Lance, You raise some good points, and I started to realize that simple Smart Buckets wouldn't be the ideal solution as I was typing it out; however...
Rather than querying money flows, which would probably be rather complex, I think that the same thing could be achieved if Smart Buckets allowed you to add or subtract selected bucket totals (buckets could be selected by name or by dollar amount) to the displayed Smart Bucket total. This should capture the desired money flows, and would likely be easier to use. So, the Smart Bucket would allow you to select which transactions you want displayed, and if you want to adjust the total of those transactions by a specified amount or specified bucket balances, or both. This would allow a person to check their document (accounts balances = bucket balances) as well as check for how much you have overspent. You could verify that this is less than a Buffer or savings bucket, or a preplanned buffer that you included when first setting up the initial cash flow. In any case, I think you're right, even Smart Buckets (without displaying totals that can be adjusted by bucket balances or moneyflows) wouldn't completely automate the process of ensuring the document is in balance, but it would eliminate several steps. Blair On Apr 19, 2009, at 10:49 AM, Lance wrote: > > On Apr 18, 10:57 pm, The Watkinson Family <thewatkins...@mac.com> > wrote: >> Lance, >> >> Would it need to be anything more complicated than this? Or is there >> something I'm missing? >> > > Ok, I see what you're saying now but I'm not sure that's much of an > improvement over what we currently have. I'd like a smart bucket that > shows the difference between the sum of my cash flow accounts and my > bucket balances (which will always be $0 for me) so I can immediately > see if I have any errors without having to visually compare two > numbers or click anywhere. > > Since real buckets have both a list of associated transactions and a > list of associated money flows, perhaps each smart bucket could have > two separate queries and would sum the amounts together. Then you > could still easily create simple transaction only based queries, but > if you wanted, you could also flip to a Money Flow query tab as well. > > I see smart buckets as being really useful to "combine" multiple > physical buckets you already have. For example, I could create a smart > bucket that combines my bills into a single smart bucket, or even > create "discretionary" and "non-discretionary" buckets. Maybe even > "first half" and "second half" of the month expense buckets. Lots of > possibilities here. > > All of these would require the ability to query on money flows to make > them useful and work similar to existing buckets. If I were limited to > transaction only queries, there are one or two I might use (sum of > open transactions), but overall I wouldn't find the feature very > useful. But perhaps others see usages I don't. > > -Lance > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 no-thirst-software@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to no-thirst-software+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
