Envelope Budgeting
Sherry
via web
I have been using Money Map for years and I love the envelope budgeting aspect. Unfortunately, I am having major problems with the program since I switched to VISTA so I need to find something else. Does Moneydance have envelope budgeting capability? Thanks for any help.
Support Staff 2 Posted by Ben Spencer on 19 Dec, 2009 07:08 PM
Hi Sherry
While Moneydance does not have a specific feature for the implementing of envelope budgeting it can most definately be done with moneydance. Here is a link to an article written by one of our users describing how to set up envilope budgeting in Moneydance.
http://moneydance.com/trac/wiki/Envelope_Budgeting
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
3 Posted by TJ Finlinson on 13 Feb, 2010 10:16 PM
To get an envelope feature moved up in the list of things to add to the program, more people need to vote on it.
There are at least 2 tickets created for envelope budgeting. You need to log in or create an account then click the thumbs up to vote.
http://moneydance.com/trac/ticket/1198
http://moneydance.com/trac/ticket/2158
4 Posted by pmad68 on 19 Feb, 2010 03:00 AM
Question when you are splitting the category should the amounts go in the increase column or decrease. If I use increase it doubles the amount of the ICP.
5 Posted by Kathy Waters on 19 Feb, 2010 03:09 PM
I am about a month into using Money Dance, and have also used an earlier version the same program as Sherry--with an envelope system--for several years. That's what I'm trying to do with MoneyDance, too. I have just figured out that my categories are all showing a negative balance when it means they really have that amount available to spend in them, so am searching for a way to reverse that. It looks like I need to change them from expense to income categories. Is there any way to do that without starting over from scratch, since I have a month's worth of entries I'd need to redo?
Thank you!
Support Staff 6 Posted by Ben Spencer on 19 Feb, 2010 03:17 PM
if you select multiple transactions and then right click on them and select batch change you can move them into a different category.
To do this go into the transactionregister for a particular expense category by selecting Tools->Edit Categories and double clicking on the expense category in question. Select one of the transactions in that category and then press command-L (ctrl-L on windows) to select all transactions in that category. Right click and select Batch Change->Account. (It is the account you are changing because you are on the other side of the transaction. I realize this is confusing but trust me.) Select the income category you want ot move the transactions into. Repeat for the other categories.
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
7 Posted by Kathy Waters on 19 Feb, 2010 03:35 PM
O.K. I've followed those steps, but I don't have "income" categories that I want to change these transactions to. Shall I set up a duplicate set of my expense categories as income categories--then move each group to them? Seems like that might work.
I've just also tried to "vote" on one of the tickets to include envelope budgeting. I tried to log in, but if I've set up a user name and password, I don't have a record of that. I did register and have a registry key recorded, but that's all. I tried to establish a user name and password, and received a window showing a need to verify a change from an old to a new password. Since I don't recall an old password--so feel stuck! Can you tell me what to do here?
Thanks very much for your quick response to my last question!
Support Staff 8 Posted by Ben Spencer on 19 Feb, 2010 03:46 PM
Yes, I would go ahead and create income categories of the appropriate names.
I have now changed you password for your trac account. I have emailed you privately with the new password.
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
9 Posted by pmad68 on 19 Feb, 2010 05:15 PM
I am not sure if my question was addressed?
10 Posted by Kathy Waters on 19 Feb, 2010 08:28 PM
Ben,
I'm not getting this to work so far. I've taken the steps you've described,
but when I pressed ctrl-L, a little window pops up that is some sort of a
calculator.
I was able to just hold down the control button and highlight all of the
calculations, so did that, then went on through the steps to batch change to
the new income account I just set up to correspond with this expense
account. But the balance doesn't reverse itself--now I have a negative
balance in an income account, instead of the positive balance I really have
and am trying to show.
So, I undid these steps, and went back to take another look at it. Now the
register in the the expense account category is missing every transaction
prior to 2/1/2010.
I'm really confused!
11 Posted by Kathy Waters on 19 Feb, 2010 08:44 PM
Ben,
I just closed the program and reopened it, and now all of the transactions
show up in that expense category again. :)
Still not sure how to clean up from negative to positive balances, though. .
.
Kathy
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kathy Waters <***@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: Envelope Budgeting [Questions]
To: Infinite Kind Support <***@moneydance.com>
Ben,
I'm not getting this to work so far. I've taken the steps you've described,
but when I pressed ctrl-L, a little window pops up that is some sort of a
calculator.
I was able to just hold down the control button and highlight all of the
calculations, so did that, then went on through the steps to batch change to
the new income account I just set up to correspond with this expense
account. But the balance doesn't reverse itself--now I have a negative
balance in an income account, instead of the positive balance I really have
and am trying to show.
So, I undid these steps, and went back to take another look at it. Now the
register in the the expense account category is missing every transaction
prior to 2/1/2010.
I'm really confused!
