[moneydance] Budget manager questions

[Brett Russ]

Don,
Let me try to answer at least one of your questions below.
A budget is nothing more than a financial plan.  It allows you to set
categorized income and expense values.  Then, by adding all of your
transactions to MD like you always do, you can assess your progress
against the budget by creating a budget report.  The start/end dates
define the date at which that budget line item goes into (or comes out
of) effect.  So if I were you I'd create the budget with a start date
of Sept 1, 2007 which will begin counting all of this months expenses
against that budget.  I agree that monthly works for most expenses,
but some bills are issued at different frequencies, such as quarterly,
etc.  Therefore, those budget line items can be set to the
corresponding frequency.

So I think the key that you may be missing is the budget report,
accessed by clicking on the "graphs and reports" link in the top right
of the MD home page.  You can define the period of time you evaluate
your progress against the budget and then see how you did.

Does this help?
BR

On 9/9/07, Don <dlbrett at zoominternet.net> wrote:
> Thanks for the reply, I appreciate your insight.  You gave me some great
> answers, unfortunately, my questions might not have been so good!  On
> the budget intent question, maybe I should just state the problem I have:
>
> I would like to create a personal family budget.  I think I need to
> determine my income and expense patterns on a periodic basis, probably
> monthly.  I would like to figure out how much I will owe, who to pay,
> when to pay them, how much to pay them, and divert as much as I can to
> expensive loans or savings accounts; all in September, then October,
> etc.  By the way, is this how a budget is normally done, or ...?
>
> The budget manager does a good job of calculating income and expenses
> (calculate button), but where does it go from there?  Are the start and
> end dates used for anything other than notes?  Should I spread the dates
> over the entire year, or ...?  Thanks again for the help,
>
> Don
>
>
> Yehudit Winiarz wrote:
> > Don,
> >
> > To answer your questions:
> >
> > 1. a budget can be created either for comparative purposes or to track
> > different income and expenses. Take for example, your budget for heating
> > your home in the winter is much different than it is in the summer (unless
> > you live in sub zero areas).
> >
> > 2. I don't find that putting a different past or present date in the
> > "effective date" changes the bottom right calculations in that it will
> > calculate how much income and expenses will be used from this month, year,
> > past 30 or 365 days, by following this particular budget. If you put a
> > future date, you are not yet using this budget, thereby giving you a $0.00
> > output for the current month or any previous dates.
> >
> > 3. From what I gather, yes. But if you are making a Winter budget and a
> > summer budget you'll probably want them to start and end at different times.
> >
> > 4. It's a good idea to have some budget goals in mind, written down on
> > paper, before using the budget manager. If you are starting without any
> > prior records, you'll have to use your own estimates. If you already have a
> > few months' worth of data entered, you can print a copy of the Cash Flow
> > Report for those months and use them to estimate your budget. I saved up and
> > entered all my data over a few months and then used the manager to calculate
> > estimates, and then tweaked them when necessary.
> >
> > 5. That's how I understand it.
> >
> > 6. See #3
> >
> > 7. See #3
> >
> > 8. That is what I have found. However, this is where I have questions -
> > which I will post separately. BTW,you can use the + and - in the lower left
> > corner to remove or add budget lines. Also, usually everything is editable -
> > just double click the field.
> >
> > Take care,
> > Yehudit
> >
> >
> >
> > On 9/3/07, Don <dlbrett at zoominternet.net> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm trying to figure out how to best use the budget manager.  I read the
> >> online instructions, but it's still not obvious to me, so I have some
> >> questions: (Note - Starting path is: Tools -> Budget Manager -> New)
> >>
> >> 1. What is the intent of a given budget plan?  The manager supports up
> >> to ten plans, so it must not be a monthly thing.  Is it a plan for the
> >> entire account or ......?
> >>
> >> 2. Pressing the "Calculate" button offers some options.  If I enter a
> >> date from a future month, the totals at the bottom right are zero.  A
> >> future date from this month gives low numbers, a past date from any past
> >> month gives a high number.  What is the purpose of the "Effective On"
> >> entry?
> >>
> >> 3. When calculating, the "Effective On" date ends up in the "Start Date"
> >> column.  Does "Effective On" equal "Start Date"?
> >>
> >> 4. What should be the "Effective On" date for the budget plan?  Should
> >> this be a future date, or match the first date of the selected "Date"
> >> field, or today, or the first date of some month, or ....?
> >>
> >> 5. Pressing the "Calculate" button results in the amount field being
> >> populated.  It looks like the amount values are based upon past
> >> payments, averaged over the selected "Date" period, for a period
> >> (monthly, yearly, etc).  Is this correct?
> >>
> >> 6. What is the intended purpose of the "End Date" column.  Is it a
> >> monthly payment, or approximate payment time, or ....?
> >>
> >> 7. Is the "End Date" field meant for one-time or recurring payments?.
> >> If recurring, what time span should it cover?
> >>
> >> 8. The calculate function results in values populated in the "Amount"
> >> column.  It seems to search every account for every transactions, in
> >> every category, for the specified time period.  Is this correct?
> >>
> >> Well, that's probably enough for today.  Thanks for the help!
> >>
> >> Don
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> moneydance-info mailing list
> >> moneydance-info at moneydance.com
> >> http://moneydance.com/mailman/listinfo/moneydance-info
> >>
> >>
> _______________________________________________
> moneydance-info mailing list
> moneydance-info at moneydance.com
> http://moneydance.com/mailman/listinfo/moneydance-info
>