CashFlow Forecasting
Could I please suggest a couple of improvements to the Cashflow forecasting based on my excellent experience wit Microsoft Money.
1) Could it be shown as a graph not detailed list
2) Could you please add an option for Next 3 months rather than having to do a Custom dates and select it that way
3) Could you enable us to select an account and have all the reminders and manual entries automatically added and subtracted from the balance to show a progress graph of the next 3 months or indeed last 3 months etc etc.
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1 Posted by -Kevin N. on 21 Mar, 2020 01:51 PM
Hi Rich,
Take a look at the Money Foresight extension listed under Moneydance's Extensions > Manage Extensions menu.
-Kevin N. (not a member of MD support)
2 Posted by Rich W on 21 Mar, 2020 05:03 PM
Thanks Kevin
I have looked at it - the free extension is ok but not fantastic - obviously not tried the paid one yet ..it would be good if there was a free trial for that as well - unless I am missing something
3 Posted by -Kevin N. on 21 Mar, 2020 08:00 PM
Hi Rich,
Are you sure that you 'really, truly looked at it' because "not fantastic" is not how I would describe it.
Give it another go and make sure to look into all of it's features including the Money Foresight Review included with it.
-Kevin N. (not a member of MD support)
4 Posted by Kevin Stembridg... on 21 Mar, 2020 11:40 PM
Hi Rich,
The free version of Money Foresight is fully-featured apart from not being able to adjust the future period. It is stuck on one month.
Once you purchase you'll be able to do all the things you requested in your original post.
Let me know if you have any more questions about features.
Regards,
Kevin
5 Posted by Rich W on 22 Mar, 2020 04:51 PM
Thanks Kevin.
I will review what options I can do now and assess whether this matches the need I have and I’ll let you know if I identify any additional suggestions.
6 Posted by Rich W on 08 May, 2020 03:18 PM
Kevin
To clarify I have once again looked at the forecast tool including all the options not just the summary page which I tried to configure before and I apologise and say that it does have more function than I initially had managed to configure. There is one thing that I specifically would benefit from your assistance with though...
Ive attached an example of what I am trying to do. I have managed to get the reminders and transactions showing which is a good thing, but am struggling on a third point linking the budget planning element so your advice in how I can use the Money Foresight tool to do this and achieve a similar outcome would be amazing.
In the attached example it shows 90 days hence (which i know I can get from the full version), but it shows a profile of my balance taking into account transactions that are made on the account, reminders upcoming and also budgeted projections. This way I can see a profile of my account balance as the time moves forward.
I look forward to your advice and recommendations
7 Posted by Kevin Stembridg... on 09 May, 2020 12:55 AM
Hi Rich,
My advice is to ignore the budgeting features in Moneydance. Anything that you can represent in a Budget you can instead represent as a Transaction Reminder and there are a few benefits in doing so. I explain in more detail on this page.
http://moneyforesight.com/features/budgeting
Once you've got everything in Transaction Reminders you can use the forecast view to see your future cashflow and you can look at the Money Foresight Review to see how your past spending compares with what you expected it to be (just like in a budget).
Give that a try and give me a shout if you still need any help.
Regards,
Kevin
8 Posted by Rich W on 09 May, 2020 11:11 AM
Kevin
I am looking at this as an option in MoneyForesight (MF) , so I need to understand the logic in more detail I am afraid.
Firstly to say - I have existing transaction reminders which come out of my account (Account A) each month e.g. Phone Bill, water bill, electric bill etc. - These are fixed and known and feed into the forecast as categories and I know which account (Account A) they come from - thats understood.
I need to add a more generic category - Shopping - Groceries.. I don't know how much its going to be - lets say £50 per week - So I think we are saying I add a reminder called Shopping - Groceries (category Shopping - Groceries - £50) as a "New Transaction Reminder", not "New General reminder" in MoneyDance and then fill in Frequency (Weekly Monday) and Category £50 and I assume I use the account to be the Account (Account A) it comes from.. - My confusion is that I assume in the actual Account Transaction list for Account A, each monday a new transaction called Shopping Groceries will appear to be confirmed and I will have to delete it, or edit it should a REAL ONE actually be made .. is that what you are saying, or is there a way to set the transaction reminder so it appears in the Transaction Reminders section so can be used for your forecasting but doesn't actually get added to my real account (Account A) at all - In the Budget planner that is obviously not how that works because the budget is running in parallel to the account which in my example above isn't happening here. If I am right, then I was thinking i maybe create these 'Budget' transactions in a separate clone account (Account B) which could be included in the MF graphing options (Account A and Account B) but the I think it would appear as 2 graphs and not one merged one so that also wouldn't work ?? - Am i confused what you are saying ? - your advice as always is very much appreciated.
9 Posted by Kevin Stembridg... on 09 May, 2020 02:27 PM
Hi Rich,
When you create or edit a Transaction Reminder, you can choose if you want it to auto-commit or not. This means a transaction will automatically appear in your account register. For reminders that don't auto commit they will appear in the home page as overdue reminders. You can configure Money Foresight to take overdue reminders into account when it generates a forecast.
I think auto-commit doesn't make a lot of sense for an irregular expense such as groceries but you should definitely create a transaction reminder for it based on your average spending. Then when it becomes overdue you will have to select it in the Reminders view on the home page and choose 'skip'.
To make sure that your guess at an average grocery bill is accurate, keep an eye on the Money Foresight Review window.
Hope this helps,
Kevin
10 Posted by Rich W on 09 May, 2020 02:51 PM
Thank you Kevin
That makes sense. I will set up a test and let you know how it goes.
Rich
11 Posted by Rich W on 17 May, 2020 11:25 AM
Hello Kevin
I have followed the instructions that you provided and have set up the Budget Forecast Transaction reminders as you have said - It does work as you described for MoneyForecast and I can see how this can is a benefit - I have set up separate Budget Forecast Categories so they can be segregated and this helps me as I have now set them to Inactive so they don't show when I am adding real transactions in the Transaction register which is great.
The biggest 'issue' as we have mentioned that I have is the fact that the MoneyDance Reminders are recording as Overdue as the date has past - This is fine for MF as I have unticked the Include Overdue Reminders -but the only way to remove the them is as you say is to SKIP TRANSACTION which is a pain as you can only do it once at a time as far as I can see.
I have raised a suggestion in MoneyDance to see if its possible to exclude categories or reminder transactions .. but I doubt they'll do it as they wont see it as a problem for their tool - as they have their own Budget tool.
12 Posted by Rich W on 26 Jul, 2020 05:50 PM
Closing case. Nothing else to be done unless suggestion is take up by MD development
Rich W closed this discussion on 26 Jul, 2020 05:50 PM.