Budget tracking vs Cashflow tracking
W10. MD 2024.4 (5253)
At any point in time, it is easy to snapshot spends across various accounts and categories to determine where I stand for the month (e.g. $X on grocery spend at Y stores across Z accounts; … on gasoline, … on apparel, etc.). With this I know what spends to expect for the remainder of the month. Cool.
If I am using a credit card (VISA, MC, AMEX, etc.) I have found no means in MD to track (and therefore anticipate) the amount due for each account in any given month:
I am in mid-month. I see how I am tracking on all my budgeted spends. What I don’t see is that I have a GIANT payment due Amex this month from a special one-time spend the month prior (and the impact that GIANT payment has on this month’s cashflow).
Is there or has anyone figured out a way in MD to track cashflow automatically? [I know I can create a CASH account, and every time I get a credit card statement I can manually enter the amount due and its due date. Is there a non-manual-entry solution?]
Many thanks in advance!
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1 Posted by mhoggie on 24 May, 2025 10:52 PM
just a user,
I found that using Moneydance Foresight gave me the best future picture of my finances.
I have my reminders set up for all my income, fixed expenses and average credit card payments. I can look months and years ahead with the graph Foresight provides. Unfortunately something was changed after build 2008 which delays the graph being presented for a minute or more. But it does work and I only rarely look at my budgets anymore. As long as I keep the reminders accurate, the Foresight graph warns me of any future issues that I need to drill down on.
2 Posted by fj58 on 25 May, 2025 12:46 AM
@mhoggie
Thank you for your time and response.
Yes, I can see how Foresight (assuming variables are maintained) can work well.
Yes I can easily calculate average credit card payments, over any time frame, and plug that into Foresight. My challenge is that my actual payments are seldom close to "average," and it is these monthly cashflow outliers (be they positive or negative; but seldom close to average) that make Foresight a less-than-ideal solution.
Your idea would certainly work (and be a great solution) if inflows/outflows were generally similar month over month.
Again, thanks for the time.
3 Posted by dwg on 25 May, 2025 12:52 AM
What it sounds like you are looking for is Cash Flow budgeting.
This is a common budgeting method and I'm pretty sure this type of budget has been requested as a Moneydance enhancements, but to date this request has not been picked up.
4 Posted by mhoggie on 25 May, 2025 12:58 AM
just a user,
I set those once in a time expenses (like property tax) in my reminders and the foresight graft shows me that future deficit bump
5 Posted by mhoggie on 25 May, 2025 01:05 AM
just a user,
The automatic cashflow forecast would be great. I.E Follow your credit card balance as transactions accumulate and forecast a future payment. Nothing like that exists in MD. The best I find is just to update my reminders as I see the need. For instance, I have a Lowes credit card which I rarely use. But I had to buy a dryer recently and I set a reminder for the next Lowes statement payment to pay the amount of the dryer. The forecast graph bumps the graph to show that future payment so I can see if it causes me any problems with my checking balance
6 Posted by dwg on 25 May, 2025 01:07 AM
With something like a credit card you rarely use you could have a permanent reminder, but set the amount to 0 when it is not being used.
7 Posted by mhoggie on 25 May, 2025 01:13 AM
just a user,
The forecast graph gives you a way to predict future balances so you can take action to make spending or income changes. I'm retired now and I try to pay off all my credit cards each month. Last year I had a big expense that forecast told me would leave less in my checking than I liked. I had a month to resolve that by taking some of my required IRA RMD amounts earlier in the year so my checking would always have plenty of reserve.
Yeah dwg, That's what I do. Just a single reminder for that large expense. If it is on a regularly used credit card, you could still do that with an extra reminder while having your normal average reminder in place . It' works
8 Posted by fj58 on 25 May, 2025 01:16 AM
@DWG
Yes, that is exactly what I want and have submitted feature requests.
My hope is that from the cobwebs and crevices of MD someone has cobbled together a reasonable work-around, hopefully requiring not-too-much manual upkeep.
Thanks
9 Posted by dwg on 25 May, 2025 01:18 AM
Yep my credit cards get paid off each month using an automatic debit. I just have the reminder there, with the amount I change it to each month, ready to enter.
10 Posted by mhoggie on 25 May, 2025 01:19 AM
just a user,
You can have multiple reminders for the same account. Just add an end date to the special one time reminders. That makes the forecast graph work perfect. For me it's the best feature of MD. I depend on it.
11 Posted by dwg on 25 May, 2025 01:21 AM
The workarounds for cash flow budgeting all require work and extra entries, you basically have to turn it into Category budgeting.
12 Posted by dtd on 25 May, 2025 01:27 AM
+1 from me for Cash Flow Budgeting.
I won't use the two that are currently in there. MD/IK is aware of my (and others') thoughts on this, but as dwg said, it hasn't been picked up yet... Foresight is probably the closest to showing the future, but it isn't cash flow budgeting either. More like cash flow prediction.
13 Posted by sprimost on 29 May, 2025 08:42 PM
From: SCP
I use Custom Balances (kudos to Stuart) to show on the summary page the
balances for all credit cards. You can slice and dice on anything!
14 Posted by dtd on 29 May, 2025 10:54 PM
@sprimost - the extension Debt Insights can show CC balances as well. Not to subsume CB, CB is an absolutely amazing tool. (Of course I'd think so, since I worked with Stuart on helping make it exist - not in code, but in feedback and suggestions)