Dan, Like I mentioned earlier today, getting started with any financial software is difficult, and I think it is a challenge to have video tutorials that address each unique situation. For that matter, trying to write an e-mail may even be more difficult.
I will try and mention some things that might address your situation. I'm starting a new document today, and archiving my old one. I am not bringing any of the old transactions from 2008 into my new document. Instead, I'm just setting the starting balance of each account to the actual account balance as of close of business yesterday. In my mind, it's easier to do this than to have a history of transactions, because you either have to use an Initial Rollover date, which, if set incorrectly can lead to other errors in your document (you allocate more money than you actually have), or take a complicated approach of assigning all previous transactions to a single bucket and accounting for that somehow. If you can identify what your account balances are on 31 Dec, that may be a good way to go (not have historical transactions, and just start fresh with 1 Jan). This method also has the potential for error (your account balance might change a little if you have transactions that haven't posted, yet), but if you assign each of your starting balances to an income bucket, if you later have to change your starting balance to get the account to reconcile, the amount assigned to the bucket will change as well, and limit the effects of the error. Assuming that you have assigned starting balances to a Salary bucket, in order to initially establish your buckets with money that you have saved up in your envelopes, do a manual money flow. This can be done by dragging the Salary bucket on top of the appropriate expense bucket. This will give you a baseline in each of your buckets. You should only have to do this once. When you allocate your monthly income, using the Allocate Income function will automatically allocate the money to your buckets. If you don't want to drag the buckets all around, you could open the spending plan and, instead of entering your monthly amount to be allocated, you can enter the money currently in your envelopes, then allocate. This approach may be faster if you have several envelopes that you track with a spreadsheet or other software. After you do this, you'll have to change your spending plan to the appropriate monthly amounts before you allocate your paycheck. Please let me know if you need further clarification or have other details that will illumine your particular situation. Blair On Jan 1, 2009, at 8:28 PM, Dan wrote: > > Sorry, but I cannot figure out how to get started. I have loaded most > of my online accounts and MW downloaded a whole bunch of transactions. > I have money from last year remaining in most of the expense > envelopes, but cannot see how to create a starting balance in the > expense envelopes. In addition all the transactions downloaded are > prior to today. I understand I'm supposed to start on the first of the > month, but just don't see how to do it. I've been through all the > tutorials. Just being slow, I guess. > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "No Thirst Software User Forum" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
