Re: Can Money manage my budget like this? by Dick
Dick
Fri Jun 22 17:18:58 CDT 2007
The primary problem you describe sounds like a cash flow question not a
budget question, at least in terms of how Money approaches and solves the
problems.
Budget, as Money solves, is good at helping you assure that your income is
in balance with your expenses over the long haul. It answers the question:
will my planned income and expenses create or destroy wealth? Can I sustain
specified income and expenses without going broke? The "Advanced Budget"
tool is probably better and certainly more rigorous in approaching this
question, but they are essentially trying to make it go away since it "has
some issues" and since many users can't/won't figure out how to deal with
it. You might read the online help under budget to learn about the three
(yikes, I know) different budget models supported in M07 Deluxe.
Forecast Cash Flow depends on good balance information and transaction entry
and uses that and Scheduled Bills to predict what your available cash
balance will be in any/all cash accounts at some point in the future. It
answers the question: given my balance, planned income, and planned
expenses, will I have enough in the checking account in two weeks to spend
$42.50 on gasoline? Used well--generally this means you've got to tell Money
lots of stuff about your scheduled income and expenses--it will provide a
good tool to predict how much free cash you will have at points in the
future. It also depends upon Advanced Register and Advanced Bills modes.
None of the Essential(ly useless) stuff will do. You can read up on Forecast
Cash Flow in online help as well.
But Money does not guess nor do Artificial Intelligence. It's only as good
as what you've told it. Anything else is just GIGO. (Garbage In, Garbage
Out.)
I'm sorry I can't be more precise--your questions are kinda the Money
equivalent of "tell me how to build a bridge".
"Chris Lukowski" <ChrisLukowski@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:506A9FF0-B98B-425D-B95E-62FF2714191F@microsoft.com...
>I am trying to configure Money 2007 Deluxe Trial to accomplish the
>following
> things for me, yet I'm having trouble wrapping my brain on how to
> accomplish
> it. Right now I'm living paycheck to paycheck and need something to help
> me
> budget out my grocery/leftover expenses so I'll know I have enough for my
> bills that come at different times of the month. I'd also like the ability
> to
> help me plan how much I need to save for future vacations and things of
> that
> nature. Is there an online guide to help me configure Money in such a
> manner?
> Do I need the Premium edition for any of these needs?