Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Adrien Monteleone]

There already is a module system which is how the business features were
brought in, but my understanding is that the plan is to remove this in
favor of a full and proper SQL backend which would make pulling or
inserting GnuCash data trivial for interoperability with other packages so
GnuCash can focus on accounting instead of the kitchen sink.

On Sunday, February 4, 2018, Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> So there really is more than one way to skin a cat... or make a budget.
> Whatever.
>
> Since we are talking about something very personal to the needs of
> individuals, perhaps Gnucash needs a ‘add module’ system, where we can
> write modules that perform data access and manipulation? So we could write
> an “envelope budgeting” module that can overlay in the Gnucash environment.
>
> Seems a waste to have to export to another tool to do a small part of
> budgeting.
>
> Thanks and regards,
>
> Matt
>
> From: Mike or Penny Novack<mailto:stepbystepf...@dialup4less.com>
> Sent: Monday, 5 February 2018 3:12 AM
> To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
> Subject: Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets
>
> On 2/4/2018 1:21 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:
> > Looks nice. My main concern with these "shadow accounts" is that they
> will,
> > by default, be counted in the Net worth reports, income reports, etc, and
> > must be manually deselected every time.
> >
> > In my view budget allocations are technically "outside the books" and
> must
> > therefore ideally be recorded in ways that don't affect the everyday data
> > and reports.
> >
> The problems people have been discussing are really "work flow" and "how
> done" issues.
>
> a) As noted in the second paragraph, technically "outside the books". So
> ONE solution is to do just that, a separate set of "books" (gnucash can
> handle many). That obviously would mean no effect on reports run against
> the regular books. And of course that could be using the built in budget
> facility.
>
> b) But it seems most would prefer not having to switch books to record
> the effect on budget items resulting from the real transactions. I can
> think of MANY ways to put the "budget" accounts so that they would have
> no net effect on reports, total of the parent standing accounts (asset,
> liability, equity). What I can't see is any easy way to "automate"
> because IN GENERAL users, especially non-organizational users, will be
> ADJUSTING budget allocations on the fly as needed << don't need a vote
> of some board to authorize that >>
>
> c) Some people seem to be confused about "liabilities" thinking that
> they NECESSARILY represent an actual debt (the most common use) instead
> of possibly representing a CONDITIONAL debt. I will note that some of
> the things I have mentioned in this context (especially for non-profit
> orgs) may be changing << I have heard that new accounting practice will
> allow some restricted funds not to be considered liabilities
> until/unless something prevents their use for the intended purpose
> instead of as now from the get go as a conditional debt* >>
>
> d) IF I wanted to put the "envelopes" in my main books, I could put them
> under assets, liabilities, or equity WITHOUT affecting the totals of any
> of those. Thus:
> Budget (the parent)
>   Total allocated funds(debit side?)
> Allocations   (credit side?)
> Each individual envelope
> << all that matters is that Total Allocated Funds and
> Allocations be on opposite sides --- which means the total for the
> parent "Budget" will be ZERO >>
>
> Michael D Novack
>
> * In my practical experience, donors of conditional gifts or grants
> often will agree to a change of use, extension of time to use, etc. But
> I have never had to deal with governmental grants, etc. which I suspect
> would be less forgiving. But I also have practical experience where ALL
> there is is budget accounting << the organization or committee has no
> funds in hand --- the budget represents what will be reimbursed if the
> committee votes to authorize an expenditure and some committee member
> goes out and spends the money --- and then submits the receipts to the
> town treasurer for reimbursement. The committee must track "how much do
> we have left to spend" or somebody will be out of pocket >>
>
>
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RE: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Matt Graham]

So there really is more than one way to skin a cat... or make a budget. 
Whatever.

Since we are talking about something very personal to the needs of individuals, 
perhaps Gnucash needs a ‘add module’ system, where we can write modules that 
perform data access and manipulation? So we could write an “envelope budgeting” 
module that can overlay in the Gnucash environment.

Seems a waste to have to export to another tool to do a small part of budgeting.

Thanks and regards,

Matt

From: Mike or Penny Novack<mailto:stepbystepf...@dialup4less.com>
Sent: Monday, 5 February 2018 3:12 AM
To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

On 2/4/2018 1:21 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:
> Looks nice. My main concern with these "shadow accounts" is that they will,
> by default, be counted in the Net worth reports, income reports, etc, and
> must be manually deselected every time.
>
> In my view budget allocations are technically "outside the books" and must
> therefore ideally be recorded in ways that don't affect the everyday data
> and reports.
>
The problems people have been discussing are really "work flow" and "how
done" issues.

a) As noted in the second paragraph, technically "outside the books". So
ONE solution is to do just that, a separate set of "books" (gnucash can
handle many). That obviously would mean no effect on reports run against
the regular books. And of course that could be using the built in budget
facility.

b) But it seems most would prefer not having to switch books to record
the effect on budget items resulting from the real transactions. I can
think of MANY ways to put the "budget" accounts so that they would have
no net effect on reports, total of the parent standing accounts (asset,
liability, equity). What I can't see is any easy way to "automate"
because IN GENERAL users, especially non-organizational users, will be
ADJUSTING budget allocations on the fly as needed << don't need a vote
of some board to authorize that >>

c) Some people seem to be confused about "liabilities" thinking that
they NECESSARILY represent an actual debt (the most common use) instead
of possibly representing a CONDITIONAL debt. I will note that some of
the things I have mentioned in this context (especially for non-profit
orgs) may be changing << I have heard that new accounting practice will
allow some restricted funds not to be considered liabilities
until/unless something prevents their use for the intended purpose
instead of as now from the get go as a conditional debt* >>

d) IF I wanted to put the "envelopes" in my main books, I could put them
under assets, liabilities, or equity WITHOUT affecting the totals of any
of those. Thus:
Budget (the parent)
  Total allocated funds(debit side?)
Allocations   (credit side?)
Each individual envelope
<< all that matters is that Total Allocated Funds and
Allocations be on opposite sides --- which means the total for the
parent "Budget" will be ZERO >>

Michael D Novack

* In my practical experience, donors of conditional gifts or grants
often will agree to a change of use, extension of time to use, etc. But
I have never had to deal with governmental grants, etc. which I suspect
would be less forgiving. But I also have practical experience where ALL
there is is budget accounting << the organization or committee has no
funds in hand --- the budget represents what will be reimbursed if the
committee votes to authorize an expenditure and some committee member
goes out and spends the money --- and then submits the receipts to the
town treasurer for reimbursement. The committee must track "how much do
we have left to spend" or somebody will be out of pocket >>


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Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/4/2018 1:21 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:

Looks nice. My main concern with these "shadow accounts" is that they will,
by default, be counted in the Net worth reports, income reports, etc, and
must be manually deselected every time.

In my view budget allocations are technically "outside the books" and must
therefore ideally be recorded in ways that don't affect the everyday data
and reports.

The problems people have been discussing are really "work flow" and "how 
done" issues.


a) As noted in the second paragraph, technically "outside the books". So 
ONE solution is to do just that, a separate set of "books" (gnucash can 
handle many). That obviously would mean no effect on reports run against 
the regular books. And of course that could be using the built in budget 
facility.


b) But it seems most would prefer not having to switch books to record 
the effect on budget items resulting from the real transactions. I can 
think of MANY ways to put the "budget" accounts so that they would have 
no net effect on reports, total of the parent standing accounts (asset, 
liability, equity). What I can't see is any easy way to "automate" 
because IN GENERAL users, especially non-organizational users, will be 
ADJUSTING budget allocations on the fly as needed << don't need a vote 
of some board to authorize that >>


c) Some people seem to be confused about "liabilities" thinking that 
they NECESSARILY represent an actual debt (the most common use) instead 
of possibly representing a CONDITIONAL debt. I will note that some of 
the things I have mentioned in this context (especially for non-profit 
orgs) may be changing << I have heard that new accounting practice will 
allow some restricted funds not to be considered liabilities 
until/unless something prevents their use for the intended purpose 
instead of as now from the get go as a conditional debt* >>


d) IF I wanted to put the "envelopes" in my main books, I could put them 
under assets, liabilities, or equity WITHOUT affecting the totals of any 
of those. Thus:

   Budget (the parent)
 Total allocated funds(debit side?)
   Allocations   (credit side?)
   Each individual envelope
   << all that matters is that Total Allocated Funds and 
Allocations be on opposite sides --- which means the total for the 
parent "Budget" will be ZERO >>


Michael D Novack

* In my practical experience, donors of conditional gifts or grants 
often will agree to a change of use, extension of time to use, etc. But 
I have never had to deal with governmental grants, etc. which I suspect 
would be less forgiving. But I also have practical experience where ALL 
there is is budget accounting << the organization or committee has no 
funds in hand --- the budget represents what will be reimbursed if the 
committee votes to authorize an expenditure and some committee member 
goes out and spends the money --- and then submits the receipts to the 
town treasurer for reimbursement. The committee must track "how much do 
we have left to spend" or somebody will be out of pocket >>



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Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Edward Bridges]

We're getting into nebulous, philosophical territory, but I'll take you up on 
your position.

