You cannot switch from Essential Budget to Advanced Budget in Money (899628)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Money Deluxe 2006
  • Microsoft Money Premium 2006
  • Microsoft Money Small Business 2006
  • Microsoft Money Standard 2006
  • Microsoft Money 2005 Deluxe
  • Microsoft Money 2005 Premium
  • Microsoft Money 2005 Small Business
  • Microsoft Money 2005 Standard

SYMPTOMS

When you click Use Advanced Budget in Budget Settings in Microsoft Money 2005 or in Microsoft Money 2006, you are taken back to the Essential Budget page instead of to the Advanced Budget page.

CAUSE

This issue occurs because of a damaged bill or a damaged entry in the budget.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, remove all Income and Expense entries in the Budget. To do this, follow these steps:
  1. Start Microsoft Money.
  2. Click the Budget tab, and then click Income.
  3. Click Remove, and then click Done.
  4. Click Expenses, click Remove against each Expense entry, and then click Done.
  5. Under Other tasks, click Change budget settings.
  6. Click Switch from the Essential Budget to the Advanced Budget, and then click Use Advanced Budget.
  7. Rebuild the budget by using the Autobudget feature in the Advanced Budget.
If you remove all the Income and Expense entries in the Budget and the issue is not resolved, follow these steps:
  1. On the Budget tab, click Edit expenses in the sidebar.
  2. Remove all the categories until it says that the total is $0, and then click Done.
If you still have phantom expenses in your budget, and you cannot go to the Advanced Budget, follow these steps:
  1. Click the Budget vs. Spending subtab.
  2. Make a note of any phantom categories that you see that remain in your budget. You have to remove these categories.
  3. Locate the Categories & Payees window on the Banking menu under Account Tools.
For every category and subcategory that you noted was a phantom in the budget, follow these steps:
  1. Double-click the category or subcategory.
  2. Move all the transactions to some temporary category (use only top-level categories, no subcategories). When you are finished, click Done.
  3. In the Categories & Payess window, delete the phantom (sub)category.
  4. When you are prompted for a new category to put the deleted items in, choose the temporary category where that you just moved the transactions. After you perform this step for all the phantom categories, go back to the Budget tab.
  5. Click Edit expenses in the sidebar.
You should now see the temporary categories - the phantoms have materialized! Remove all the categories, and then click Done. Your budget should be fully reset. Move your transactions from the temporary categories back to where they belong, and then rebuild your budget again from the ground up.

Note Some international version UI of Money may not be applied for this description.

MORE INFORMATION

If you use the Advanced Budget and enter transactions or set up recurring bills and deposits, the Autobudget feature in Money will automatically start the budgeting process for you. The Autobudget feature gathers up to a year's worth of your data or the data that you have entered to date, selects your common spending categories, estimates an average for the category based on a small time period, and then puts the information in your budget. You can then change the budget to meet your requirements.

The Autobudget feature depends partially on the recurring bills and the deposits that you create in the Bills area. To make sure that the Autobudget feature estimates your bills correctly, review your bills for accuracy and delete any bills that you no longer use. The Autobudget feature is also dependent on the regular categorization of your transactions in the Banking area. The Autobudget feature does not include transactions that do not have categories.

To view the Autobudget feature values, click Enter values from Autobudget near the bottom of the Income and Expenses pages. If you want to accept a value from the Autobudget feature, select only that check box, and then click to clear the other check boxes. Otherwise, the Autobudget feature may overwrite amounts that you have already changed.

Note To use the Autobudget feature, you must have at least one month's worth of transactions in your Money data file.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:9/1/2006
Keywords:kbtshoot KB899628 kbAudEndUser
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