Create Reports and Graphs in Quicken

Quicken reports display information about your finances in a clear, easy-to-read tabular format. To give you a visual summary of your finances, Quicken can also display your data as bar graphs or pie charts.

• Creating reports and graphs

  You follow the same basic steps to create all reports and graphs-go to the Reports & Graphs Center. In the Quicken Standard Reports list on the left, select the financial area you want information about, select the report or graph you want, and click Show Report or Show Graph. Quicken displays the reports and graphs you create in the Reports & Graphs window, which, along with the report and graph data, includes menus and buttons for saving, customizing, and printing reports and graphs.

  While the reports and graphs you create in the Reports & Graphs window can bring together account information from many areas of Quicken, sometimes what you really want is just the information about a specific account or item in an account (such as a category or payee). Because of this, you can also create a number of reports right from your register. For example, you can create a one-click minireport to give you instant insight into your spending by category or payee for one of six time periods. If you would prefer category or payee information for a different time period, or if you want a full category or payee report that you can customize in a number of other ways, you can also create register reports.

• Changing report and graph settings

  Anytime you create a report or graph, you can customize it to display just the information that you want to see. You can change the layout, the date range, the accounts to include, and various other settings that vary from report to report. You can also filter the report or graph; for example, you can include transactions with only certain payees or categories, or specific securities. And you can show or exclude hidden categories or accounts from your report (use the check box on the Categories or Account tab of the Customize dialog for reports). And once you customize a report or graph, you can save and reuse it, making it possible to rerun the report or graph in the future without having to reenter the settings.

  You can also change report and graph preferences, including default date and comparison date ranges for all reports and graphs, how accounts and categories are identified in reports, whether color is used in reports, and more.

• Saving and reusing reports and graphs

  Because it takes time to customize a report or graph, you can save it and reuse it again and again. Saving reports and graphs that filter out transactions is particularly useful. When you save a report or graph, Quicken adds it to the My Saved Reports list in the Reports & Graphs window so that you can easily recall (find and display) it again. When you recall a saved report or graph, you're really recalling the report or graph definition, including all the settings and sort criteria that you've specified.

  If you change the settings for a saved report or graph, you can resave it with the same title, or you can give the altered report or graph a new title and save it again. If you don't resave a report or graph after you've changed its definition, it retains the original definition.

• Printing reports and graphs

  You can print reports and graphs to paper or PDF. You can also print reports to a file.

  When you set up a printer to print reports, Quicken remembers settings such as fonts, paper size, and paper orientation and uses them whenever you print a report or graph or budget spreadsheet. Printer settings for reports do not affect settings for printing checks.

• Copying and transferring report data to other programs

  Use the Export Data button to export or copy Quicken data to other programs, such as spreadsheet software and word processors. Tabs separate the figures in the Quicken report. If you paste report data into a word-processing document, you may need to set tabs in the document to format the report attractively. Or you can print the report to an ASCII file and then import the file, in which case the report columns are separated by spaces.

  If you use Windows or DOS tax software (other than TurboTax) to prepare taxes, you can transfer or export data from the Quicken tax schedule report or capital gains report to the program that calculates your tax and prints completed tax forms. (If you use TurboTax, you don't need to create and export these reports; TurboTax can read and import Quicken data quickly and easily.)

  You can also prepare and file your taxes from within Quicken using Quicken TurboTax for the Web. Online menu > Online Services > File taxes online with TurboTax for the Web, and follow the on-screen instructions.

You can modify a number of settings for reports and graphs on the Advanced tab. (Not all options are available for every type of report or graph.)

• Amounts

  Specify whether transactions must be a certain amount to be included in the report or graph.

  If you do not want transaction amount to be a factor, select All amounts.

  If you want only transactions that meet an amount criteria to appear in the report or graph, enter the appropriate amount and select whether Quicken limits the transactions to those less than, greater than, or equal to the amount you enter, and enter the amount by which to limit the transaction.

• Include unrealized gains

  Quicken displays this option only if you've set up investment accounts. Select this check box to have the report or graph show unrealized (paper) gains and losses. These gains and losses reflect increases and decreases in the values of your securities as their prices change.

  Click to clear this check box to omit display of these unrealized gains.

• Tax-related transactions only

  Select this check box to include only those transactions categorized with tax-related categories.

  Click to clear this check box to include all transactions (those categorized with tax-related categories as well as all other categorized transactions).

• Transaction types

  Specify the type of transactions to include in your report or graph. Your options are:

  Payments: Includes payments only (including checks). For nonbank accounts, payments are decreases to cash and other asset accounts, and increases to credit card and other liability accounts.

  Deposits: Includes deposits only.

  Unprinted Checks: Includes only unprinted checks.

  All Transactions: Includes all transactions.

• Status

  Specify the status that transactions must have to appear in the report or graph.

  To include transactions of all statuses in the report or graph, don't change or clear any of the check boxes. (Quicken selects all of the check boxes by default.)

  To omit a transaction with a certain status from the report or graph, click to clear the check box. This can be useful if you want to create a report or graph that contains only cleared ("c"), uncleared, or reconciled ("R") transactions.

• Transfers

  Specify the transfers to include in the report or graph. Your options are:

  Include all: Includes all transfers in the report or graph.

  Exclude all: Excludes all transfers from the report or graph (use for a report or graph showing income and expenses without transfers, such as the business P&L statement report).

  Exclude internal: Excludes transfers within accounts that are included in the report or graph (such as the opening balance or adjustment transactions).

• Subcategories (income and expense or budget reports and graphs only)

  Specify the subcategories to include in the report or graph. Your options are:

  Show all: Includes all subcategories and groups them under their main categories. Subcategories are indicated and separated by a colon (:), for example, Auto:Fuel.

  Hide all: Hides all subcategories.

• Categories (budget reports and graphs only)

  Specify the categories to appear in the report or graph. Your options are:

  Include all: Includes all categories (even unused ones) in the report or graph.

  Non-Zero actual/budgeted: Includes categories that you have used, or categories to which you have assigned budget amounts in the Budget dialog.

  Budgeted only: Includes only those categories to which you have assigned budget amounts in the Budget dialog.

• Show me change alerts for this report

  Select this check box to have Quicken alert you when you are recalling a saved report to which new categories, classes, or securities might apply. For this alert to apply, you must have already saved the report after customizing it to include only a subset of the available categories, classes, or securities. This is because the purpose of this alert is to check whether the new item should be added to the subset included in the report. If the saved report already includes all categories, classes, or securities by default, Quicken automatically includes the new items in the report without first displaying an alert.

• Tax form (only in Quicken Home & Business)

  Quicken displays this list only if you've set up Quicken to use tax schedules with categories.

  Select the tax schedule line item to which you want to assign your category. If you select a tax schedule line item for a category, the category is included in tax schedule reports.

  For more information about particular tax schedules, use the Tax Line Item Assignment available in the Tax Center.

• Report Basis (only in Quicken Home & Business)

  Select the report basis for only the open or selected report. This setting appears only for applicable business reports.