icon, the green circle with the plus sign, next to a category to budget it individually.

Display options

You can change what the Budget window shows without changing your budget. Click Budget Actions, then point to View Options to turn these on or off:

• Include reminders

• Show cents

• Show parent category rollup

• Show To-Date column (Annual view)

Include transfers and loan payments

You can include transfers and loan payments in your budget to reflect money moving between accounts or toward debts.

Include transfers

Budgeting a transfer lets you plan for money moving in or out of a specific account, such as a monthly deposit into savings or a contribution to a brokerage account.

1. Click Manage Budget Categories.

2. Click the Transfers In or Transfers Out tab.

3. Select the accounts you want to include, then click OK.

Include detailed loan payments

You can budget a full loan payment, principal and interest together, as a single line.

1. Click Manage Budget Categories.

2. Click the Detailed Loan Payments tab.

3. Select the loan.

4. Click OK, then assign the budget amount.

Set budget preferences

Budget preferences control how transfers between accounts are treated, which helps you avoid double-counting money that never left your household.

1. Click Budget Actions, then click Budget Preferences.

2. Select either or both of the following:

   • Don't include savings account to savings account transfers

   • Don't include savings account to savings goal transfers

Start a new budget year

Quicken can extend your current budget into the next year, or you can create the new year's budget yourself.

Extend your budget automatically

At the start of the year, Quicken may offer to create a new budget based on your existing one, copying your current structure and values forward. Click OK when prompted.

Create a new budget manually

You can set up next year's budget at any time using the year selector, which also lets you control how the new budget is filled in.

1. Change the year using the selector.

2. Choose how to populate the new budget:

   • Copy budget values

   • Copy actuals as values

   • Copy categories only

3. Click OK.