How to set up a budget on Quicken
Quicken is one of the most popular financial software programs on the market. Quicken provides the tools that the everyday person can use to get their finances in order. If you find yourself in need of a program that can help you re-gain control of your finances, Quicken comes highly recommended.
Of course no one software program can tailor a single budgeting system that is right for everyone. You will have to make the hard decisions about how much money you want to budget or allocate to certain categories. In the housing industry it is recommended that 30% of a budget be for your residence. However, not all of us are in the financial position to afford allocating only 30% housing. For some, 80 or 90% is spent on housing. Other individuals set aside 5-10% for clothing in their budget. Others see no need to be buying clothing every month and may leave this category out of their budget entirely. So you see there is no ideal plan for everyone, in fact there may be no `ideal' plan for you. You will need to take a close look at your finances and decide on a budget that will get you back on the right financial track.
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Quicken is designed to walk you through the steps that you will need to take in order to set up your budget. When you are through you will have a well-organized plan that can help to check your progress and to bring to your attention the changes that you can make to better manage your money.
To set up a budget on Quicken the first thing that you need to do is load the program. With the program up, click on Planning at the top of the Quicken screen (Quicken Basic: click on Cash Flow), then click on Budget. Be sure the Setup tab is selected in the Quicken budget creation menu. Select Automatic under `Create a Budget'. Then click on Create Budget at the bottom of the menu. If you have not created any budgets earlier in Quicken, you will not see any budgets listed.
As the Quicken program will prompt you, you will need to enter the following information:
1. Name: Enter a title for the Quicken budget that you are creating or you can simply choose to use a default name that the program has selected.
2. Description: In your own words you can describe the budget that you are creating.
3. Date Range: Accept Quicken's defaults or enter dates in From and To fields. Use at least a year's worth of data.
4. Budget Method: Select one of the three budget methods:
Average amounts: budget will be based on averages for income, expenses, and transfers. The default is average per month but you can select from many time periods in the drop-down list.
Monthly detail: bases the budget on actual income, expenses, and transfers from months specified in the date range. Date range cannot exceed one year.
Quarterly detail: bases Quicken budget on actual quarterly income, expenses, and transfers.
5. Options: Quicken will automatically round budget amounts to the nearest dollar or you can choose to have the program round to the nearest $10 or $100 by selecting your choice from the drop down box (you can also deselect rounding by clicking on the checkbox)
6. Categories: This optional step allows you to click Categories on the lower right to select the categories to include in the budget. Quicken selects all income, expense and transfer categories as indicated by the check mark. To deselect a category, click on it and the check disappears. Using Mark all and Clear all is optional. If you want to start over with category selection, click Cancel. When finished, click OK.
Click OK when you finish setting the Quicken budget options, and Quicken tells you your new budget has been created. Click on OK to clear the new budget creation notice then look at your budget and make any changes or corrections that are needed.
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