tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:/discussions/budgeting/149-how-to-budget-an-item-that-is-also-a-transfer-into-an-accountInfinite Kind: Discussion 2019-07-03T10:17:18Ztag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-10T21:48:48Z2015-06-10T21:48:48ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Hi Symoonbeam1,</p>
<p>Unfortunately it's currently not possible to budget for
transfers in Moneydance. There's an existing ticket in our
ticketing system with your suggestion, so I've attached it to this
discussion and the developers will be looking into it.</p>
<p>Please let us know if we can be of further assistance!</p>
<p>Scott Meehan<br>
Infinite Kind Support</p></div>Scott Meehantag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T02:48:29Z2015-06-11T02:48:29ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Unless I'm misunderstanding the question, you can easily track
transfers to accounts by using a mixed interval style budget. I lay
out the reasons why I prefer mixed interval budgets here:<br>
<a href="https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/discussions/general-questions/18774-are-the-forums-the-official-support-channel-when-will-the-budget-get-fixed">
https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/discussions/general-questions/18...</a></p></div>Jimtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T10:44:29Z2015-06-11T10:44:29ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Unfortunately I can't get the mixed interval budgets to work
properly at all - they do not update or even track changes across
accounts at all.<br>
For a relatively expensive (these days) application, the budgeting
function is more or less useless.<br>
The developers need to either spend some time getting this function
to work properly or remove it from the application and advertise it
as an extremely basic cheque book balancing app at a sensible price
- probably about $1.<br>
This must be the biggest waste of money I have made so far this
year.<br>
Come on guys - get a grip and sort out the issues. The forum is
full of comments about budget issues and has been for months.</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T13:08:13Z2015-06-11T13:08:13ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Personally I think Budgeting in Moneydance does what it says,
i.e. allow you to budget expected income and expenses and then
report on performance against this. What is does not do, nor has
ever promised to, is to forecast account balances based on actuals
and budgets. Budgets do not care where in your net worth the money
comes from or goes to..</p>
<p>You can budget loan and interest payments. The way I manage my
loans is to record an income when I take out the loan and then
record loan capital repayments and interest payments as expenses.
My net worth is slowly changing as the loan gets repaid. I can
budget for this.</p>
<p>Regards<br>
Mike</p></div>Mike Bray (Quote Loader Author)tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T13:31:15Z2015-06-11T13:31:15ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Mike<br>
Im not looking for it to</p>
<blockquote>
<p>forecast account balances based on actuals and budgets.</p>
<p>I simply want to be able to transfer money from one
account(current) to another(loan) AND track that in Budgets against
a car finance category so that I can produce a report showing what
I have spent on car finance. I don't want a report telling me what
I have transferred into a loan account.</p>
<p>Seems like a straightforward enough thing to want to do but is
actually impossible!!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sent From my iPhone</p>
<p>Jay Chandler<br>
+44 7702 031379 (UK Mobile) +255 757 201012 (Tz Mobile) +254 722
201012 (Ke Mobile)</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T13:49:19Z2015-06-11T13:49:19ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Jay</p>
<p>If I understand you correctly this is more about tracking
transactions rather than budgeting. As your transfer does not
change your net worth it isn't something for a budget.</p>
<p>I have just done a transfer between two accounts and added a tag
of Car Finance. I then did a Tag Summary report and it showed that
transaction so you can use tags to get what you want.</p>
<p>Regards<br>
Mike</p></div>Mike Bray (Quote Loader Author)tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T13:53:52Z2015-06-11T13:53:52ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Agh...didn't think about using tags - that might work.<br>
You are correct in your assumptions by the way - I'm not so much
looking to track net worth - more just to keep track of where the
money is / has gone<br>
Thanks</p>
<p>Sent From my iPhone</p>
<p>Jay Chandler<br>
+44 7702 031379 (UK Mobile) +255 757 201012 (Tz Mobile) +254 722
201012 (Ke Mobile)</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T14:16:33Z2015-06-11T14:16:33ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Mike<br>
Just to clarify:<br>
Each month I have a certain income - not necessarily the same every
month.<br>
I also have certain outgoings - some of which are transfers to
other accounts but also relate to categories. Eg the car finance
payment - it is a transfer between accounts (so that is the