By putting cash into an envelope, it's allocated and is now an obligation.  If 
you have made the decision to abide by the purpose of allocating monies to 
envelopes, then you understand that the cash you've put in the envelope is 
committed.   You're now obligated to use it for that purpose.

In my CofA, "Budgets" is a top-level account and all budget accounts are 
sub-accounts of that -- including budgeted cash.  As such, it's balance should 
always be "0".

It actually works quite nicely!


On Sun, Feb 4, 2018, at 8:34 AM, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
> If the money is physically divided into envelopes, or left in some bank 
> account and ‘segregated in place’ then it IS an asset.
> 
> If this allocation is merely virtual and has no relationship to where it 
> actually exists, then it isn’t ANY of the top level accounts, certainly 
> NOT a liability. You don’t owe that money to anyone. A liability is an 
> accrued expense, that is, an expense you owe but haven’t paid yet.
> 
> Sure, you haven’t paid budgeted expenses yet, but you don’t owe money 
> you’ve budgeted. No one has any claim on your assets for that amount.
> 
> At best, it is your own claim against your own assets, which would make 
> it an element of Equity. But even that is problematic as tracking it 
> appropriately results in the temporary inflation of both assets and 
> equity until the money is actually spent on expenses.
> 
> This is why I stopped using GnuCash for the purpose, and why, although 
> I’d like this functionality to be in the same place, I think I’m more of 
> the opinion as expressed on gnucash-devel that the proper way to handle 
> this is export my revenue and expense transactions into some other app 
> that handles the budgeting according to the method I desire to use.
> 
> It just can’t be shoehorned properly into the standard top level account 
> structure.
> 
> Regards,
> Adrien
> 
> > On Feb 4, 2018, at 5:44 AM, Edward Bridges  wrote:
> > 
> > I understand your concern, but I don't think that would be the
> > case here.
> > They may be included in the net worth but because all entries net to
> > zero they are balanced and they have no net effect on net worth.
> > The issue I've seen with previous proposals both here and in the
> > mentioned blog post is that income allocated to envelopes is treated as
> > an asset -- which it really shouldn't be.  By treating it as a liability
> > you can balance that allocated income to expenses as they get allocated.
> > 
> > On Sun, Feb 4, 2018, at 1:21 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:
> >> Looks nice. My main concern with these "shadow accounts" is that they
> >> will, by default, be counted in the Net worth reports, income reports,
> >> etc, and must be manually deselected every time.> 
> >> In my view budget allocations are technically "outside the books" and
> >> must therefore ideally be recorded in ways that don't affect the
> >> everyday data and reports.> 
> >> On 4 Feb 2018 8:43 AM, "ebridges"  wrote:
> >>> Sorry for the delayed response, just managing to catch up on this
> >>> thread.>> 
> >>> I've been looking at how to do envelope-style budgeting for my
> >>> personal>>  finances using GnuCash for about 6-7 months.  Like you, this 
> >>> began
> >>> with this>>  article from 2008 "[Better Budgeting with
> >>> GnuCash"]
> >>> (http://allmybrain.com/2008/12/15/better-budgeting-with-gnucash/).>> 
> >>> After toying around with that approach, I decided there were two
> >>> drawbacks>>  to it:
> >>> 
> >>> 1. It was tedious.  Manually creating a split for every expense to
> >>>draw down>>  budget accounts ("envelopes") that were allocated 
> >>> previously,
> >>> was super>>  boring and error prone.  In addition, because of the detailed
> >>> nature of>>  doing this work, one would be discouraged from allocating 
> >>> all of
> >>> your income>>  to different "envelopes".
> >>> 2. It was fragile.  By treating "Budgeted Cash" as an asset made
> >>>allocated>>  money difficult to reconcile to money that was drawn out 
> >>> of your
> >>> budget>>  accounts.  A useful insight in that article is to consider a 
> >>> budget
> >>> account>>  as a liability.  However, it categorizes budgeted cash as an 
> >>> Asset,
> >>> when it>>  is more useful to consider it also as a liability.  Doing so 
> >>> allows
> >>> you to>>  reconcile allocated money to monies spent out of the 
> >>> "envelopes".
> >>> 
> >>> For the past month, I've been able to apply an approach to my
> >>> existing>>  reconciliation process that I believe will prove to be a very
> >>> useful and>>  easy to manage approach to envelope budgeting for personal 
> >>> finance.>> 
> >>> To simplify allocating income and expenses to envelopes I use two
> >>> tools:>> 
> >>> * [QifQif](https://github.com/Kraymer/qifqif) which makes it easy to
> >>>   quickly>>  insert categories 

Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Adrien Monteleone]

If the money is physically divided into envelopes, or left in some bank account 
and ‘segregated in place’ then it IS an asset.

If this allocation is merely virtual and has no relationship to where it 
actually exists, then it isn’t ANY of the top level accounts, certainly NOT a 
liability. You don’t owe that money to anyone. A liability is an accrued 
expense, that is, an expense you owe but haven’t paid yet.

Sure, you haven’t paid budgeted expenses yet, but you don’t owe money you’ve 
budgeted. No one has any claim on your assets for that amount.

At best, it is your own claim against your own assets, which would make it an 
element of Equity. But even that is problematic as tracking it appropriately 
results in the temporary inflation of both assets and equity until the money is 
actually spent on expenses.

This is why I stopped using GnuCash for the purpose, and why, although I’d like 
this functionality to be in the same place, I think I’m more of the opinion as 
expressed on gnucash-devel that the proper way to handle this is export my 
revenue and expense transactions into some other app that handles the budgeting 
according to the method I desire to use.

