Chapter 8. Create Reports and Graphs

8. Create Reports and Graphs

Quicken's reports and graphs are some of its most powerful tools, because they distill all your numbers and transactions into information that you can use to get a comprehensive picture of your finances. After using Quicken for just a few months, you'll have a good record of how much you are spending and where your money is going. If you have a bit too much credit card debt, you can easily see how much you are spending on credit card interest, which should give you the impetus to pay off those bills.

One of the best features of Quicken reports and graphs is that you can use them to look at your financial data in different ways. You can view your finances in as much or as little detail as you need, and you can pull out just the information that you want. For example, at tax time, I run a report to show all of my tax-deductible expenditures for the previous year, all neatly categorized and totaled. My accountant appreciates it, and because using the reports takes less of his time, it saves me money. The rest of the year, I use reports and graphs to track my income and expenses.