category Moneydance forces you to use to make the transfer happen)
but I also want it to be recorded under automobile-car finance.<br>
Similarly I have a payment to another loan account that I want to
categorise as Personal loans.<br>
I obviously have other outgoings - rent, phone, clothing etc - no
problem with these as they are not transfers.<br>
I am looking for the budget option to work so that it will show how
I am doing against my BUDGETED amount for each category during /
over the various period options.<br>
The current system will not do this because loan accounts are not
part of the budget pages, and the car finance category obviously
remains as zero because the transaction is made using the account
name as category.<br>
Consequently all the budget pages and displays on the summary page
that are supposed to give an indication of your spending agains
budgeted amount are rubbish because they don't track the transfer
into any meaningful category.<br>
Yes - I could probably produce a report if I use tags and remember
to tag every transaction in a consistent manner but that is not the
best solution.<br>
Why have a series of Displays on the summary page that purport to
display your spending against your BUDGETED amount if they do
nothing of the sort because you can't get them to track things
correctly?</p>
<p>Sent From my iPhone</p>
<p>Jay Chandler<br>
+44 7702 031379 (UK Mobile) +255 757 201012 (Tz Mobile) +254 722
201012 (Ke Mobile)</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T14:29:24Z2015-06-11T14:29:24ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>You can't have a payment to a loan (which is a transfer to your
loan account) also show up as a category, but I also don't
understand why you'd want to do that. For example I simply have a
two budget entries for my house loan payments, one for the transfer
to the loan account (i.e. the principal) and one for the interest
(category). I see no advantage to try to creating your loan
payments as categories, assuming you're using a mixed interval
budget (since the new style budgets don't support this).</p></div>Jimtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T14:38:49Z2015-06-11T14:38:49ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>One payment - transfer to a loan account.<br>
Can / could be categorised as<br>
Payment to account(name)<br>
Loan payments<br>
Car finance<br>
Transfers to other accounts<br>
Or all four!!<br>
It is obviously too difficult to explain by email for some reason
even though it seems simple enough to me<br>
I just want to make a transfer happen to another account but have
it tracked under a category of my choice.<br>
Sent From my iPhone</p>
<p>Jay Chandler<br>
+44 7702 031379 (UK Mobile) +255 757 201012 (Tz Mobile) +254 722
201012 (Ke Mobile)</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T15:12:58Z2015-06-11T15:12:58ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Then you're out of luck. You can mark a payment as going to one
category or account, but not both (i.e. you could choose any one of
your four options, but not multiple options simultaneously). It's
been a few years since I've used other financial apps like GNUcash
or Quicken, but I'm not aware of any finance app that would do what
you want (have a the same cash be classified as multiple
accounts/categories). I believe this would break all sorts of
accounting standards.</p>
<p>Now being able to report the same cash movement under multiple
different categories theoretically could be possible, and perhaps
tags could help here as someone else suggested, but I don't know
how do to that.</p>
<p>AFAIK you either need to change your workflow to match the
standard way most people do it or you need to find a new program
(and I'm not sure what program would do what you want).</p></div>Jimtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T15:16:21Z2015-06-11T15:16:21ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>😁<br>
Thanks</p>
<p>Sent From my iPhone</p>
<p>Jay Chandler<br>
+44 7702 031379 (UK Mobile) +255 757 201012 (Tz Mobile) +254 722
201012 (Ke Mobile)</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T16:06:34Z2015-06-11T16:06:34ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Jay, youmight find this helpful: <a href="https://bitbucket.org/mikerb/moneydance-2015/wiki/Transaction%20Information">
https://bitbucket.org/mikerb/moneydance-2015/wiki/Transaction%20Inf...</a></p></div>Mike Bray (Quote Loader Author)tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T16:54:29Z2015-06-11T16:54:29ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Perfect<br>
Thanks</p>
<p>Jay Chandler<br>
<a href="mailto:symoonbeam1@me.com">symoonbeam1@me.com</a><br>
07702 031 379</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-11T18:09:41Z2015-06-11T18:09:41ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Well I'm sorry - I know I'm not an accountant but nothing seems
to work in this program.<br>
I read your link Mike - but that doesn't help much.<br>
Reports are complete rubbish - an example is attached - a transfers
report.<br>
I make 4 transfers -<br>
1. to a savings account<br>
2. to a car loan account<br>
3. to a personal loan account<br>
4. to a credit card account</p>
<p>In the report only the car loan and personal loan are tracked -