It just can’t be shoehorned properly into the standard top level account 
structure.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Feb 4, 2018, at 5:44 AM, Edward Bridges  wrote:
> 
> I understand your concern, but I don't think that would be the
> case here.
> They may be included in the net worth but because all entries net to
> zero they are balanced and they have no net effect on net worth.
> The issue I've seen with previous proposals both here and in the
> mentioned blog post is that income allocated to envelopes is treated as
> an asset -- which it really shouldn't be.  By treating it as a liability
> you can balance that allocated income to expenses as they get allocated.
> 
> On Sun, Feb 4, 2018, at 1:21 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:
>> Looks nice. My main concern with these "shadow accounts" is that they
>> will, by default, be counted in the Net worth reports, income reports,
>> etc, and must be manually deselected every time.> 
>> In my view budget allocations are technically "outside the books" and
>> must therefore ideally be recorded in ways that don't affect the
>> everyday data and reports.> 
>> On 4 Feb 2018 8:43 AM, "ebridges"  wrote:
>>> Sorry for the delayed response, just managing to catch up on this
>>> thread.>> 
>>> I've been looking at how to do envelope-style budgeting for my
>>> personal>>  finances using GnuCash for about 6-7 months.  Like you, this 
>>> began
>>> with this>>  article from 2008 "[Better Budgeting with
>>> GnuCash"]
>>> (http://allmybrain.com/2008/12/15/better-budgeting-with-gnucash/).>> 
>>> After toying around with that approach, I decided there were two
>>> drawbacks>>  to it:
>>> 
>>> 1. It was tedious.  Manually creating a split for every expense to
>>>draw down>>  budget accounts ("envelopes") that were allocated 
>>> previously,
>>> was super>>  boring and error prone.  In addition, because of the detailed
>>> nature of>>  doing this work, one would be discouraged from allocating all 
>>> of
>>> your income>>  to different "envelopes".
>>> 2. It was fragile.  By treating "Budgeted Cash" as an asset made
>>>allocated>>  money difficult to reconcile to money that was drawn out of 
>>> your
>>> budget>>  accounts.  A useful insight in that article is to consider a 
>>> budget
>>> account>>  as a liability.  However, it categorizes budgeted cash as an 
>>> Asset,
>>> when it>>  is more useful to consider it also as a liability.  Doing so 
>>> allows
>>> you to>>  reconcile allocated money to monies spent out of the "envelopes".
>>> 
>>> For the past month, I've been able to apply an approach to my
>>> existing>>  reconciliation process that I believe will prove to be a very
>>> useful and>>  easy to manage approach to envelope budgeting for personal 
>>> finance.>> 
>>> To simplify allocating income and expenses to envelopes I use two
>>> tools:>> 
>>> * [QifQif](https://github.com/Kraymer/qifqif) which makes it easy to
>>>   quickly>>  insert categories into a QIF file;
>>> * [qif-split](https://github.com/ebridges/qif-split), a tool that I
>>>   wrote,>>  which adds splits to QIF files according to some rules defined 
>>> in
>>> a file.>> 
>>> After downloading transactions for my credit card & bank accounts
>>> in QIF>>  format, I first process the file with QifQif to match up every
>>> transaction>>  to one of my accounts from GnuCash.  QifQif supports using 
>>> wild
>>> cards and>>  regexes for matching payees to accounts, and then adds the
>>> account as a>>  category to the QIF transaction.
>>> 
>>> After categorization of the transactions, the files can be
>>> processed by>>  `qif-split`, and split according to predefined rules.
>>> 
>>> I have been using `QifQif` for about a year, and have found it to
>>> be very>>  reliable and easy to work with.  In the 

Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Edward Bridges]

I followed that discussion (somewhat, though was quite confused by a lot
of it), but I don't expect that to get implemented any time soon.
On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:08 PM, Matt Graham wrote:
> Welcome to the discussion!


>  


> So if I understand correctly, you have written scripts to automate the
> use of extra accounts to track allocated money? That was the line I
> was going down too (except building them into GNUCash), but Chris
> Lam’s discussion on “Budget transactions” is starting to look to me
> like a simpler and more elegant way to do what we want, whilst fitting
> in with other uses of budgets and automating what we want... Have a
> look on the Dev list for more details – can’t remember how much he
> posted on the user list about it.>  


> Thanks and regards,
> 
>  Matt

>  


> *From: *ebridges[1] *Sent: *Sunday, 4 February 2018 11:39 AM *To: *gnucash-
> u...@gnucash.org *Subject: *Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets>  


> Sorry for the delayed response, just managing to catch up on
> this thread.
>
>  I've been looking at how to do envelope-style budgeting for my
>  personal finances using GnuCash for about 6-7 months.  Like you, this
>  began with this article from 2008 "[Better Budgeting with GnuCash"]
>  
> (https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fallmybrain.com%2F2008%2F12%2F15%2Fbetter-budgeting-with-gnucash%2F=02%7C01%7C%7C9b6d2224a4b3476a8f9b08d56b67cddb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636533015939354212=frZ3TUMhMzf%2FA2zBxsSTJZLW5UYLhrctdjhiXmgtvwE%3D=0)
>  .
>
>  After toying around with that approach, I decided there were two
>  drawbacks to it:
>
>  1. It was tedious.  Manually creating a split for every expense to
> draw down budget accounts ("envelopes") that were allocated
> previously, was super boring and error prone.  In addition,
> because of the detailed nature of doing this work, one would be
> discouraged from allocating all of your income to different
> "envelopes".
>  2. It was fragile.  By treating "Budgeted Cash" as an asset made
> allocated money difficult to reconcile to money that was drawn out
> of your budget accounts.  A useful insight in that article is to
> consider a budget account as a liability.  However, it categorizes
> budgeted cash as an Asset, when it is more useful to consider it
> also as a liability.  Doing so allows you to reconcile allocated
> money to monies spent out of the "envelopes".
>
>  For the past month, I've been able to apply an approach to my
>  existing reconciliation process that I believe will prove to be a
>  very useful and easy to manage approach to envelope budgeting for
>  personal finance.
>
>  To simplify allocating income and expenses to envelopes I use
>  two tools:
>
>  * [QifQif]
>
> (https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FKraymer%2Fqifqif=02%7C01%7C%7C9b6d2224a4b3476a8f9b08d56b67cddb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636533015939354212=pGZVbq9N4uDjNAI2fJg0WroQ2t4MpcVUpqglYYVmmuw%3D=0)
>which makes it easy to quickly insert categories into a QIF file;
>  * [qif-split]
>
> (https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Febridges%2Fqif-split=02%7C01%7C%7C9b6d2224a4b3476a8f9b08d56b67cddb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636533015939354212=eSOJkz3h29fzh4kHHVH5xf6sYk4Do7LBns%2B3jBCtfzA%3D=0)
>, a tool that I wrote, which adds splits to QIF files according to
>some rules defined in a file.
>
>  After downloading transactions for my credit card & bank accounts in
>  QIF format, I first process the file with QifQif to match up every
>  transaction to one of my accounts from GnuCash.  QifQif supports
>  using wild cards and regexes for matching payees to accounts, and
>  then adds the account as a  category to the QIF transaction.
>
>  After categorization of the transactions, the files can be processed
>  by  `qif-split`, and split according to predefined rules.
>
>  I have been using `QifQif` for about a year, and have found it to be
>  very reliable and easy to work with.  In the past month, I began
>  using `qif-split` to allocate income and expenses to budget accounts.
>
>  The `qif-split` configuration rules splitting the incoming
>  transactions are twofold
>
>  1. Allocating income as credits to various envelopes, or
>  2. Allocating expenses as debits to those same envelopes.
>
>  These allocations are balanced with corresponding debits or credits
>  to a "Budgeted Cash" account.  Because of these balanced entries, the
>  toplevel "Budgets" account will always self-reconcile (i.e. its
>  balance

Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Edward Bridges]

I understand your concern, but I don't think that would be the
case here.
They may be included in the net worth but because all entries net to
zero they are balanced and they have no net effect on net worth.
The issue I've seen with previous proposals both here and in the
mentioned blog post is that income allocated to envelopes is treated as
an asset -- which it really shouldn't be.  By treating it as a liability
you can balance that allocated income to expenses as they get allocated.

