tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:/discussions/budgeting/2874-sums-of-categories-in-budgetsInfinite Kind: Discussion 2022-07-04T16:40:18Ztag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/533833922022-04-04T15:46:10Z2022-04-04T16:10:38ZSums of Categories in Budgets<div><p>just a user,</p>
<p>As you found, the budget feature does not sum up the sub categories. I assume you have a need to have the subcategories or you would simple use the parent category for everything. There are a few ways I found to approach that issue. First of all if you want to use the Budget feature to track multiple categories as one budget item, then you would need to create some special categories where you can accumulate the various categories. Here is an example. Lets say you have insurance on several cars, have unique categories for each car, but only want to budget the total spent on all cars. What you would do is create a special expense category for "Car Insurance" ( I keep all my budget related special categories under an Parent Category names "Budget") Then when you enter the insurance cost for a single car, you assign the normal insurance category for that car, but you use the split function to add another category with the same amount and use the special budget category "Car Insurance" that you created. Of course that gives you double the cost so you add one more split to offset the additional category amount you added. You do that by simply creating another category and name it something like "Null". Then use that category to offset that additional amount. The total for that transaction will now be the exact cost and you have added that expense to the special category "Car Insurance" that you can add to your budget. You only have to do this once because you can add that as a "Reminder" and all the split stuff is done for you. You just need to update the amounts as needed. This is only of those infamous MD workarounds that some of us do so we can use MD the way we want.</p>
<p>Of course another way to track the sum of a parent category to total the subcategories is to just use a report. Like the Income and Expense or Transaction Filter report. You could probably just use the report systems as a budgeting tool and memorize the reports for a certain period which you could easily pull up anytime from the left panel.</p>
<p>Also I remember the "Budget Bar" on the MD summary page will sum up the subcategories like you want, but for some reason the normal budget status bar does not work that way.</p></div>mhoggietag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/533833922022-04-04T16:31:35Z2022-04-04T16:31:35ZSums of Categories in Budgets<div><p>just a user,</p>
<p>I take back most of what I said. The parent budget item appears to be summing up the subcategories now. This may be an issue with the New Budget feature. Try the old style mixed interval setup.</p></div>mhoggie