Why Spending Plan doesn't match actuals at month-end

Question

It's April now and March budget is closed. I'm trying to understand why my Spending Plan for March still shows $2,700 available and my Net Income report shows negative $162. I exported all March transactions and reconciled to the spending plan - all Income, Bills, Subscriptions, Planned Spending and Other Spending. Everything lines up except for Planned Spending - the report is right and the spending plan is wrong. Does this have to do with carryover amounts? I reviewed all the 'exclude from reports' and 'exclude from spending plan' flags and they are all 'no'. Why don't the two totals match? I went category-by-category in the Spending Plan and the amount spent for each  category matches to actuals but the total does not add up. I can't figure out how the total Planned Spending amount is calculated.

Coach Jon · Accepted Answer

Hello @John Dressel,

Thanks for reaching out! The Spending Plan is a simple budget that accounts for your monthly bills, income, Savings Goal contributions, and other planned expenses while also tracking any additional spending throughout the month. This support article goes into more detail on this feature here:

https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/4212702-understanding-your-spending-plan

If you can provide some screenshots showing the discrepancies, we can further assist you in verifying if there is incorrect information within your Spending Plan and troubleshoot. Feel free to redact any personal information!

-Coach Jon

John Dressel · Accepted Answer

I think I understand now - Planned Spend is total budgeted plus the over spent amount for categories with no carry over. If you over spend in a category with a carry over, that overage is spread out over future months and not considered for that month. The Net Income report simply reports what was spent that month, regardless of budget carry over. I've talked myself through it :-)