On Sun, Feb 4, 2018, at 1:21 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:
> Looks nice. My main concern with these "shadow accounts" is that they
> will, by default, be counted in the Net worth reports, income reports,
> etc, and must be manually deselected every time.> 
> In my view budget allocations are technically "outside the books" and
> must therefore ideally be recorded in ways that don't affect the
> everyday data and reports.> 
> On 4 Feb 2018 8:43 AM, "ebridges"  wrote:
>> Sorry for the delayed response, just managing to catch up on this
>> thread.>> 
>>  I've been looking at how to do envelope-style budgeting for my
>>  personal>>  finances using GnuCash for about 6-7 months.  Like you, this 
>> began
>>  with this>>  article from 2008 "[Better Budgeting with
>>  GnuCash"]
>>  (http://allmybrain.com/2008/12/15/better-budgeting-with-gnucash/).>> 
>>  After toying around with that approach, I decided there were two
>>  drawbacks>>  to it:
>> 
>>  1. It was tedious.  Manually creating a split for every expense to
>> draw down>>  budget accounts ("envelopes") that were allocated 
>> previously,
>>  was super>>  boring and error prone.  In addition, because of the detailed
>>  nature of>>  doing this work, one would be discouraged from allocating all 
>> of
>>  your income>>  to different "envelopes".
>>  2. It was fragile.  By treating "Budgeted Cash" as an asset made
>> allocated>>  money difficult to reconcile to money that was drawn out of 
>> your
>>  budget>>  accounts.  A useful insight in that article is to consider a 
>> budget
>>  account>>  as a liability.  However, it categorizes budgeted cash as an 
>> Asset,
>>  when it>>  is more useful to consider it also as a liability.  Doing so 
>> allows
>>  you to>>  reconcile allocated money to monies spent out of the "envelopes".
>> 
>>  For the past month, I've been able to apply an approach to my
>>  existing>>  reconciliation process that I believe will prove to be a very
>>  useful and>>  easy to manage approach to envelope budgeting for personal 
>> finance.>> 
>>  To simplify allocating income and expenses to envelopes I use two
>>  tools:>> 
>>  * [QifQif](https://github.com/Kraymer/qifqif) which makes it easy to
>>quickly>>  insert categories into a QIF file;
>>  * [qif-split](https://github.com/ebridges/qif-split), a tool that I
>>wrote,>>  which adds splits to QIF files according to some rules defined 
>> in
>>  a file.>> 
>>  After downloading transactions for my credit card & bank accounts
>>  in QIF>>  format, I first process the file with QifQif to match up every
>>  transaction>>  to one of my accounts from GnuCash.  QifQif supports using 
>> wild
>>  cards and>>  regexes for matching payees to accounts, and then adds the
>>  account as a>>  category to the QIF transaction.
>> 
>>  After categorization of the transactions, the files can be
>>  processed by>>  `qif-split`, and split according to predefined rules.
>> 
>>  I have been using `QifQif` for about a year, and have found it to
>>  be very>>  reliable and easy to work with.  In the past month, I began using
>>  `qif-split` to allocate income and expenses to budget accounts.
>> 
>>  The `qif-split` configuration rules splitting the incoming
>>  transactions are>>  twofold
>> 
>>  1. Allocating income as credits to various envelopes, or
>>  2. Allocating expenses as debits to those same envelopes.
>> 
>>  These allocations are balanced with corresponding debits or
>>  credits to a>>  "Budgeted Cash" account.  Because of these balanced 
>> entries, the
>>  toplevel>>  "Budgets" account will always self-reconcile (i.e. its balance 
>> will
>>  always>>  be 0).  When the balance of a given budget subaccount
>>  ("envelopes") is>>  negative, then you've overspent that category.
>> 
>>  By using `qif-split` to automatically generate split transactions,
>>  and by>>  altering my chart of accounts to roll up budgeted cash alongside 
>> the>>  budgeted expenses it makes envelope-style budgeting very
>>  straightforward in>>  GnuCash.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>  --
>>  Sent from:
>>  http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html>>  
>> ___
>>  gnucash-user mailing list
>> gnucash-user@gnucash.org
>>  To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>>  If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
>>  https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more 

Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Christopher Lam]

Looks nice. My main concern with these "shadow accounts" is that they will,
by default, be counted in the Net worth reports, income reports, etc, and
must be manually deselected every time.

In my view budget allocations are technically "outside the books" and must
therefore ideally be recorded in ways that don't affect the everyday data
and reports.

On 4 Feb 2018 8:43 AM, "ebridges"  wrote:

> Sorry for the delayed response, just managing to catch up on this thread.
>
> I've been looking at how to do envelope-style budgeting for my personal
> finances using GnuCash for about 6-7 months.  Like you, this began with
> this
> article from 2008 "[Better Budgeting with
> GnuCash"](http://allmybrain.com/2008/12/15/better-budgeting-with-gnucash/
> ).
>
> After toying around with that approach, I decided there were two drawbacks
> to it:
>
> 1. It was tedious.  Manually creating a split for every expense to draw
> down
> budget accounts ("envelopes") that were allocated previously, was super
> boring and error prone.  In addition, because of the detailed nature of
> doing this work, one would be discouraged from allocating all of your
> income
> to different "envelopes".
> 2. It was fragile.  By treating "Budgeted Cash" as an asset made allocated
> money difficult to reconcile to money that was drawn out of your budget
> accounts.  A useful insight in that article is to consider a budget account
> as a liability.  However, it categorizes budgeted cash as an Asset, when it
> is more useful to consider it also as a liability.  Doing so allows you to
> reconcile allocated money to monies spent out of the "envelopes".
>
> For the past month, I've been able to apply an approach to my existing
> reconciliation process that I believe will prove to be a very useful and
> easy to manage approach to envelope budgeting for personal finance.
>
> To simplify allocating income and expenses to envelopes I use two tools:
>
> * [QifQif](https://github.com/Kraymer/qifqif) which makes it easy to
> quickly
> insert categories into a QIF file;
> * [qif-split](https://github.com/ebridges/qif-split), a tool that I wrote,
> which adds splits to QIF files according to some rules defined in a file.
>
> After downloading transactions for my credit card & bank accounts in QIF
> format, I first process the file with QifQif to match up every transaction
> to one of my accounts from GnuCash.  QifQif supports using wild cards and
> regexes for matching payees to accounts, and then adds the account as a
> category to the QIF transaction.
>
> After categorization of the transactions, the files can be processed by
> `qif-split`, and split according to predefined rules.
>
> I have been using `QifQif` for about a year, and have found it to be very
> reliable and easy to work with.  In the past month, I began using
> `qif-split` to allocate income and expenses to budget accounts.
>
> The `qif-split` configuration rules splitting the incoming transactions are
> twofold
>
> 1. Allocating income as credits to various envelopes, or
> 2. Allocating expenses as debits to those same envelopes.
>
> These allocations are balanced with corresponding debits or credits to a
> "Budgeted Cash" account.  Because of these balanced entries, the toplevel
> "Budgets" account will always self-reconcile (i.e. its balance will always
> be 0).  When the balance of a given budget subaccount ("envelopes") is
> negative, then you've overspent that category.
>
> By using `qif-split` to automatically generate split transactions, and by
> altering my chart of accounts to roll up budgeted cash alongside the
> budgeted expenses it makes envelope-style budgeting very straightforward in
> GnuCash.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html
> ___
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user@gnucash.org
> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
> -
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>
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RE: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Matt Graham]

Welcome to the discussion!

So if I understand correctly, you have written scripts to automate the use of 
extra accounts to track allocated money? That was the line I was going down too 
(except building them into GNUCash), but Chris Lam’s discussion on “Budget 
transactions” is starting to look to me like a simpler and more elegant way to 
do what we want, whilst fitting in with other uses of budgets and automating 
what we want... Have a look on the Dev list for more details – can’t remember 
how much he posted on the user list about it.

Thanks and regards,

Matt

From: ebridges<mailto:ebrid...@eqbridges.com>
Sent: Sunday, 4 February 2018 11:39 AM
To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

Sorry for the delayed response, just managing to catch up on this thread.

I've been looking at how to do envelope-style budgeting for my personal
finances using GnuCash for about 6-7 months.  Like you, this began with this
article from 2008 "[Better Budgeting with
GnuCash"](https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fallmybrain.com%2F2008%2F12%2F15%2Fbetter-budgeting-with-gnucash%2F=02%7C01%7C%7C9b6d2224a4b3476a8f9b08d56b67cddb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636533015939354212=frZ3TUMhMzf%2FA2zBxsSTJZLW5UYLhrctdjhiXmgtvwE%3D=0).

After toying around with that approach, I decided there were two drawbacks
to it:

1. It was tedious.  Manually creating a split for every expense to draw down
budget accounts ("envelopes") that were allocated previously, was super
boring and error prone.  In addition, because of the detailed nature of
doing this work, one would be discouraged from allocating all of your income
to different "envelopes".
2. It was fragile.  By treating "Budgeted Cash" as an asset made allocated
money difficult to reconcile to money that was drawn out of your budget
accounts.  A useful insight in that article is to consider a budget account
as a liability.  However, it categorizes budgeted cash as an Asset, when it
is more useful to consider it also as a liability.  Doing so allows you to
reconcile allocated money to monies spent out of the "envelopes".

For the past month, I've been able to apply an approach to my existing
reconciliation process that I believe will prove to be a very useful and
easy to manage approach to envelope budgeting for personal finance.

To simplify allocating income and expenses to envelopes I use two tools:

* 
[QifQif](https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FKraymer%2Fqifqif=02%7C01%7C%7C9b6d2224a4b3476a8f9b08d56b67cddb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636533015939354212=pGZVbq9N4uDjNAI2fJg0WroQ2t4MpcVUpqglYYVmmuw%3D=0)
 which makes it easy to quickly
insert categories into a QIF file;
* 
[qif-split](https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Febridges%2Fqif-split=02%7C01%7C%7C9b6d2224a4b3476a8f9b08d56b67cddb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636533015939354212=eSOJkz3h29fzh4kHHVH5xf6sYk4Do7LBns%2B3jBCtfzA%3D=0),
 a tool that I wrote,
which adds splits to QIF files according to some rules defined in a file.

