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Budget for non-monthly expenses

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jp

09 Apr, 2009 02:09 PM

I'm not sure if this is a problem or suggestion. How do I determine what heading to post under?

I'm having trouble budgeting for non-monthly expenses such as car insurance. I pay my car insurance twice a year. I have my budget set up as "semi-annually" but when I look at both the home page graph and the budget report, the bill appears as a monthly charge. Months the bill is not due I am under budget and in the months it is due I am way over budget.

What am I doing wrong?

If this can be fixed, it would give MD a strong advantage over alternatives like Mint.com. A budgeting "bug" is the reason I left Intuit. The Intuit software did not work right and when I contacted support, it seemed no one cared.

1. 1 Posted by jy on 09 Apr, 2009 02:33 PM

   

   Just though about a possible way to improve the budgeting of non-monthly expenses. I guess this is a suggestion, but I am including it here because it goes with my last post.

   What if non-monthly expenses were grouped at the bottom of the budget report and I needed to be a certain amount under budget to account for these future expenses?
   For example: I pay $600 for car insurance twice a year ($1200/yr or $100/mo). Months when car insurance is not due I should be $100 under budget so I have $ for when it is due. It's not that I should actually pay $100 to my insurance company to meet my budget, I should just make sure I have the money for when it is due.
   This is somewhat like envelope budgeting but in a simplified form...

   Also, in determining if I met my budget, MD should give me the option to include unforeseen expenses for which I did not budget. Right now, if it's not in my budget, MD does not include it. I should not have to include every category just to get MD to accurately show my budget.
   

   I'd still like to find a work around for solving this problem. Please let me know if there is something I can do now.

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2. 2 Posted by Brian Adler on 11 Apr, 2009 03:11 AM

   

   JP, If the car insurance budget is created to be "non-prorated", you won't encounter the issue you are describing. Prorating is causing it to attribute the budget expense in equal parts each month.

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3. Brian Adler closed this discussion on 11 Apr, 2009 03:11 AM.

4. jp re-opened this discussion on 11 Apr, 2009 02:52 PM

5. 3 Posted by jp on 11 Apr, 2009 02:52 PM

   

   Mr. Adler-

   Changing to "not pro rated" solved my problem. Thank you!
   

   Is there any way to include expenses for which I did not budget? For example, my budget does not include my "Travel" category. When I have a travel expense, it does not show up in my budget report.
   Is there any way to include un-budgeted expenses without including every category?

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6. 4 Posted by NW on 16 Apr, 2009 01:49 PM

   

   Hi - Yes I agree with jp. The Budget Report is not very useful if it does not include actual expenses where there is no budget set for that category. The big picture of a budget is to determine surplus or shortfall. Not showing actuals for all categories in the budget report irrespective of whether a budget is set is very misleading and does not provide very useful budgeting information. Thanks

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7. 5 Posted by dk on 25 Apr, 2009 11:29 PM

   

   Count me in on this as well. It's absolutely essential to me that the budget report include expenses in all categories budgeted and not budgeted for.

   That said, I'm going to try and work around this by explicitly entering $0 amounts for all categories that I have spent money in on the budget. Hopefully that will force those hidden categories to show up in the Budget Report. This really isn't a nice solution though, it's going to make the budget screen a bit messy.

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8. 6 Posted by Ben Spencer on 27 Apr, 2009 05:45 PM

   

   Hi all

   I agree that the budgeting system and budget reporting could be improved. I was speaking with Sean Reilly (the primary developer) about this just last week when I was working with a customer who was having a hard time understanding the budgeting functionality. While this is not at the top of the priority list, this is in the consciousness of the developer and I am moving this discussion into the suggestions category. Discussions in the the suggestions category will be considered when the next iteration of development gets under way.

   Thank you for your input.

   Sincerely

   Ben Spencer

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9. Ben Spencer closed this discussion on 27 Apr, 2009 05:45 PM.

10. brumikey re-opened this discussion on 18 May, 2009 07:57 PM

11. 7 Posted by brumikey on 18 May, 2009 07:57 PM

    

    +1

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12. 8 Posted by Ben Spencer on 10 Jun, 2009 08:12 PM

    

    We recently added a voting system to the bug/suggestion tracking system. I have created a ticket for showing expenses that are not budgeted for. Perhaps what this actually is is creating a zero budget for all categories unless otherwise specified. Anyway here is the ticket link:

    http://moneydance.com/trac/ticket/1919

    if you register and log in you can show your support for this issue by voting on it.

    Sincerely

    Ben Spencer

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13. Ben Spencer closed this discussion on 10 Jun, 2009 08:12 PM.

14. Angie Rauscher re-opened this discussion on 09 Aug, 2010 01:57 AM

15. Angie Rauscher closed this discussion on 09 Aug, 2010 01:59 AM.