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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I would like to have the ability to have budget money carry over from month to month. For example, I allot a certain amount to auto maintenance every month say $30. I'm not going to spend that $30/month every month it's going to build up and I'll spend $65 on an oil change or $200 on repairs. Some categories just lend themselves to this kind of functionality versus a set amount of money every month. Entertainment is another example, if I don't spend my alloted money one month, I want to have that money available the following.
Killer_Tofu is absolutely right. Hope this is implemented quickly in Quicken Online.
Either unattach the "Overall" category from the selected budget categories or include all categories for which you have previous spending by default. Seriously, it's a completely worthless feature otherwise.
And get the plug-in to work for those of us that hate IE please.
I am in agreement with a few of the above comments in the thread. Overall I find the program and site are very user freindly. However it does not make sense why the budget tool does not include all categories that you have spent money in during that month. For example if you make a payment not categorized in your budget its like you never spent it thus it does not count against your budget. Maybe the site could have an "unbudgeted spending" category that makes your total spending actually match what you have actually spent?
I would like to have the ability to have budget money carry over from month to month. For example, I allot a certain amount to auto maintenance every month say $30. I'm not going to spend that $30/month every month it's going to build up and I'll spend $65 on an oil change or $200 on repairs. Some categories just lend themselves to this kind of functionality versus a set amount of money every month. Entertainment is another example, if I don't spend my alloted money one month, I want to have that money available the following.
Ooh, ooh, I want that too! Is anyone from Quicken reading these?
It would be very helpful to me if I could “split” transactions into several different accounts. This option would allow me to better budget my spending as well as to easily modify my spending habits.
I have been using Quicken Online for about two months and am very happy with the product so far. If this product continues to improve I will be thrilled! I have been searching for a powerful yet easy to use personal financial tool for years. Please, please keep up the good work; you are definitely on the right track! Thank you so much!
Roll over budgeting or zero based budgeting options or also called envelope system budgeting - basically so i can SAVE UP for something large by putting something away every week.
Also, I put in all my budget categories the amount I budgeted for the month - and then later it all changes. Not sure if it is because I changed the overall budget? Or just because I left the page and returned. I've now re-entered all my monthly budget limits twice. And it wants to keep raising them! That isn't going to help me keep from spending money!
Split transactions - miss that from mint.com
Easier way to see all budget categories, and maybe a way to edit a lot of the budget categories at once. Also interested in those people who mentioned making month by month changes - but roll over is even more important to me.
Also, not really designed for more than an individual to use, not really for a husband and wife to share. Would love BOTH of us to get warnings - we decided to do our budget online so we can BOTH watch where the money is going instead of when it was on one laptop, and only one person really had access - but having warnings go to two phones would be better so one of us doesn't feel like being the bad cop and telling the other (plus what if we forget). Then our "budget" can be the bad guy for both of us. Don't have kids yet, but I don't see any budget that doesn't allow the kids access to parts of the budget. With the new way people are viewing their budgets these days - a Feature that allows parents to work with their kids on a family budget might get a lot of media attention.
Also, back to husband / wife features - only one wallet for cash - would be better for two. And some budget sites i visited had a way to TEXT in an expense (especially useful for cash expenses). This is a good way to overcome Mint since it has a poor cash system.
Also, after using desktop quicken - really miss the note/memo line feature! That really helps me remember what that check or credit card payment really went to.
And now having used one of your more deluxe desktop features - I would love to see the scan option, multiple currencies, and business features - but that is probably way down the line - but that is technology you already are well known for and would be a way for you to surpass mint.com quite readily as they are focused on individuals.
Well, that's just off the top of my head for now. I'm sure I'll have more later.
"I put in all my budget categories the amount I budgeted for the month - and then later it all changes. Not sure if it is because I changed the overall budget?"
If you modify the Overall Goal, you will modify every other goal proportionally. The Overall Goal is always the total of all other goals. The only reason to change the Overall Goal is you if you decide you want all your goals to increase/decrease by the percentage change you make in the Overall Goal. The result will still be that the Overall Goal equals the sum of all other goals.
" ... really miss the note/memo line feature".
Each Quicken Online cleared transaction has a modifiable "Note" field; works just like the Quicken desktop product's "Memo" field.
How to ask a question.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
Where is it? Can you set your budget in one column and Quicken fills in the spent column? Can you set and see a year at a time? Monthly? Rollover? If not, you need to buy one of those budget books - that's what I use - to map out your tool. With that book, you get suggestions for categories, day lines, month pages, year book. You don't often BUDGET carry over, but that's what miscellaneous is for. Several Miscellaneous lines would help.