After downloading transactions for my credit card & bank accounts in QIF
format, I first process the file with QifQif to match up every transaction
to one of my accounts from GnuCash.  QifQif supports using wild cards and
regexes for matching payees to accounts, and then adds the account as a
category to the QIF transaction.

After categorization of the transactions, the files can be processed by
`qif-split`, and split according to predefined rules.

I have been using `QifQif` for about a year, and have found it to be very
reliable and easy to work with.  In the past month, I began using
`qif-split` to allocate income and expenses to budget accounts.

The `qif-split` configuration rules splitting the incoming transactions are
twofold

1. Allocating income as credits to various envelopes, or
2. Allocating expenses as debits to those same envelopes.

These allocations are balanced with corresponding debits or credits to a
"Budgeted Cash" account.  Because of these balanced entries, the toplevel
"Budgets" account will always self-reconcile (i.e. its balance will always
be 0).  When the balance of a given budget subaccount ("envelopes") is
negative, then you've overspent that category.

By using `qif-split` to automatically generate split transactions, and by
altering my chart of accounts to roll up budgeted cash alongside the
budgeted expenses it makes envelope-style budgeting very straightforward in
GnuCash.




--
Sent from: 
https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com%2FGnuCash-User-f1415819.html=02%7C01%7C%7C9b6d2224a4b3476a8f9b08d56b67cddb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C636533015939354212=ljoRx485NZ8x5yfi573z7%2B1SZDkp

Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[ebridges]

Sorry for the delayed response, just managing to catch up on this thread.

I've been looking at how to do envelope-style budgeting for my personal
finances using GnuCash for about 6-7 months.  Like you, this began with this
article from 2008 "[Better Budgeting with
GnuCash"](http://allmybrain.com/2008/12/15/better-budgeting-with-gnucash/).

After toying around with that approach, I decided there were two drawbacks
to it:

1. It was tedious.  Manually creating a split for every expense to draw down
budget accounts ("envelopes") that were allocated previously, was super
boring and error prone.  In addition, because of the detailed nature of
doing this work, one would be discouraged from allocating all of your income
to different "envelopes".
2. It was fragile.  By treating "Budgeted Cash" as an asset made allocated
money difficult to reconcile to money that was drawn out of your budget
accounts.  A useful insight in that article is to consider a budget account
as a liability.  However, it categorizes budgeted cash as an Asset, when it
is more useful to consider it also as a liability.  Doing so allows you to
reconcile allocated money to monies spent out of the "envelopes".

For the past month, I've been able to apply an approach to my existing
reconciliation process that I believe will prove to be a very useful and
easy to manage approach to envelope budgeting for personal finance.

To simplify allocating income and expenses to envelopes I use two tools:

* [QifQif](https://github.com/Kraymer/qifqif) which makes it easy to quickly
insert categories into a QIF file;
* [qif-split](https://github.com/ebridges/qif-split), a tool that I wrote,
which adds splits to QIF files according to some rules defined in a file.

After downloading transactions for my credit card & bank accounts in QIF
format, I first process the file with QifQif to match up every transaction
to one of my accounts from GnuCash.  QifQif supports using wild cards and
regexes for matching payees to accounts, and then adds the account as a
category to the QIF transaction.  

After categorization of the transactions, the files can be processed by
`qif-split`, and split according to predefined rules.  

I have been using `QifQif` for about a year, and have found it to be very
reliable and easy to work with.  In the past month, I began using
`qif-split` to allocate income and expenses to budget accounts.

The `qif-split` configuration rules splitting the incoming transactions are
twofold

1. Allocating income as credits to various envelopes, or 
2. Allocating expenses as debits to those same envelopes.  

These allocations are balanced with corresponding debits or credits to a
"Budgeted Cash" account.  Because of these balanced entries, the toplevel
"Budgets" account will always self-reconcile (i.e. its balance will always
be 0).  When the balance of a given budget subaccount ("envelopes") is
negative, then you've overspent that category.

By using `qif-split` to automatically generate split transactions, and by
altering my chart of accounts to roll up budgeted cash alongside the
budgeted expenses it makes envelope-style budgeting very straightforward in
GnuCash.




--
Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html
___
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RE: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[David T. via gnucash-user]

Matt, 
I have to admit that I misread the tally; I did not see that the first $500 
(AllocatedCash) was balancing the others. My apologies. 
I'll let you and Adrien work this out, since I don't have a lot of background 
in this. 
David

 
 
  On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 8:58, Matt Graham<matt_graham2...@hotmail.com> wrote: 
  #yiv0595440679 #yiv0595440679 -- _filtered #yiv0595440679 {panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 
4 6 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv0595440679 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 
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#yiv0595440679 span.yiv0595440679MsoHyperlink 
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span.yiv0595440679MsoHyperlinkFollowed 
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72.0pt 72.0pt;}#yiv0595440679 div.yiv0595440679WordSection1 {}#yiv0595440679 
Hi Dave! 

  
 
Yep, that is pretty much the conclusion I’ve come to. Not sure what you are 
asking about in “where are you balancing the funds”. The Cr and Dr are balanced 
in the example. Maybe you are asking the location in the hierarchy for the 
accounts? It all goes up to the root account “Assets”. For this idea, I had 
Current Assets, Fixed assets, and Allocated Assets. All the little allocation 
accounts were stored in the Allocated Assets branch.

They were balanced by a single account under current assets called 
“AllocatedCash” (as per the example below). This is the weird one – a negative 
asset account that reflects how much I SHOULDN’T spend out of current assets 
unless I am spending on my allocated causes.

  
 
As per Adrian’s discussions, if you are spending out of the account that you 
have put your sub-account into, then there are less splits and it is far easier 
to understand. Using Adrien’s idea, at WORST you have a couple of transactions 
that are just as complex as every transaction the other way – but this is only 
in the rare event that you spend out of a different account from that which 
your sub-account is in.

  
 
I still haven’t fully wrapped my head around Adrien’s most recent email, so 
that could create some more “Aha!” moments too.

  
 
Thanks and regards,

Matt

  
 
From: David T.
Sent: Wednesday, 31 January 2018 2:31 PM
To: matt_graham2...@hotmail.com;Adrien Monteleone; gnucash-user@gnucash.org
Subject: RE: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

  
 
Matt, 
 
  
 
I see one huge problem: where are you balancing the funds for the allocated 
accounts? They need balancing, and once you add something to balance them, you 
might as well male them Subaccounts of checking anyway. 
 
  
 
Cheers,
 
David 
 
  
 

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 4:06, Matt Graham
 
<matt_graham2...@hotmail.com> 
 
  
 
[Snip]
 

If, rather than a sub-account, I use a separate asset account then there is no 
balancing Cr to an asset to increase the allocation. In your example, you had a 
balancing Cr on the parent when you allocated the money. So, we receive a $1000 
pay check, and want to allocate $500 to the four accounts:
Cr Income: Salary $1000
Dr Asset:Current:Checking $1000
Cr Asset:Current:AllocatedCash $500
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Vacation    $250
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Insurance  $150
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Dining      $ 50
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Coffee  $ 50
 
  
   
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RE: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Matt Graham]

Again, I think you’ve hit on it directly.

To answer your question, no I can’t think of a reporting advantage. As you 
outline, I think reports are generally flexible enough that you can tailor them 
to get what you want regardless, but the dual asset allocation accounts creates 
extra work for that too.

I fiddled with the Equity balancing Asset account concept you mentioned, and 
rejected it because of the ‘extra’ assets that appear. As you say, Equity 
balancing Equity is probably accurate, but just creates extra work. I’m pretty 
convinced that the simplest and most correct way to do this is to have a 
sub-account that you mostly spend out of. I have several accounts, but I do 
have one that is the main one, and I suspect that most people would.

Thanks again for all your help!

Matt

From: Adrien Monteleone<mailto:adrien.montele...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 31 January 2018 12:11 PM
To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

Thanks for the run down Matt,

I wouldn’t say “stupid” at all, but certainly, that method is extra work. And I 
don’t really see the benefit that makes the work worth the trouble.

