Money 2006: Cash Flow vs Budgeting

I have a simple question (can provide more information if/when required),
but I've made a budget that 'supposedly balances'.

At the 'Enter you expenses' screen, the bottom says:

Total monthly income: XXX
Total monthly expenses: XXX
Left over: $126.95

When I click next, I get the option:

'You will have $95.48 to save or spend each month.'

My first question is why don't those two amounts match up?

Then finally (for now - I have found other weird behaviors in 'Budget
Summary' but maybe they'll clear up when/if I solve this problem), if I look
at my cash flow, it gradually goes 'downward' and eventually into the red -
which obviously I'm trying to avoid ;)

Please let me know if there are any known 'deficiancies' in cash flow and/or
budget. I did have to hastle around to get one of my money bills (transfer
into retirement account) to show up under the 'Transfer out of budget
account'...I think I just set the contribution account of the retirement
account to not be included in budgetting or something.

Dick
Tue Jan 30 20:46:12 CST 2007

Comments inline.

"Terry Aney" <terry.aney@charter.net> wrote in message
news:%23PGvezLRHHA.1200@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>I have a simple question (can provide more information if/when required),
>but I've made a budget that 'supposedly balances'.
>
> At the 'Enter you expenses' screen, the bottom says:
>
> Total monthly income: XXX
> Total monthly expenses: XXX
> Left over: $126.95
>
> When I click next, I get the option:
>
> 'You will have $95.48 to save or spend each month.'
>
> My first question is why don't those two amounts match up?

I can't say exactly. Generally AB says things with reasons that can be
deciphered if you spend long enough trying to figure out what it is doing.

> Then finally (for now - I have found other weird behaviors in 'Budget
> Summary' but maybe they'll clear up when/if I solve this problem), if I
> look at my cash flow, it gradually goes 'downward' and eventually into the
> red - which obviously I'm trying to avoid ;)

I'd look very closely at the cash flow settings to see if things that are
budgeted are also getting picked up from trended expenditures.

> Please let me know if there are any known 'deficiancies' in cash flow
> and/or budget.

Budget in general is a big furball that does lots of stuff that is
non-obvious and may require more trouble to figure out than it's worth. I
almost never try to answer Budget questions because they tend to turn oput
poorly--it works the way it does and few find that the way it works fits how
they want to see the problem. I get great utility from Forecast Cash Flow
but have spent a lot of effort getting there. I find it works best for me if
I tell it not to trend or reflect budget amounts. But I have LOTS of stuff
scheduled.

> I did have to hastle around to get one of my money bills (transfer into
> retirement account) to show up under the 'Transfer out of budget
> account'...I think I just set the contribution account of the retirement
> account to not be included in budgetting or something.

Mark
Thu Feb 01 08:59:26 CST 2007

I don't know what version of Money you're using. But in Money '04,
the bottom line in the budget planner (BP) is not very accurate.
For example, imagine that you have a bill pay setup for $100 that
will run for the next three months. BP will count this as $1200
of annual expense when it should only be $300.

The way to get more accurate numbers is to plug them into BP (because
that's the only place to do it) and then go into the Annual Budget
Report and look at the bottom line on it. The annual budget report
accurately accounts for the timing setup for anything setup in
Bills & Deposits.

This may be very different in Money '07 since it's got an entirely
new budget mechanism.

On 2007-01-30, Terry Aney <terry.aney@charter.net> wrote:
> I have a simple question (can provide more information if/when required),
> but I've made a budget that 'supposedly balances'.
>
> At the 'Enter you expenses' screen, the bottom says:
>
> Total monthly income: XXX
> Total monthly expenses: XXX
> Left over: $126.95
>
> When I click next, I get the option:
>
> 'You will have $95.48 to save or spend each month.'
>
> My first question is why don't those two amounts match up?
>
> Then finally (for now - I have found other weird behaviors in 'Budget
> Summary' but maybe they'll clear up when/if I solve this problem), if I look
> at my cash flow, it gradually goes 'downward' and eventually into the red -
> which obviously I'm trying to avoid ;)
>
> Please let me know if there are any known 'deficiancies' in cash flow and/or
> budget. I did have to hastle around to get one of my money bills (transfer
> into retirement account) to show up under the 'Transfer out of budget
> account'...I think I just set the contribution account of the retirement
> account to not be included in budgetting or something.
>
>

Chris
Thu Feb 01 19:40:49 CST 2007

"Mark Horn" <mark@hornclan.com> wrote in message
news:slrnes402e.v29.mark@home.hornclan.com...
>
> This may be very different in Money '07 since it's got an entirely
> new budget mechanism.

Answering from (flawed?) memory, it is not different in that regard.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL

Dick
Thu Feb 01 20:30:42 CST 2007

It's still got the old one as well. They've just tried to hide it from new
users. Perhaps issues like those described in the thread are one reason?

"Mark Horn" <mark@hornclan.com> wrote in message
news:slrnes402e.v29.mark@home.hornclan.com...
> This may be very different in Money '07 since it's got an entirely
> new budget mechanism.

Mark
Fri Feb 02 10:21:54 CST 2007

On 2007-02-01, Dick Watson <littlegreengecko@mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote:
> It's still got the old one as well. They've just tried to hide it from new
> users. Perhaps issues like those described in the thread are one reason?

Right. I should have been clearer. I meant something different.
With the new budget in M07, which does *not* draw information from
bills & deposits, I would think it would not have to worry about
the timing of a 3 month scheduled bill and incorrectly annualizing
that to 12 months. I have not seen this feature fixed in the 6
versions of Money that I've previously tried. I have no reason to
think that M07 would have fixed it in a budget that appears destined
for the scrap heap in M08.