what happened to the other two accounts? I have checked all the
settings and filters and all accounts - no filters are selected. It
does however list all the category items !!!</p>
<p>The income and expenses report is even worse - it doesn't even
list the accounts - just a blank column, and none of the transfers
are listed - only category items - however surely a transfer out of
a current account is an expense?<br>
This report also groups and provides a total for the categories
(e.g. Automotive-Total) which is nice - but you can't get the
expenses chart to do that.</p>
<p>I'm sorry but this program just does not cut it and is nowhere
close to where Money or Quicken were 10 years ago.<br>
I moved to Moneydance from using Moneywise because it looked to be
a better interface and reviews said it was a good replacement for
Quicken - Biggest mistake I have made this year!!<br>
I will keep struggling on with the basic functions of the program
because I really don't want to end up transferring everything again
to a new program, and hope that eventually the reports will get
fixed so that they actually work.</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-12T02:48:10Z2015-06-12T02:48:10ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Your screen shot appears to be cut off, so I can't see what has
number and what doesn't. I've never used the transfer report, but I
when I ran a quick test report it seemed to work ok. My only
thought would be to check your version of Moneydance. If you go to
help->about it should report "2015.4 (1220)", the latest stable
release.</p>
<p>With the income and expense report the "account" column should
be thought of as the "account/category" column. For most purposes
accounts and categories are interchangeable. So your account column
isn't blank, beneath it all of your account and categories are
listed (i.e. your first/leftmost column is your account
column).</p>
<p>I don't think Moneydance's reports are too bad. Their saving
grace is the ease with which you can click the copy button on most
reports and paste it into a spreadsheet. Now if you said the
budgeting system was rubbish I'd be in agreement with ya. The only
reason I haven't left Moneydance is that the mixed interval style
budgets are still workable (once you're aware of their many
bugs).</p></div>Jimtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-12T03:53:11Z2015-06-12T03:53:11ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Hi Jim<br>
The screen shot is cut off because I didnt want all my financial
data spread on a public forum!!<br>
All the lines are populated - my real point was that for a report
that is supposed to show “transfers” - two of them are
missing and 90% of the report actually summarises transactions from
“Categories” - so it is not really a
“transfers” repport at all !!</p>
<p>If what you say regarding the Income / expense report is correct
- then why does the detailed report populate the accounts column
and not the basic report?<br>
Surely the whole point is that it should show you from which
account the income / expense came from?<br>
I have attached annotated captures that illustrate what I am
getting at.</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-12T04:22:07Z2015-06-12T04:22:07ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Hi Jay, as you're probably aware I'm just a user of Moneydance
like you, so I could be wrong about everything I think I know about
Moneydance. With that dire warning aside, I'll try to answer your
questions inline below:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The screen shot is cut off because I didnt want all my financial
data spread on a public forum!! Makes sense. I assumed you were
using test data.</p>
<p>All the lines are populated - my real point was that for a
report that is supposed to show “transfers” - two of
them are missing and 90% of the report actually summarises
transactions from “Categories” - so it is not really a
“transfers” repport at all !! I don't use the transfer
report, so I can't really defend it or explain it, but I know you
can choose what accounts to use. So if you choose just loan or
liability accounts that's all you will see. As to whether it's
right or wrong, I can only suggest that you ensure you're using the
latest stable release. If it's still wrong then open a new help
request for that problem.<br>
Regarding summarizing transactions from categories, keep in mine
that accounts and categories are almost the same thing and are used
interchangeably in many places (if I remember right in GnuCash they
are the same thing).</p>
<p>If what you say regarding the Income / expense report is correct
- then why does the detailed report populate the accounts column
and not the basic report? They're different reports and IK (the
developers of Moneydance) enjoy confusing us. :) The detailed
report is one report where category really means just category and
account really means just accounts. As its name implies the
detailed report provides more detail like the account name.<br>
It would be clearer if their reports that combined categories and
accounts into one column would indicate that (but maybe that wouldd
take up too much screen space?).</p>
<p>Surely the whole point is that it should show you from which
account the income / expense came from? No, that is not the point.