I also see that the transactions are more complicated, more cluttered, and if 
you ever have to go over them to track down an error, they are going to take 
more brain power to process and get straight.

Do you get any reporting advantage with that extra layer of splits?

This also requires constant reverse-balanced thinking. Something that in my 
experience is more taxing to make sure you’ve got the entries right.

I was using something similar about a year ago, but abandoned the whole project 
after a month because of the extra entries required for nearly every purchase. 
I suppose it isn’t so bad if you only earmark a few expense purposes, but even 
something like ‘vacation’ can end up with multiple expense accounts affected.

With the method I outlined, other than the simplicity, you also get a little 
extra discipline push if you divide up the sub-accounts based on the most 
likely physical account to draw from. (if you have more than one, I don’t) You 
also get to leverage the Cash Flow report to show you if you are pulling funds 
that are earmarked for other purposes, which can tell you if you should adjust 
those earmarks or improve your spending discipline. I suppose you could do the 
same with your virtual asset accounts, but I’d suspect the amounts would be 
reversed from what’s expected, making such a report difficult to follow.

I can see the appeal of keeping that tracking separate, but for the present 
state of GnuCash, I just think it’s not the easiest method, certainly not for 
new users. (you do get the benefit of deleting those special accounts without 
affecting your regular asset/expense entries should you abandon the practice 
and what to clean up your account tree IF those splits are NOT included in the 
regular transaction, but reside in their own set.)

The reason I suggested using equity accounts for that method was because the 
normal balance of equity accounts is credit positive. (as are liabilities) Thus 
if you moved those special accounts to the Equity hierarchy, their balances 
will look like they are supposed to. That would reduce the reverse-balanced 
mental gymnastics. (especially if your setting for Reversed Balanced Accounts 
is ‘Credit’)

If you’re not really segregating funds in their normal asset place, just adding 
a layer of info, it probably makes more sense to use equity instead of asset. 
In this case, the allocations aren’t actual physical assets, but just a 
budgeting category. Equity is YOUR claim against your assets, so saying you 
have $1000 to spend on vacation makes sense to me to say it in equity. (leaving 
aside that the actual funds reside in your asset savings account) Since this 
isn’t ‘extra’ equity (above and beyond your assets less your liabilities) you’d 
need a single ‘reverse-balanced’ account to fix that. You don’t want your 
assets or equity to be overstated, so that reverse balanced account should also 
be an equity account.

You could set it up like this:

Equity:Budgeting:Allocated
Equity:Budgeting:Vacation
Equity:Budgeting:Insurance
Equity:Budgeting:Dining
Equity:Budgeting:Coffe

Your Allocated account would have a reverse balance, thus a debit. It would 
show up as negative in GnuCash (with the Credit accounts setting)
Your special purpose accounts would all have a normal credit balance, and show 
up as positive. When they reach zero, you’ve spent everything you’ve budgeted 
for that purpose.

The only purpose of the ‘Allocated’ account is to prevent the special purpose 
accounts from affecting your total equity position. It will cause your 
Equity:Budgeting account parent to always be zero. (be sure to mark that parent 
as a placeholder as well) I suppose you could leave it off and just use the 
parent for balancing. That

RE: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Matt Graham]

Hi Dave!

Yep, that is pretty much the conclusion I’ve come to. Not sure what you are 
asking about in “where are you balancing the funds”. The Cr and Dr are balanced 
in the example. Maybe you are asking the location in the hierarchy for the 
accounts? It all goes up to the root account “Assets”. For this idea, I had 
Current Assets, Fixed assets, and Allocated Assets. All the little allocation 
accounts were stored in the Allocated Assets branch.
They were balanced by a single account under current assets called 
“AllocatedCash” (as per the example below). This is the weird one – a negative 
asset account that reflects how much I SHOULDN’T spend out of current assets 
unless I am spending on my allocated causes.

As per Adrian’s discussions, if you are spending out of the account that you 
have put your sub-account into, then there are less splits and it is far easier 
to understand. Using Adrien’s idea, at WORST you have a couple of transactions 
that are just as complex as every transaction the other way – but this is only 
in the rare event that you spend out of a different account from that which 
your sub-account is in.

I still haven’t fully wrapped my head around Adrien’s most recent email, so 
that could create some more “Aha!” moments too.

Thanks and regards,

Matt

From: David T.<mailto:sunfis...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 31 January 2018 2:31 PM
To: matt_graham2...@hotmail.com<mailto:matt_graham2...@hotmail.com>; Adrien 
Monteleone<mailto:adrien.montele...@gmail.com>; 
gnucash-user@gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: RE: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

Matt,

I see one huge problem: where are you balancing the funds for the allocated 
accounts? They need balancing, and once you add something to balance them, you 
might as well male them Subaccounts of checking anyway.

Cheers,
David

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 4:06, Matt Graham
<matt_graham2...@hotmail.com>

[Snip]
If, rather than a sub-account, I use a separate asset account then there is no 
balancing Cr to an asset to increase the allocation. In your example, you had a 
balancing Cr on the parent when you allocated the money. So, we receive a $1000 
pay check, and want to allocate $500 to the four accounts:
Cr Income: Salary $1000
Dr Asset:Current:Checking $1000
Cr Asset:Current:AllocatedCash $500
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Vacation$250
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Insurance  $150
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Dining  $ 50
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Coffee  $ 50

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RE: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[David T. via gnucash-user]

Matt,
I see one huge problem: where are you balancing the funds for the allocated 
accounts? They need balancing, and once you add something to balance them, you 
might as well male them Subaccounts of checking anyway. 
Cheers,David 

 
 
  On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 4:06, Matt Graham 
[Snip]If, rather than a sub-account, I use a separate asset account then there 
is no balancing Cr to an asset to increase the allocation. In your example, you 
had a balancing Cr on the parent when you allocated the money. So, we receive a 
$1000 pay check, and want to allocate $500 to the four accounts:
Cr Income: Salary $1000
Dr Asset:Current:Checking $1000
Cr Asset:Current:AllocatedCash $500
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Vacation    $250
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Insurance  $150
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Dining      $ 50
Dr. Assets:Allocated:Coffee  $ 50
  
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Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Adrien Monteleone]

