Known as a personal finance management application designed and launched by Intuit Inc., Quicken is a computer application that is compatible with Macintosh operating systems as well as Windows systems. The program has different versions that can be downloaded for free. Some of the popular versions of this application are the Quicken Home and Business as well as the Quicken Premium. If you are having problems with your budget, then this application can help you monitor your expenses. To benefit from this software, it is important that you learn how to use Quicken to your advantage.
Instructions
If you are not familiar with the application, you can start with developing a basic budget. To do this, you should click the Budget Feature, which can be seen on the Planning menu. Select the Automatic Option because this covers all the categories. Afterwards, you need to choose a spreadsheet option that you would like to use. Make sure that you base your choice on the time span for the budget. By choosing the appropriate spreadsheet, you can discard unnecessary items like automobile payments if you do not own one.
As soon as you have selected the spreadsheet option that you would like to use, you can proceed with the manual budget option. This option allows you to detail your expenses and savings. The manual budget option is very efficient if you are preparing a budget for a big organization or for a firm.
If you choose the manual budget option, it is best that you include subcategories. In this way, you can detail the expenses. For instance, if the spreadsheet contains the Entertainment category, you can include Movies and Eating Out as subcategories. By doing this, you can easily monitor all your expenses.
When using this special computer application, always remember to add variable expenses. Some of the variable expenses that you can include are vacations, unexpected visits to your physician and donations. If these expenses regularly appear on your budget, then it is best if you allot a permanent category for the expenses.
Additional Tips and Other Important Information
If you would like to compare the actual spending of your family to the budget, just launch the application in your computer and select the Reports option at the top part of the screen. After doing this, click the Budget option. You can find comparisons between your actual spending and the budget that you made using the application. In this way, you can determine if you overspent or were within your budget for a particular period of time.
