Create Graphs

When it comes to getting a good overview of your finances, reports are good, but graphs are better. Graphs can often illustrate relationships in your finances that numeric reports don't make clear. Quicken can display your financial data as bar graphs, line graphs, and pie charts to help you quickly analyze your income and expenses, develop budgets , and determine your net worth.

Graphs can also give you an important emotional boost, as I discovered while working to pay off my own consumer debt. I created a bar graph that showed how much debt I owed. Every month, as I made payments, I checked the graph to see how much the debt bar had shrunk. It felt great to see the downward trend as I worked towards my goal, and it felt even better the month that the bar finally hit the zero mark.

To get graphs on Windows, choose Reports > Reports and Graphs. The Reports and Graphs window appears. Click to choose the category that you want from the Select a topic list on the left side of the window, then click to select the particular report you want from the Select a report list. Not all reports have associated graphs; the ones that do have a Show Graph button at the bottom of the window.

On the Mac, click the Reporting tab, then click the Graphs button in the toolbar. The Graphs window appears.

Click the tab (Standard, Memorized, or EasyAnswer) for the kind of graph you want, then click to select the graph. Click Create to open the window with a new graph.