Budgeting is here! The feature helps you set a budget for the categories you care about and makes it easy to do so by providing your monthly averages as a baseline.
Tell us how you're using the new budget feature, so we are able to customize it to your needs.
Where does it fall on a scale of "crazy simple" to "too tricky for me"?How many categories are you tracking? Did you pay attention to your monthly average to set your numbers? How frequently will you log back in to check how you're doing? Let us know.
Quicken Kathryn
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Hi Dazzadog,
Quicken Online is a very basic version of financial tracking. You may want to check out Quicken desktop products for more advanced forecasting features, and the ability to transfer your Money data.
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I'm trying to figure out how to change one budgeted area without it recalculating all the other areas. Maybe there is a way and I haven't figured it out but it shouldn't change my rent amount that stays the same always, just because I changed the amount I want to spend on groceries.
I'm trying to figure out how to change one budgeted area without it recalculating all the other areas. Maybe there is a way and I haven't figured it out but it shouldn't change my rent amount that stays the same always, just because I changed the amount I want to spend on groceries.
I don't see budget items change, when I adjust my groceries item.
Then only amount that changes is 'Overall'.
All the items get reprocessed, though, after editing an item.
Also, there is no need to budget your rent, since it's a fixed amount every month. You would create a scheduled payment in the account that is used for the rent payments.
Budgets only make sense for irregular/flexible expenses, like gasoline/groceries/dining out, etc.
Is there any chance of adding a feature to allow for seperate budgets? For example: Household budget, personal spending, wedding, vacation, etc. I can't find this feature in very many places, but I am terribly tired of keeping seperate spreadsheets. If this doesn't work, how about an attachement ability on Quicken Online, so I can atleast save those spreadsheets on a secure site!
I am in exactly the same boat as the gentleman who originally posted this message. If you can tell me in no uncertain terms that there is a Quicken product that will allow cash flow forecasts as far out as a year then I will plunk down the cash for it right now.
I wish it WORKED!!!! I want to set my own values for the categories. I Edit a category value to one of my choosing but later when returning to checkup on things the value has returned to the calculated average. How do I get the values I enter to hold?
I do like the fact that it is here and it would be SIMPLE if it actually held the hand entered values!
I like the feature, but I wish it let you set up a broad budget (how much you plan to spend per month/ week, without having to select categories.) Also is there a way to budget by week? I am a college student so am really looking for a simple way to keep track of incidental spending. I have been using mint.com but like the 'real blance' feature of your site.
Thanks!
I'm using Quicken Online right now (just started the other day) and I must be blind, but I can't see the Budgeting feature. How do I find it?
HOWEVER I think I just found what I was trying to accomplish anyway in the TRENDS tab, and clicking on the "6MO" button that shows me how it's going to be for 6 months.
What I actually expected to see is a day-by-day calendar like in Quicken Deluxe.
No I didn't, and I'm dying to do so. But guess what! When I just went and clicked to sign in, the web page said, "Quicken is temporarily unavailable. We'll be back soon."
Never knew that could happen. Might be a deal killer for someone on my schedule.
Hi Thomas09,
The goals tab is the place to look to set your budgeting goals--it may not be comparable to your experience in Deluxe, but you should now be able to check it out (we released an update last night, so this is likely why you saw the error message).
HTH--
Quicken Kathryn
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I like the feature, but I would expect these budgets to factor into my "Financial Outlook" graph. Also, for those that want to track several categories, these should probably be sortable, and the height of each category should probably be reduced. Ideally, I'd be able to see all ten categories that I have tracked on one screen. Currently, I can only see about 5 categories per screen.
I need to be able to budget on an annual basis. The desktop version of quicken has the ability to see your spending over the last year (month by month, by category) and set a budget for the next year (month by month, by category). In order for a budget to be useful to me, it needs to be able to extend 12 months and show my spending in each category for each month.
How can I most effectively get do this with Quicken? I use the online version - if I buy a different version, will I have this feature?
It is fairly useless to me, because I cannot set to future months -- only the current month, which may not have any bearing on next month.
I actually closed my mint.com account, because quicken online is more immediately useful to me. The budgeting feature, though, is useless unless it's used at the very beginning of the month -- I can't budget now (the night before Thanksgiving) for what I'm going to spend on gifts in December, and November has no "Gift" budget.
Please let us set budgets for future months.
(Also, it would be nice if a little pop-out, like the "Have a question?" pop-out, show the current categories being tracked and the numbers associated with them -- spent, available, and goal, on login. Also, it would be nice if you could call out categories that are experiencing larger than normal loads -- if someone stole your credit card, for example, and bought gas across the country.)
kylandham, The goals tab lets you track the progress in the current month so that you can make expense adjustments if needed.
I already have the budget for the next month in place and I already know (based on available information on Thanksgiving) how much money I have left to spend on Christmas presents.
Before I relied on Quicken Online, I used MS Money and the future budget that you ask for was there available by cash flow forecasting.
In Quicken Online I'm able to use the transactions tab in a similar way and get a projected balance based on future transactions.
I have upcoming transactions scheduled for deposits and expenses and I can see how much money is left at the end of the next period.
I find it very helpful for my budgeting to use a credit card for groceries and dining out, I pay off the balance every month. The advantage for me is that my budgeted expenses show as a single scheduled credit card payment.
I got the credit card statement today, and I know exactly how much I have to pay before the due date. Which is another scheduled 'Upcoming Transaction'.
If you prefer to pay from your checking account, I would try to add onetime upcoming transactions for the amount of your budgeted items and categorize them as 'savings'.
By doing this you will be able to see how your projected balance will be.