Support Staff 12 Posted by Ben Spencer on 19 Feb, 2010 08:48 PM
I am terribly sorry I gave you incorrect shortcut key instructions. The short cut key is ctrl-A to select all the transactions.
To clarify when you enter a transaction in the checking account selecting a income category, a deposit increases the value of the income category and a payment decreases the value of the income category.
If you still need to move transactions from one category to another you may find it easier to do so from the checking account register. i.e. in the checking account register sort the transactions by category by clicking in the category column header, select all the transactions for a particular category (select the first one and then shift click the last one to automatically select a range) and then right click and select Batch Change->Category.
Ben
13 Posted by Kathy Waters on 19 Feb, 2010 08:48 PM
O.K. Tried it again. I think I messed up before and changed to "category,"
rather than "account", as you'd said to do. Now I think it's working out.
I'll try a few more switches.
Kathy
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kathy Waters <***@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 2:44 PM
Subject: Fwd: Envelope Budgeting [Questions]
To: Infinite Kind Support <***@moneydance.com>
Ben,
I just closed the program and reopened it, and now all of the transactions
show up in that expense category again. :)
Still not sure how to clean up from negative to positive balances, though. .
.
Kathy
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kathy Waters <***@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: Envelope Budgeting [Questions]
To: Infinite Kind Support <***@moneydance.com>
Ben,
I'm not getting this to work so far. I've taken the steps you've described,
but when I pressed ctrl-L, a little window pops up that is some sort of a
calculator.
I was able to just hold down the control button and highlight all of the
calculations, so did that, then went on through the steps to batch change to
the new income account I just set up to correspond with this expense
account. But the balance doesn't reverse itself--now I have a negative
balance in an income account, instead of the positive balance I really have
and am trying to show.
So, I undid these steps, and went back to take another look at it. Now the
register in the the expense account category is missing every transaction
prior to 2/1/2010.
I'm really confused!
14 Posted by TJ Finlinson on 19 Feb, 2010 09:04 PM
I have been spending time trying to figure out how to make envelope budgeting work with the way I do my finances. I finally settled in a method that I am fairly happy with. I does involve creating income categories/accounts rather than using expense categories.
I followed the wiki post from gborland found at the following link.
http://moneydance.com/trac/wiki/Envelope_Budgeting
I set it up like the wiki says, but I was running into a few kinks that I was having a hard time figuring out. I have an account that I transfer money into every 2 weeks from my paycheck to cover all of my bills. I leave the rest in a separate checking account to cover my daily expenses (groceries, etc) The envelope system was working well with the income categories, and does show you a positive balance when you put money in (Fund your envelope) and when you spend you assign the category from your account to that specific income category and it deducts it and show you the new amount you have left to spend. This was great until I had a fund transfer between accounts. I get my head around how that would work with using a Income Cash Pool that was supposed to contain all of my income. I was trying to avoid putting dummy transactions into my account registers so that the envelopes and the accounts would still match up with the amounts.
I finally determined what works the best for me. I have no expense categories, they are all income categories. I put assign all of my income (paycheck, tax returns, gifts, etc) to my Income Cash Pool. Then I created an envelope income category, and then created income subcategories underneath that. I created an envelope for everything including my accounts. My idea to make it work like I wanted was to keep my envelope budgeting separate from my actual account transactions. The reason for this is that I don't have to worry about creating extra transactions in my accounts to keep my envelopes at the right balance. It seems to work just like I want it too. When I have a transfer between accounts,it goes as a transfer to another one of my accounts in the register, and if needed I can add a 'virtual' transaction in my envelope for that account. Because I don't have extra transactions in my accounts, it's eaisier to reconcile with my bank statements.
I tried doing sub accounts, but that didn't work for what I wanted. This is a great solution for me, and it works quite well. It would be nice to have support in the program for envelope budgeting, but in the meantime I'm happy with this solution.
Hope It makes some sense.
I am also kind of using the home page budget graph to show me quick balances for the income categories that I want to keep track of. You can uncheck the hide categories that aren't in budget and it will allow you to add them.
15 Posted by Kathy Waters on 09 Jul, 2011 11:20 PM
I hope someone can help me. I used MoneyDance just the evening before last,
and everything was working as it should. Today, when I try to open it, it
just puts a little icon on the bottom of my home page, but doesn't open.
I've tried shutting down and rebooting my computer twice, and it's still
doing it.
Any ideas?
Thank you!
Kathy Waters
On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Ben Spencer <
***@tenderapp.com> wrote:
16 Posted by jbnyt on 10 Jul, 2011 12:00 AM
Are you working on a Windows machine? If so, the program may be opening in minimized mode. If this is the case hover over the running item in the taskbar and you will see a thumbnail of the program. Right click on the thumbnail and select maximize.
If this doesn't resolve your problem please post back and include your versions of OS, Java and MD.
17 Posted by Kathy Waters on 10 Jul, 2011 07:48 PM
Bless you! Thank you! That did it!
Kathy
On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 7:00 PM, jbnyt <
***@tenderapp.com> wrote: