Budgets in Quicken for Mac
Overview
The 12-Month Budget in Mac allows you to budget recurring income and expenses, seasonal variations, infrequent events like tax payments or special events like vacations or holiday plans. On the Budget Setup screen, you can see your 12-month plan—including the net of your inflows and outflows per month as well as a cumulative yearly total.
Once your budget is in place, the Budget View allows you to track your progress as the month progresses. Highlighting areas where you overspend (or spend less than expected) by month, drill down to see the actual spending in a particular category, or view the cumulative Year-to-Date total to see how you’re tracking across multiple months.
You can update your budget at any time. You can also create multiple budgets to track different aspects of your financial life.
Setting up your first budget
- Go to the Budgets tab.
- Review the Budgets slideshow, then click Start Budgeting.
- Name the budget and select a start date.
- Click Create Budget.
After creating your budget
After the initial budget is generated, we strongly recommend you spend some time reviewing the budget and adjusting the values and categories to fit your particular situation.
For example:
- Adjust or remove budget items for periodic spending events that may differ in the coming year—such as travel or vacations.
- Add categories or budget items for upcoming life events which are not reflected in the previous year.
- Make a plan for a reduction in spending over time.
- Remove unnecessary detail by budgeting just top-level categories.
- Adjust budgets in areas where you want to reduce spending.
- Historical spending (or income) categories that are no longer relevant and can be removed.
In short, the goal of this initial budget creation is to kickstart your budgeting and goal-setting process by providing information and details on what happened in the past.
We suggest that you revisit your budget at least monthly to see how you are progressing towards your goals and to make adjustments where needed.
Other Options
Creating additional budgets
If you already have a budget set up, but want to create an additional budget:
- From the main menu bar, select Budgets > New Budget.
- Name the budget and select a start date.
- Click Create Budget.
Editing your budget
To edit your budget, click Edit Budget in the header.
This will bring up the Budget Edit screen. Here you can change your budget’s name, start month, and budget values.
Deleting a budget
To delete an existing budget:
- Go to the Budget menu and select the budget you’d like to delete.
- Once the budget appears on the screen, go back to the Budget menu and select Delete Budget.
