Custom Balances Extension: Questions and Answers
Stuart Beesley has developed some amazing extensions (Toolbox!) for Moneydance, but I feel one needs a bit more attention and usage - Custom Balances.
It's on my top right on my summary page. To put it simply, it allows you to create balances to view, on your summary page.
But it's much more powerful than that.
It's basically a custom report generator. You can create your own reports to view, and flip through them with the group id filter (i.e. a group id identifies a specific report you made)
It's basically a custom view into multiple reports. You just add another group id (i.e. "CustomView") and you can see important lines from multiple reports you created.
It's basically a warning window - you can place in hidden rows that trigger if a problem value is found (i.e. too low, too high, etc) and it will suddenly show up, and even blink if necessary.
You can change colors, show title bars, separation lines, etc.
You can do ratios, percentages, and so on. You can show categories by timeline - i.e. how much did I spend on gas THIS MONTH, or THIS YEAR?
It's uber powerful.
That said, anything uber powerful might elicit "how do I do this or that" questions. So far, these questions have shown up in "strange places" or in threads with a totally different title. As Stuart's main tester for Custom Balances, I can certainly answer such questions, and Stuart will probably check in as well. We would also entertain suggestions for improvement, but we both think CB is fairly mature at this point.
So, feel free to ask about Custom Balances here. It's a FANTASTIC extension (IMNSHO - in my not so humble opinion)
Showing page 10 out of 10. View the first page
Keyboard shortcuts
Generic
| ? | Show this help |
|---|---|
| ESC | Blurs the current field |
Comment Form
| r | Focus the comment reply box |
|---|---|
| ^ + ↩ | Submit the comment |
You can use Command ⌘ instead of Control ^ on Mac
271 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 16 Sep, 2024 03:04 PM
Would your row1 (that could be +value or zero) be added into more than just row2 - or would this roll up into row2 and then row 2 rolls up into row 3?
For example, we could have a formula that says takeIfPos(row) and then on the end row.. a formula that says
=sum(takeIfPos(row1), takeIfPos(row2), @networth) etc
272 Posted by avp2 on 16 Sep, 2024 08:48 PM
Each of the scripts I am planning does have more than one row, each rolling its math calculations to another row in sequence.
And, though I do not fully understand the formula line yet, your proposed line formula function looks to me like it would work. I assume, by the way, a zero row balance would not blow up a line formula evaluation. I assume also that a line formula is can be applied with, and after, any normal math calculations are completed. If a row can not have both, however, I think it would just mean more rows might be needed in a script.
273 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 19 Sep, 2024 06:20 AM
UPDATE:
I have just added: useifeq() useifneq() useifgt() useifgte() useiflt() useiflte()
as forumlas that can be used. The syntax is:
useifgt(value, compare)
Example:
useifgt(100, 1) = 100
useifgt(100, 999) = 0
1st parameter is your original value
2nd parameter is the comparator
will return zero if the test fails
eq = equal to
neq = not equal to
lt = less than
lt = less than, or equal to
gr = greater than
gr = greater than, or equal to
Probably the best usage is these in combination with sum() and row tags..
Let me know how you get on?
274 Posted by avp2 on 19 Sep, 2024 02:39 PM
Thanks Stuart. Looks like that will do the job. Might take a couple days to get to it, but will post how it works.
275 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 19 Sep, 2024 05:13 PM
If anyone can dream up any other interesting / useful formulas, shout?!
276 Posted by avp2 on 20 Sep, 2024 07:36 PM
Before reading the help file, I assumed the formula balance of a row was the same as a math’s balance. I guess there is a good reason the formula result is a display only value, not useable in other rows, just did not occur to me that was how it works - seems like it could be more useful and/or intuitive as a math function that sit just ahead of the PUM operation line precedence wise.
In any case, after I got how the formulas work and got used to the calculation implications, I was able to do what I wanted and the new formula comparison functions seem to work fine. I am a happy camper again. Thanks for the quick response to my need.
277 Posted by dtd on 20 Sep, 2024 08:23 PM
The circular implications of a formula impacting another formula(s) are very tough to handle - even excel has spent an inordinate amount of time handling infinite loops, indirect circular references and so on.
Even UOR math (multi-level), which Stuart finally allowed to occur, has a staging approach - one row can affect another row, and so on, and even there circular references can occur.
Are there ways around this? Sure, Excel has exception checking and so on, but this is intended to be "custom balances on your summary page for financial calcs", not something like a full fledged spreadsheet.
I'd like to be able to use tables (like tax payments based on salary), but again, that's what spreadsheets are for.
278 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 20 Sep, 2024 09:07 PM
It’s funny. As I added the new functions, I thought to myself… He’s going to want to reference formulas from other formulas, and why don’t we allow it?! 😝
Everything Dan says is correct.
I will ponder this issue though and consider if it’s ‘easyily’ solvable (like UOR).
For now, glad it’s working.
CB+1 😃