Kriya, In order to know exactly how much money you have to allocate, as well as allow you to change your starting balance to some point in the past or in the future, I recommend a slightly different approach.
You might consider making a backup of your file and comparing the two approaches and considering which you prefer. The method below eliminates the trouble of "finding an account balance." Set your Cash Flow Amount to $0. Your Salary bucket will probably go to negative if you have already allocated money from it. That's okay, we'll fix it with a few more steps. Go back to a point in time for each of your accounts when you knew the balance. This might be as far back as your most recent statement, or it could be a few days ago, if your bank reports an end of day balance on-line. For each account, set the Starting Balance transaction to this date, with the known amount, and assign the transaction to the Salary bucket you were using before. In order to make sure that MoneyWell accounts for all of this money you have put in your Salary bucket, you'll need to set the Cash Flow Start Date to a date prior to all of the starting balance dates noted above. Now, you can be assured of several things--the money that MoneyWell thinks you have, ie, that you put into buckets, actually exists in your checking, cash, and credit accounts. You can enter transactions for each of your accounts since that date. What I have done is assign these transactions to a "Previous Transactions" bucket that I will eventually hide. Once all the transactions from previous months (prior to when I want to start using the bucket system) have been accounted for, I will create a manual money flow from my Salary bucket to my Previous Transactions bucket to zero out the latter bucket. Now, my Salary bucket has all the money that I can allocate for the next month. With the above setup, you should be able to move your paycheck from 30 Dec to 1 Jan, if you wanted to, without causing any problems, but you also wouldn't need to. The money you deposited on 30 Dec would still be available for allocation. Regarding your expenses at the end of the month. If you want them to count against your buckets for Jan, you would need to assign those transactions to the appropriate bucket (rather than Previous Transactions) and change the transaction date to sometime in Jan. For example, if you bought groceries on 30 Dec, you would set the transaction date to 1 Jan, and assign the transaction to your Groceries bucket, not your Previous Transactions bucket. Lastly, if you only get paid once a month, change all of your Spending Plan allocations to first half. Then, when you allocate, the money available in the designated Salary buckets will be allocated to your expense buckets until it is depleted. Your buckets will receive the total intended monthly allocation, rather than only half. This is the only effect that changing your allocation to First Half will have. Grace to you, Blair On Jan 3, 2009, at 1:29 PM, Kriya wrote: > > Right, but there is just no way for me to be completely accurate as of > 1/1 with how much "salary" I had left to spend because I was spending > from several sources that didn't include salary money, and it's not as > simple as finding a balance. This is the first time I am budgeting > this way, so I wasn't keeping track of the amounts I was spending from > different places. I can't get an accurate "left to spend" amount for > my salary because of how much I spent over two days from various > sources that I didn't track well. > > I think the best way for me to start is to reset my cash flow for 2/1, > pretend to receive my salary then (instead of the 30th), and not spend > at all until then. Would you agree? Wish me luck... it would be so > much easier if I could start my cash flow on the 30th. > > There does still seem to be a glitch in the cash flow date window, as > it sometimes accepts my new salary amount and makes accurate changes, > while sometimes I have to re-input three or four times. > > Also, since I don't do things right now according to first and second > month halves (I have in the past), is there a way to eliminate this > from my spending plan? If I have the allocation set to first half, do > the halves affect anything at all outside of the spending plan view? > > Thanks again. > > > > > On Jan 3, 12:48 pm, Kevin Hoctor <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Jan 3, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Kriya wrote: >> >>> Okay, I understand... I am just having trouble with that because >>> the >>> few purchase made on 12/30 came from different places... not just >>> my >>> regular salary. With the holidays having just occurred, I had all >>> sorts of nonregular income and purchases. I really wanted to start >>> fresh on 12/30, but I understand that I'll need to wait until >>> February >>> to really see everything accurately. >> >> Kriya, >> >> Actually, January should look fine. Remember that cash flow and >> spending history are really separate. You still will see your buckets >> showing historic spending even if you restart your cash flow tracking >> each month. >> >>> One more question... can I change the start date and balance of my >>> bank account without having to create a new one, should I decide >>> to go >>> back further into last year? >> >> Yes, you can just change the date and amount on your starting balance >> transaction. >> >> Peace, >> >> Kevin Hoctor >> [email protected] >> No Thirst Software LLChttp://nothirst.comhttp:// >> kevinhoctor.blogspot.com > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "No Thirst Software User Forum" group. 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