;  
> So after this transaction, the amounts in checking and the expense are as 
> you’d expect (again, no change from if you didn’t use allocations). The 
> Current assets have been increased – become less negative, because I have $20 
> less now allocated to Dining out. So there is now less money that I am 
> telling myself “can’t be spent”, but of course I haven’t gained more cash to 
> spend – this gain is offset by the reduce in cash from actually spending it. 
> My amount of cash allocated to Dining has been Dr (reduced) by $20 as you 
> expect. So I am left with $980 in my checking, $30 in my Allocated:Dining, 
> -$480 in my overall AllocatedCash.
>  
> You are probably thinking “That is stupid. Why bother?”. 
> You’re right – it is probably extra entries for little benefit. Hence why I’m 
> going to try it for a few weeks before recommending before/against it in the 
> tutorials and concepts guide and/or attempting/requesting features in GNUCash 
> to support it. 
> The main advantage here is that it separates the allocation of money from the 
> account you are going to spend it from. The spending transaction would be the 
> same size and type if I was using a sub-account and didn’t spend from that 
> sub account:
> Dr Expenses:Dining $20
> Cr Assets:MyCash $20
> Cr Assets:Checking:Dining $20
> Dr Assets:Checking $20
> 
> So if I (foolishly) chose a sub-account for allocation that I never spent 
> from, doing it the separated way is no extra work – still similar four 
> splits. But as you say, if you use a sub-account and spend from it most of 
> the time, the messy four line transaction becomes a simple 
> Cr Checking:Dining $20
> Dr Expenses:Dining $20
>  
> Does this make sense?
>  
> Thanks and regards,
> 
> Matt
>  
> From: Adrien Monteleone <mailto:adrien.montele...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, 30 January 2018 6:45 PM
> To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
> Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]
>  
> Matt,
> 
> You lost me again.
> 
> I don’t understand why you’d have a negative 'segmented spending money' asset.
> 
> You receive a paycheck, say $1000.
> 
> You earmark 50% of that into various sub-accounts.
> 
> You still have $1000.
> 
> There’s no negative balance on any asset account.
> 
> Perhaps your checking account holds $500 of that money, and each of four 
> sub-accounts hold $250, $150, $50 & $50 respectively. That all adds up to 
> $1000.
> 
> The act of earmarking funds moves you from one account with a single positive 
> $1000 balance to 5 accounts totaling a positive $1000 balance NONE of which 
> are negative.
> 
> Where’s the ‘negative segmented money account?’
> 
> Please describe with debits and credits. I don’t see it. What I see is this:
> 
> Receipt of money with segregation:
> 
> Dr. Assets:Checking $500
> Dr. Assets:Checking:Vacation$250
> Dr. Assets:Checking:Insurance   $150
> Dr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $ 50
> Dr. Assets:Checking:Coffee  $ 50
> Cr. Income:Salary   $1000
> 
> When you go out for lunch I see this:
> 
> Dr. Expenses:Dining $20
> Cr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $20
> 
> How does recording an expense INCREASE the allocated cash for Dining as you 
> describe? (making it less negative) How was it negative in the first place? 
> What transaction did you record to make it so? Note, for an asset to be 
> ‘negative’ it has to have a ‘credit’ balance, that is, credits have to be 
> greater than debits. Making an asset account ‘less negative’ is a debit 
> transaction. (since asset accounts are usually debit positive balanced) 
> Debits don’t decrease an asset, they increase it. Spending money never gives 
> you more to spend, it means you have less. Spending money is always 
> (eventually) a credit to assets, never a debit.
> 
> I can’t see any scenario where that above example of going out for lunch 
> looks like this:
> 
> Dr. Expenses:Dining $20
> Dr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $20
> Cr. $40
> 
> If that would even begin to make any sense why $40 is moving somewhere 
> instead of just $20.
> 
> Note, doing this:
> 
> Dr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $20
> Cr. Expenses:Dining $20
> 
> Is an incorrect transaction if you SPENT the money. (as opposed to receiving 
> a refund, or correcting a prior error) Crediting an expense is a 
> refund/reversing condition, not a normal expenditure.
> 
> When you record the receipt of money, that goes to an income/revenue account, 
> split with the physical asset account for the for

RE: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Matt Graham]

type if I was using a sub-account and didn’t spend from that sub 
account:
Dr Expenses:Dining $20
Cr Assets:MyCash $20
Cr Assets:Checking:Dining $20
Dr Assets:Checking $20

So if I (foolishly) chose a sub-account for allocation that I never spent from, 
doing it the separated way is no extra work – still similar four splits. But as 
you say, if you use a sub-account and spend from it most of the time, the messy 
four line transaction becomes a simple
Cr Checking:Dining $20
Dr Expenses:Dining $20

Does this make sense?

Thanks and regards,

Matt

From: Adrien Monteleone<mailto:adrien.montele...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 30 January 2018 6:45 PM
To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

Matt,

You lost me again.

I don’t understand why you’d have a negative 'segmented spending money' asset.

You receive a paycheck, say $1000.

You earmark 50% of that into various sub-accounts.

You still have $1000.

There’s no negative balance on any asset account.

Perhaps your checking account holds $500 of that money, and each of four 
sub-accounts hold $250, $150, $50 & $50 respectively. That all adds up to $1000.

The act of earmarking funds moves you from one account with a single positive 
$1000 balance to 5 accounts totaling a positive $1000 balance NONE of which are 
negative.

Where’s the ‘negative segmented money account?’

Please describe with debits and credits. I don’t see it. What I see is this:

Receipt of money with segregation:

Dr. Assets:Checking $500
Dr. Assets:Checking:Vacation$250
Dr. Assets:Checking:Insurance   $150
Dr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $ 50
Dr. Assets:Checking:Coffee  $ 50
Cr. Income:Salary   $1000

When you go out for lunch I see this:

Dr. Expenses:Dining $20
Cr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $20

How does recording an expense INCREASE the allocated cash for Dining as you 
describe? (making it less negative) How was it negative in the first place? 
What transaction did you record to make it so? Note, for an asset to be 
‘negative’ it has to have a ‘credit’ balance, that is, credits have to be 
greater than debits. Making an asset account ‘less negative’ is a debit 
transaction. (since asset accounts are usually debit positive balanced) Debits 
don’t decrease an asset, they increase it. Spending money never gives you more 
to spend, it means you have less. Spending money is always (eventually) a 
credit to assets, never a debit.

I can’t see any scenario where that above example of going out for lunch looks 
like this:

Dr. Expenses:Dining $20
Dr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $20
Cr. $40

If that would even begin to make any sense why $40 is moving somewhere instead 
of just $20.

Note, doing this:

Dr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $20
Cr. Expenses:Dining $20

Is an incorrect transaction if you SPENT the money. (as opposed to receiving a 
refund, or correcting a prior error) Crediting an expense is a refund/reversing 
condition, not a normal expenditure.

When you record the receipt of money, that goes to an income/revenue account, 
split with the physical asset account for the form you received the payment in. 
Generally, this will be a credit to ‘income’ and a debit to ‘cash.’ Where and 
how do you record the receipt of money as a credit to an asset instead and how 
does that balance against your credit to your income account?

i.e.—

Dr. $1000
Cr. Income:Salary   $1000
Cr. Assets:??

Regards,
Adrien


> On Jan 29, 2018, at 11:25 PM, Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ah, true. I guess this is why I favored "triggered transactions " rather than 
> "template transactions".
>
> I want a transaction involving expense account "spending money" to 
> automatically add two more splits to reduce the asset account "segmented 
> spending money" balanced by increasing the value of "allocated cash" asset 
> acct (increase = make it less negative).
>
> For saving up for something expensive, I would still set up the above, but I 
> would need to manually change the numbers if I wanted to return the 
> allocation to zero.
>
> So when I enter:
>
> Cr account I used to pay insurance 1150
> Dr expense account for insurance (with the trigger attached) 1150
>
> I would want gnucash to automatically add the splits
>
> Cr account I am using to segment insurance money 1150
> Dr account showing allocated cash 1150.
>
> I would the (during my reconciling/budget review) need to amend that 
> transaction (or create a new one to return the insurance allocation to zero.
>
> For many of my other money allocations (eg restaurants/cafe) I wouldnt change 
> it - underspendi

Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Adrien Monteleone]

Matt,

You lost me again.

I don’t understand why you’d have a negative 'segmented spending money' asset.

You receive a paycheck, say $1000.

You earmark 50% of that into various sub-accounts.

You still have $1000.

There’s no negative balance on any asset account.

Perhaps your checking account holds $500 of that money, and each of four 
sub-accounts hold $250, $150, $50 & $50 respectively. That all adds up to $1000.

The act of earmarking funds moves you from one account with a single positive 
$1000 balance to 5 accounts totaling a positive $1000 balance NONE of which are 
negative.

Where’s the ‘negative segmented money account?’

Please describe with debits and credits. I don’t see it. What I see is this:

Receipt of money with segregation:

Dr. Assets:Checking $500
Dr. Assets:Checking:Vacation$250
Dr. Assets:Checking:Insurance   $150
Dr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $ 50
Dr. Assets:Checking:Coffee  $ 50
Cr. Income:Salary   $1000

When you go out for lunch I see this:

Dr. Expenses:Dining $20
Cr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $20

How does recording an expense INCREASE the allocated cash for Dining as you 
describe? (making it less negative) How was it negative in the first place? 
What transaction did you record to make it so? Note, for an asset to be 
‘negative’ it has to have a ‘credit’ balance, that is, credits have to be 
greater than debits. Making an asset account ‘less negative’ is a debit 
transaction. (since asset accounts are usually debit positive balanced) Debits 
don’t decrease an asset, they increase it. Spending money never gives you more 
to spend, it means you have less. Spending money is always (eventually) a 
credit to assets, never a debit.

I can’t see any scenario where that above example of going out for lunch looks 
like this:

Dr. Expenses:Dining $20
Dr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $20
Cr. $40

If that would even begin to make any sense why $40 is moving somewhere instead 
of just $20.

