Hi Mike, hi Lucas,
I see accounts and buckets as two different views on the same money:
The accounts tell you where you money is ("physically") and the
buckets tell you where all this money can go to. If the buckets total
is less than the accounts total you have money that you "can't" spend
(if you spent all money from all buckets, you would still have money
in your accounts but your buckets would not allow you spending it –
and you can't "magically create" money in a bucket without adding it
to an account as well). Similarly, if the buckets total is larger
than the accounts total the buckets will make you believe that you can
spend money even if the accounts total is zero (i.e., you will spend
more money than you own).
Thus, I believe it's crucially important to have accounts total and
buckets total match up (there are some exceptions though, e.g.
mortgage lines). If all your transactions (except "Initial Balance")
have buckets assigned (and transfers do not(!)) then the only thing
you need to do is to set up an "initial balance for buckets": Open the
"Change Cash Flow Start Date" dialog from the "Edit" menu. Make sure
the start date is set to when you began tracking your finances and
enter the amount of money that you had at that time in the "Amount"
field below (that should be the sum of the "Initial Balance"
transactions of all accounts). Now, you have that amount in some
income bucket from where you can distribute it to the other buckets –
and the total of account balances should match the total of the
buckets.
Cheers,
Christian
On Feb 19, 6:27 am, mikemc <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hey Lucas,
>
> If I am understanding you correctly you want to know why your
> Account's totals doesn't match your Bucket's total? If this is the
> case, I believe this will never happen nor should you be concerned
> with this. They are two different things. You want to reconcile (or
> balance) your accounts with your bank/credit card statements. The
> buckets are just a virtual layer/sandbox you set up to monitor your
> spending. To set bucket limits (how much you can put in the bucket)
> use the Spending Plan tool. To fill buckets go to the Allocate tool.
> Once you have buckets filled...as you enter transactions you assign
> each transaction a bucket and the appropriate funds will removed from
> your bucket. This way you always have a visual representation of how
> much money you have left in your buckets at any given time.
>
> If I didn't understand you correctly let me know...or someone else in
> the group will get you on the right path. If I did understand you
> correctly, then I suggest watching the helpful tutorials on the
> nothirst.com website - esp. "Understanding Moneywell" to understand
> the concepts of the software.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Mike
>
> On Feb 19, 12:33 am, Lucas Burke <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > I can't figure out how to get the total of my accounts and my buckets
> > to match up. I don't have any unassigned transactions. The initial
> > amounts are not assigned to any buckets, but the total of the
> > unassigned amounts does not make the difference. The accounts have a
> > total that is about $1,300 more than the buckets. Any help would be
> > appreciated!
>
> > Sincerely,
> > Lucas
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