Again, where is it? This is a problem I find with the Quicken Online - I can't find half of what's referenced.
I completely agree with mariamaria15 about the "Rollover" option. It would provide more of a "Big Picture" budget for the year and help with planning for upcoming planned and emergency expenses.
Is there any Bugeting feature for Quicken Online. The only thing I see is the Goals section, and that resets all goals everytime I change a single goal. It's not really the same as a budget.
The only thing I see is the Goals section, and that resets all goals everytime I change a single goal.
I've seen this claim made several times, but I have yet to be able to reproduce it.
If I change the Goal for a single category, that also changes the "Overall" goal ... because the Overall Goal is the total of all other Goals. But only those two Goals change.
If I change the Overall Goal, all Goals are changed, proportionally. Given the fact that the Overall Goal is the total of all other Goals, how else could it work?
Goals definitely is not a full fledged budget: it's a way to track your spending for specific categories against goals you set for spending on those categories.
How to ask a question.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
I like this budgeting feature but it seems only useful for one month at a time. What I think would be a nice enhancment would be to allow the user to track their deficit/surplus over time based on their budget. For example, I'd like to know, since 01/2009, have I saved any money? Some months I may have saved and some months I may have over spent. Today I'd have to go thru month by month and write under/over amounts down on paper and then tally.
Budgeting Feature Suggestions May 08, 2009 08:47 am
A few suggestions:
1) allow changing/adding of previous & historical months budget goals
2) It seems that Budget goals need to be RE-CREATED each month? Why not provide user with the ability to make a one time budget template(s) that is used against future months by default
3)There could be two budget views, one that compares actual against a set budget (template as mentioned above), and one that compares to previous year's historical average (or some other time period).
I agree 100% with YoungChilelian. It is very easy to use and the averaging "concept" is fantastic. I would use it at least 3x/wk if it would automatically track all categories and factor in the income averages as well.
1 - The budgetting feature needs to be available by any of the time periods available. Drop down select like in transactions.
1a. - Additionally users should be able to look back in time by selecting the start date for the budget. This would be most usefull in determining if the budget was met in the prior budgeting period. In case the user does not check on the last day of the budget. A more user friendly implementation would be to always offer a current prior button. The prior display would be based on the currently selected time period in 1 above.
2 - When adding or removing categories to budget. it would be way quicker to offer a list of all categories with checkboxes next to them to that all selections can be done at once instead of select, scroll down to bottom select again.
2a. Additionally visually indicating which categories are already scheduled in the upcoming transactions screen would be excelent.
Since these are fixed expenses that really don't need to be monitored, like utilities. There is probably a more elegant solution here.
- the idea is to create a (preferably daily) scheduled transaction in the schedule transactions list that would reflect the budget for all non scheduled expenses. This would allow one to get a very good projection of future expenses.
2b. Along those lines it would be way usefull to allow the display of more than two future paychecks on the main projection chart.
3 - The maximum number of categories that can be tracked should be increased by 15.
3a. The hight of each budget bar and the space in between each could be greately reduced to save on scrolling down.
4 - Default categories should be able to be marked as inactive so that no costs are automatically assigned to them and they don't display on the list. Costs would be flagged as 'uncategorized' if they match an inactivated cost.
I would LOVE to see the budgeting feature allow for accumulated unspent money to roll over. I guess this is called a sinking fund or an envelope or what have you. If Quicken Online did this, I wouldn't have to take my record-keeping anywhere else to finish the job.
I would like to see a budget forecasting purchases up to a year or more in advance. I used a spread sheet that had my budget for the whole year in it before this. With it I could see how much money I had rolled over from month to month, and could decide when I could make a large purchase such as air fare for a vacation, or some professional landscaping for the house, or a new piece of A/V equipment for the home theater setup, etc. etc. Only being able to look at a month at a time is not very useful.
I started using quicken online because I wanted to receive text messages updating me of my budget goals which this program does adequately. However, there is one thing I would like to see in the way of budgeting goals.
The Overall category should be able to be used to set a percentage of your overall income, or a percentage of "real income" based on what consistent bills or trends that are not tracked in the budget thermometers under the budget tab
This will allow professional quality budgeting strategies that will be easy to maintain and less time consuming than any professional software to date due to the already fluid and intuitive categorizing and payee naming software you are already using.
I think that the service you are providing now has given me more than enough reason to continue using your software and recommending it to all of my friends and co-workers but taking the extra step to provide every budgeting tool that one could ever need into one simple to use secure online service is going to make your customers more money and there by make your company more money in the future because this free software is putting more money in to the hand of consumers who do not yet have the spare cash to buy your more costly products and softwares.
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