RE: How to reset/clear the budget and fix phantom budget expenses by LisaS
LisaS
Mon Jan 09 01:40:03 CST 2006
Me again.
Well I tried to go to sleep but bounded back out of bed to try one more
time, and I got it to work. I deleted both the loans and their automatically
scheduled payments, then was pleased to see that there were no entries at all
in the budget for the "Debt" category group.
I created my 2 loans anew, and I let Money create the automatically
scheduled payments. Yay, got what I wanted - no phantom bills!
So my advice is not to be timid here. If you have phantom bills appearing
in a subcategory, you need to move all entries at least temporarily out of
that subcategory. If the problem is higher up - in a category - then move
all those entries. In my case, the problem was all the way up at the
"category group" level, and deleting those entries did the trick. (I
couldn't merely move the entries b/c they're calculated loan principal.)
"LisaS" wrote:
> You describe the work-around better than MS Article ID 318841 does! I'm
> using 2004 Deluxe.
>
> Moving offending categories/subcategories to a temporary category DID work
> for me with respect to income and expenses, but I can't figure out how to get
> it to work for me with respect to the "Special/Debt" category that my 2
> amortized loans are automatically put into. Since the loan payments'
> principal doesn't go to either an income or expense category, there's nothing
> for me to move. I messed with deleting and recreating the loans, which
> changed the budget amounts but didn't get rid of the phantom bills in the
> budget.
>
> As a crude work-around, I tried to create a bogus expense subcategory for
> Debt, but it wouldn't allow me to enter the negative expenses I intended to
> offset the bogus ones.
>
> I am disgusted to read that even the 2006 version has this bug. I am SO
> frustrated that all my work at establishing a budget is wasted because of
> these stupid phantom bills!
>
> Any suggestions specific to the Special/Debt category? Bueller? Anyone?
>
>
> "matt" wrote:
>
> > Here's a way I found to reset the budget when there are "phantom" expenses
> > lurking around that don't seem to go away. These phantoms may also prevent
> > you from switching from essential to advanced budget mode. There's currently
> > no good KB article I could find to help me solve this problem. Hope this
> > helps
> >
> > Go to the budget tab.
> > Click on Edit expenses in the sidebar
> > Remove ALL categories (should say Total: $0) then click done
> > Now if you still have phantom expenses in your budget, and can't go to the
> > Advanced Budget, do the following
> >
> > Click on the Budget vs. Spending subtab
> > Make note of any phantom categories you see remaining in your budget (these
> > are what you need to get rid of)
> > Somehow, get to the Categories & Payees window (e.g. banking->account
> > tools->....)
> > For every category (subcategory) that you noted was a phantom in the budget:
> > - double click the (sub)category
> > - move all transactions to some temporary category (use only top-level
> > categories, not subcategories)
> > - when finished, click done
> > - from the Categories & Payess window, delete the phantom (sub)category
> > - when it asks for a new category to put the deleted stuff in, choose the
> > temporary category you just moved the transactions to
> >
> > After doing this for all phantom categories, go back to the budget tab.
> > Click on Edit expenses in the sidebar
> > You should now see the temporary categories - the phantoms have materialized!
> > Remove all the categories and click done
> >
> > This should have fully reset your budget. Move your transactions from the
> > temporary categories back to where they belong and rebuild your budget again
> > from the ground up.
> >
> > This worked for me. Hope it helps for you too.
> >
> >