I attached an example with a few fictional amounts, hope it helps.
The biggest thing that the system lacks for my needs is split transactions.
This is something that exists on the desktop version and is imperative to those of us whom budget business expenses vs. personal or pay the same individual for a multitude of items.
Any hope of getting this soon?
There is certainly a learning curve to the system and I would not say its perfect, but it's getting better all the time.
The biggest thing that the system lacks for my needs is split transactions. This is something that exists on the desktop version and is imperative to those of us whom budget business expenses vs. personal or pay the same individual for a multitude of items. Any hope of getting this soon? There is certainly a learning curve to the system and I would not say its perfect, but it's getting better all the time.
Click on a cleared transaction, click on details and add another category.
Split On!
My wife and I use a monthly budget in MS Excel which always balances to zero. The problem I have with the Spending Goals page is three-fold:
1) You cannot enter cents and thus you can never have a perfect match of income to outgo. As well, there is no attempt at making such a matchup in this tool since Spending Goals does not actually reflect income used to spend said money.
2) The ability to schedule expenses in the future and see them reflected in the goals doesn't exist. You can schedule a payment but the so-called budget will only reflect cleared transactions and thus you will never actually see how close you are to your overall goal for the current month until your transactions have cleared, which might not be until the last day.
3) The number of categories and their lack of grouping and sorting makes the tool very cumbersome to use. I want my mortgage to be a part of my monthly budget, but I don't need it in my face while planning my goals on the more volatile expenditures like gasoline or food. I just need to know how much is left in my income which is not yet spent.
A good budgeting system which could be used by most households would be one where the income and the expenditures could be planned for the month. You would have your planned income listed and as you added or changed your spending goals the available income would change to reflect that. In this way you could tweak your budget until it reaches zero.
To achieve this without a huge change to what you have already done, I would like to see the following changes:
Add cents to the goal items (even if you don't show it in the list view)
Add an income remaining column which decreases as the the goals themselves get decided, not when things clear.
Have payments and transfers which you have scheduled for the month change the progress on your spending goal immediately.
Allow us to have groups and sub-groups of expenditures so that groups can be collapsed.
I am a current MS Money user looking for a different option now that Microsoft is transitioning away from the product.
The most useful feature in Money by far is the integrated and interactive cash flow view that took into account my budget per category, income transactions, actual spending (from bank transaction downloads), and regularly scheduled bills whether part of the budget or not.
When actual spending is categorized, the actual was subtracted out of the budgeted cash flow for that category showing a realistic estimate of projected cashflow for whatever timeframe selected.
The power of the tool was also a list of budgeted and actual transactions below the graph. If the cashflow dipped below the available resources, I could select a transaction and move it in time to try and avoid the negative balance or manage my spending to prevent the problem. If there was any balance left in a budget category at the current date (today), it was simply added back into the cashflow.
The power of the tool was also the ability to look forward in time by any timeframe I selected (a month, 3 months, a year, etc. I could also select multiple accouts to see the overall aggregated cashflow picture across multiple accounts.
I am always using this feature to organize budget and future transactions to avoid the negative balances and the need to tap into credit cards.
I have yet to find any tool that is as "intuitive" (no pun intended), well designed, and thoughtfully implemented as this capability in Money.
I will continue using Money as long as possible or until there is a suitable tool with this kind of capability. I do not see a robust similar capability in Quicken. (Please correct me if I am wrong. Part of what prevents me from moving to Quicken is the inability to evaluate a copy before buying it. I will not pay for it until I can "try before buy". Its feature descriptions are not detailed enough and there is no description of this kind of capability.)
I am really mystified as to why other personal money management software does not hve cashflow features like what is in Money. Good money management is all about the daily cashflow picture as well as the ability to estimate the future out by at least several months while there is still time to make proactive management decisions.
Now, it would seem that since Money is no longer supported by Microsoft that there might be some nice, robust code for sale (hint hint).
I occasionally use the budgeting feature. Few modifications can improve it tho:
1) When I budget, I plan for major spend categories - Mortgage, Groceries, Auto, Utilities, Insurance, etc. However each month there is minor (less than $75) spending in other categories, not planned in the budget. So I keep a bucket of Misc money to level off the unplanned spending.
2) As I understand, the figure on 'Goals' page for 'Overall Spent' is not the same as on 'Trends' page for 'Total Spend' for a particular month. The Overall spent figure on Goals page is sum of money spent in categories listed only. So certain less spent categories not mentioned do not come on the radar.
3) I would suggest to make the Overall Spent on Goals page to be same as Total spend on Trends page for THAT month. This would give full picture of total money spent in the month.
4) Also, how do you delete a category no longer needed from Goals page?
5) Next, how can I set my goals for next month or month after?
I budget 23 categories, carefully using the previous month's totals as benchmarks. I check the goals almost daily, even editing them to account for unexpected variations. The biggest problem is still that I run out of money before I run out of month! I'm hoping this will improve as my family gets more attuned to my retirement.
I am thankful for Quicken Online and wanted to provide some feedback. The way a budget should work is not just looking at trends but setting back amounts monthly or weekly that automatically accumulate. For example, if you have a budget item called Car Repairs and you want to put back $10 per month for this, over the course of 4 months you would have $40 in this category. When you get an oil change for $25 you should be able to say it came from this budgeted category leaving you with $15 still in the Car Repairs budget category.
I think a feature like that would be more useful as a "budgeting" tool. The money that is set back would still exist in your account but would be subtracted from the total that is visible. If you deleted a budget category that had a positive amount or set the balance to $0 that money would be added back to the total visible.
