How to Exclude Accounts From Reports and the Spending Plan

Quick Review

What: Exclude entire accounts from Reports and/or Spending Plan calculations
Why: Focus on relevant accounts for budgeting and analysis
How: Settings → Accounts → Three dots → Exclude account transactions from
Note: Excluding from Reports also excludes from Watchlists

Overview

Quicken Simplifi lets you exclude entire accounts from Reports and the Spending Plan, helping you focus on the accounts that matter for your financial analysis and budgeting. You can exclude accounts from either location or both, depending on your needs.

This feature is particularly useful for accounts that don't affect your daily finances, like old investment accounts, closed credit cards, or savings earmarked for taxes. Ashley excludes their inherited property account from both Reports and Spending Plan since it doesn't impact their monthly budget or spending analysis.

Understanding Exclusions

Two Independent Settings

Exclude from Reports

Removes account from spending, income, and expense reports
Automatically excludes from Watchlists too
Does NOT exclude from Net Worth Report (use filters there)

Exclude from Spending Plan

Removes account from monthly budget calculations
Useful for accounts that shouldn't affect your budget

You can exclude from one, both, or neither. The settings work independently.

How to Exclude an Account

Hover over the panel on the left-hand side and select Settings
Select Accounts
Locate the account you'd like to exclude and click the three dots at the end of it
In the Exclude account transactions from section, select Spending Plan or Reports, whichever applies

The checkmark appears next to each exclusion you've selected. The account remains in Quicken Simplifi but won't affect the excluded areas.

How to Include an Account

Hover over the panel on the left-hand side and select Settings
Select Accounts
Locate the account you'd like to include and click the three dots at the end of it
In the Exclude account transactions from section, click Spending Plan or Reports to remove the checkmark

The account will be included in the areas where you've removed the checkmark.

Special Considerations

Net Worth Report

Excluding an account from Reports does NOT remove it from the Net Worth Report. Your net worth still includes all accounts regardless of exclusion settings. To remove accounts from Net Worth:

Use the Account Filter options within the Net Worth Report itself
This gives you control over net worth calculations separately

Watchlist Impact

When you exclude an account from Reports:

It automatically excludes from all Watchlists
To include in Watchlists, the account must be included in Reports

Individual Transactions

These settings affect entire accounts. Individual transactions within included accounts can still be excluded separately if needed.

Common Use Cases

Investment Accounts Exclude investment accounts from Spending Plan to keep investment activity separate from budgeting.

Savings Accounts Exclude dedicated savings from Spending Plan when the money is earmarked for specific purposes.

Closed Accounts Keep the history but exclude from current tracking:

Paid-off loans
Closed credit cards
Old bank accounts

Ashley excludes their "Tax Reserve" savings from the Spending Plan since that money is already allocated, even though it's technically in their account.

Best Practices

Review Regularly

Check exclusions when adding new accounts
Verify settings match account purpose
Update when account use changes

Be Consistent

Similar accounts should have similar settings
Document why you excluded accounts
Apply same logic across account types

Consider Your Goals

Reports: Exclude if it distorts spending analysis
Spending Plan: Exclude if it's not truly available money
Both: Exclude if completely irrelevant to active finances

The Bottom Line

Excluding accounts helps you create focused, meaningful views of your finances in Quicken Simplifi. Whether you're removing old accounts from Reports or keeping tax savings out of your Spending Plan, these settings let you customize what you see.

Take a few minutes to review your accounts and exclude ones that don't belong in your active financial tracking. As Ashley says, "If it's not money I can actually spend or need to track, it doesn't belong in my monthly planning."

Hint: After excluding accounts, verify your settings by checking both the account list and an actual report. Ashley once excluded their emergency savings from Reports when they only meant to exclude it from the Spending Plan. They discovered this months later when creating their year-end tax summary and wondered why their interest income seemed low. A quick check of the settings after making changes would have caught this mismatch.