The non-detailed report is a higher level summary. For example the
non-detailed report shows the total you spent on fuel, but not the
detail of which account (for example credit card) you used.</p>
<p>I have attached annotated captures that illustrate what I am
getting at. In "inc-exp_basic.tiff" the account column is not
empty, it contains all the categories. Simply rename the "Account"
column to "Account/Category" in your mind and it should all make
sense. :)</p>
</blockquote></div>Jimtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-12T04:48:15Z2015-06-12T04:48:15ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Hi Jim<br>
Thanks for your input -<br>
If I was computer illiterate - or just plain dumb I would put many
of my gripes down to that - but I am reliably informed by others
that I am neither so…..<br>
I’m afraid we are going to have to “agree to
disagree” !!<br>
My whole point is I don't want an accounting program that fudges
things, uses descriptions that are “almost the same
thing”, doesn’t make things clear because they
can’t be bothered, makes me “rename things in my
mind”, or plain simply just doesn’t report what it is
supposed to (on the transfer report - I have all accounts
selected).<br>
Accounting programs are supposed to help us non accountants make a
complicated thing easier - Money and Quicken managed that 10 years
ago - unfortunately for Mac users, Money is no longer a viable
production and Quicken is going the same way.</p>
<p>There are just so many things in this program that are half
thought through - not tested or simply don't work that it is
criminal that the developers are able to release it and make money
from it.<br>
Try buying a car with a square wheel and have the manufacturer say
- “oh we know that’s a problem for now but we’ll
get round to fixing it …… one day” - they
wouldn’t be in business very long!! - or in fact be able to
sell the car as it would not be “fit for purpose”.<br>
At the moment - Moneydance falls into that category for me
I’m afraid.<br>
Regards<br>
Jay</p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-12T13:15:40Z2015-06-12T13:15:40ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>The reason the source account is not shown in the "Income and
Expense" but is shown in the "Income and Expense, detailed" report
is because the "Income and Expense" report is showing you the total
spent in each category. There might be many transactions from many
accounts that go into that total, there is not a single account
that contributes to the total for each category. Where as "Income
and Expense, detailed" report is showing you the individual income
and expense transactions, not just the totals. As such we can show
the account that each individual transaction came from.</p>
<p>I want to clarify what "Category" means in Moneydance as I think
the wiki that Mike Bray linked to above isn't entirely accurate.
Moneydance is a double entry book keeping system. As such every
transaction is a transfer from one account to at least on other
account. Income and expense categories are accounts just like bank
accounts or any other type of account. The "Category" field on a
transaction should be thought of as the account on the other side
of this transfer. We call it the category field in an attempt to
simplify the complexity of double entry bookkeeping for our users.
Users tend to think in terms of categorizing transactions rather
than entering transfers to expense accounts. Let me give you an
example.</p>
<p>If you want to enter a transfer from checking to savings you
would enter the transaction in the checking account and you would
select the savings account as the category.</p>
<p>If you spent some money in your checking account you would enter
the transaction in the checking account and you would select an
expense account as the category.</p>
<p>I hope that clarifies the issue.</p>
<p>Ben Spencer<br>
Infinite Kind Support</p></div>Ben Spencertag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-12T13:32:20Z2015-06-12T13:32:20ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>Thanks Ben<br>
What about the missing accounts then in the transfers report?</p>
<p>Sent From my iPad</p>
<p>JAY CHANDLER<br>
CHIEF PILOT<br>
PO Box 2599, Dar es Salaam<br>
PO Box 10528-80101, Bamburi<br>
Tanzania<br>
Kenya<br>
Tel: +255 22 2190800<br>
Tel: +254 20 354 1010 (H24)<br>
Tel: +255 757 201012<br>
Tel: +254 20 2201012<br>
UK: +44 7702 031379</p>
<p>Certified by BVQI to ISO9001:2008, ISO14001:2004, OHAS
18001:2007<br>
<a href="http://www.everettaviation.com">www.everettaviation.com</a></p></div>symoonbeam1tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/370880802015-06-12T14:51:41Z2015-06-12T14:51:41ZHow to Budget an item that is also a transfer into an account??<div><p>symoonbeam1</p>
<p>Please copy your question about missing missing accounts in the
transfers report into its own independent post. It is a little of
topic for this thread and will be easier for the support staff to
assist you if it is asked in an independent post</p>
<p>Ben Spencer<br>
Infinite Kind Support</p></div>Ben Spencer