Setting up a budget, Have questions
Hello,
I am setting up a budget for the first time and having an issue with how to handle transfers between accounts.
I have a Checking account and a savings account in MD. Every week, I automatically transfer $200 from checking to savings.
How do I set this up in the budget? I am using the old style budget, btw.
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1 Posted by dwg on 09 Jan, 2026 02:09 AM
What you want is a cash flow budget, Moneydance does not provide this however.
Users have developed various methodologies to extend the existing budget model to provide for a cash flow budget the following method was used to create a cash flow budget for use with loans. It requires an extra entry for each transfer between accounts – like for example a mortgage payment which is usually a transfer between a bank account and the loan account.
The method presented here can be used to budget a variety of transactions howver, plus it minimizes the number of transactions in your register.
Essentially you set up a budget category for each type of transfer that you want to include in your budget plus a single contra category to offset the amount. You post entries to these for each loan payment you make or transfer you which to budget for, for example regular planned savings.
This method also keeps the transactions isolated in one set of entries, so it is relatively compact, the steps involved are:
1. Create an expense category with a unique name for the transfer or loan payment you want to include in your budget.
2. Create another expense category to act as the contra which you will use as an offset, you may even name it "Contra" but you can call it anything that makes sense to you.
3. Add your new budget category to your budget.
4. Now when you enter the transfer transaction, click on the split option in the category field, and add two additional splits. These will be in addition to the normal account transfer category which just shows the account receiving the funds which will be listed first. In the first extra transaction split just repeat the amount of the transfer with the new unique transfer category then in the second extra transaction split use the "Contra" category to offset the extra amount you added.
Now the transaction will show the transfer that you need and the budget will capture the activity from the expense category you added. You can memorize the transaction with the splits and just set it up as a reminder so you do not have to repeat the process. The reason for using two expense categories is that they will offset each other so that the overall expense are not overstated since the categories will cancel each other and give a net zero amount within the greater account set.
2 Posted by Brian on 09 Jan, 2026 02:22 PM
Thank you for the detailed reply. I will give that a try!