Note, doing this:

Dr. Assets:Checking:Dining  $20
Cr. Expenses:Dining $20

Is an incorrect transaction if you SPENT the money. (as opposed to receiving a 
refund, or correcting a prior error) Crediting an expense is a refund/reversing 
condition, not a normal expenditure.

When you record the receipt of money, that goes to an income/revenue account, 
split with the physical asset account for the form you received the payment in. 
Generally, this will be a credit to ‘income’ and a debit to ‘cash.’ Where and 
how do you record the receipt of money as a credit to an asset instead and how 
does that balance against your credit to your income account?

i.e.—

Dr. $1000
Cr. Income:Salary   $1000
Cr. Assets:??

Regards,
Adrien


> On Jan 29, 2018, at 11:25 PM, Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ah, true. I guess this is why I favored "triggered transactions " rather than 
> "template transactions".
> 
> I want a transaction involving expense account "spending money" to 
> automatically add two more splits to reduce the asset account "segmented 
> spending money" balanced by increasing the value of "allocated cash" asset 
> acct (increase = make it less negative).
> 
> For saving up for something expensive, I would still set up the above, but I 
> would need to manually change the numbers if I wanted to return the 
> allocation to zero.
> 
> So when I enter:
> 
> Cr account I used to pay insurance 1150
> Dr expense account for insurance (with the trigger attached) 1150
> 
> I would want gnucash to automatically add the splits
> 
> Cr account I am using to segment insurance money 1150
> Dr account showing allocated cash 1150.
> 
> I would the (during my reconciling/budget review) need to amend that 
> transaction (or create a new one to return the insurance allocation to zero.
> 
> For many of my other money allocations (eg restaurants/cafe) I wouldnt change 
> it - underspending means the money is available for later.
> 
> Am I understanding you right?
> 
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> Matt
> 
> 
>  Original message 
> From: Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepf...@dialup4less.com>
> Date: 30/1/18 09:31 (GMT+10:00)
> To: Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com>
> Cc: gnucash-user@gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]
> 
> On 1/28/2018 8:11 PM, Matt Graham wrote:
>  When you look at what liabilities really are, Adrien and I concluded 
> on this thread that this situation (segmenting money for future) is really 
> using a separate asset account. After all - creating a liability INCREASES 
> your cash available. .

Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Matt Graham]

Ah, true. I guess this is why I favored "triggered transactions " rather than 
"template transactions".

I want a transaction involving expense account "spending money" to 
automatically add two more splits to reduce the asset account "segmented 
spending money" balanced by increasing the value of "allocated cash" asset acct 
(increase = make it less negative).

For saving up for something expensive, I would still set up the above, but I 
would need to manually change the numbers if I wanted to return the allocation 
to zero.

So when I enter:

Cr account I used to pay insurance 1150
Dr expense account for insurance (with the trigger attached) 1150

I would want gnucash to automatically add the splits

Cr account I am using to segment insurance money 1150
Dr account showing allocated cash 1150.

I would the (during my reconciling/budget review) need to amend that 
transaction (or create a new one to return the insurance allocation to zero.

For many of my other money allocations (eg restaurants/cafe) I wouldnt change 
it - underspending means the money is available for later.

Am I understanding you right?


Thanks and regards,
Matt


 Original message 
From: Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepf...@dialup4less.com>
Date: 30/1/18 09:31 (GMT+10:00)
To: Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com>
Cc: gnucash-user@gnucash.org
Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

On 1/28/2018 8:11 PM, Matt Graham wrote:
 When you look at what liabilities really are, Adrien and I concluded 
on this thread that this situation (segmenting money for future) is really 
using a separate asset account. After all - creating a liability INCREASES your 
cash available. ...
Yes, the problem precisely, we aren't assigning the same meaning to "available" 
and "liability"

But your example of what you would like to see:

Template transactions (I'd probably call them "Triggerred transactions", but it 
doesn'tmatter) sound awesome. As someone else highlighted, there are 
implementation difficulties to consider, but I dont think that it would be too 
onerous.

In terms of spending from another account but recording against a sub-account, 
its easy:
Dr Exp whatever account
Cr Cash I pay for something awesome
Dr Parent account the amount I paid
Cr sub-account the amount I paid

SPECIAL CASE of a GENERAL requirement. The special case might be easy to 
implement BUT in general the amounts are NOT going to be the same.

This is actually a fairly common situation for me, say one of the organizations 
SELLS a tee shirt (fundraising, but tee shirts might also be being given away 
to volunteers).
Db   Cash
Cr   Sales
Db   Cost of goods sold
Cr   Tee shirt inventory
<< the shirts might be being sold for $20 but cost the organization $7 >>

Or, and though this is common with our restricted funds (not exactly matching) 
I will give an example precisely for your situation. You socked away into this 
reserve $100/mo toward the annual renewal of your car insurance based on your 
ESTIMATE of what that annual bill will be. But when the bill arrives it is for 
$1150 or $1250. In both cases you pay the bill and release the restriction, 
yes? << in one case, you had more in the fund than needed but it still can be 
released to general purposes, in the other you used all of the fund AND had to 
add some general funds >>

Michael D Novack



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Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/28/2018 8:11 PM, Matt Graham wrote:
 When you look at what liabilities really are, Adrien and I 
concluded on this thread that this situation (segmenting money for 
future) is really using a separate asset account. After all - creating 
a liability INCREASES your cash available. ...
Yes, the problem precisely, we aren't assigning the same meaning to 
"available" and "liability"


But your example of what you would like to see:

Template transactions (I'd probably call them "Triggerred transactions", but it 
doesn'tmatter) sound awesome. As someone else highlighted, there are implementation 
difficulties to consider, but I dont think that it would be too onerous.

In terms of spending from another account but recording against a sub-account, 
its easy:
Dr Exp whatever account
Cr Cash I pay for something awesome
Dr Parent account the amount I paid
Cr sub-account the amount I paid

SPECIAL CASE of a GENERAL requirement. The special case might be easy to 
implement BUT in general the amounts are NOT going to be the same.

This is actually a fairly common situation for me, say one of the organizations 
SELLS a tee shirt (fundraising, but tee shirts might also be being given away 
to volunteers).
Db   Cash
Cr   Sales
Db   Cost of goods sold
Cr   Tee shirt inventory
<< the shirts might be being sold for $20 but cost the organization $7 >>

Or, and though this is common with our restricted funds (not exactly matching) I will give 
an example precisely for your situation. You socked away into this reserve $100/mo toward 
the annual renewal of your car insurance based on your ESTIMATE of what that annual bill 
will be. But when the bill arrives it is for $1150 or $1250. In both cases you pay the bill 
and release the restriction, yes? << in one case, you had more in the fund than 
needed but it still can be released to general purposes, in the other you used all of the 
fund AND had to add some general funds >>

Michael D Novack


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Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Adrien Monteleone]

I’m not sure I’d say ‘whatever’ the users request, certainly any software is a 
product of the developers and such things are their choice. Being open source 
as GnuCash is, if you find fundamental disagreement on that point, you can 
fork. But I’ve found the GnuCash developers to be very amenable to change (they 
have lots in the works themselves) but their resources are very limited and 
outside of squashing bugs their priority right now is behind the scenes stuff. 
The reason for that is once they get the code modernized and structured the way 
they need it, they’ll be able to open up much more possibility for new features 
and reporting.

The reason I used the term ‘template’ was that the already existing ‘scheduled’ 
transactions are already ‘triggered.’ It’s just that they trigger on a date, 
not an event like adding a particular kind of transaction or in a particular 
account. Scheduled transactions already use templates and those are saved. It’s 
the ‘fire on demand’ rather than ‘fire on a schedule’ functionality I think 
will be needed to better implement the savings mechanisms we’re discussing.

And yes, one can always spend funds at any time out of an account those funds 
don’t reside in, but as you see, that either requires at least two extra 
splits, or a separate transfer transaction prior to the expense transaction. 
Avoiding doing so not only keeps the visual clutter down and confusion to a 
minimum but also is part of enforcing the savings plan in the first place.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Jan 28, 2018, at 7:25 PM, Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Agree with your other email! A program should entertain whatever users are 
> requesting for better functionality. Of course, open source volunteer 
> developers can't be expected to drop everything to implement "my awesome 
> idea". Hence why I'm going to try to contibute (sigh, always need more time).
> 
> Template transactions (I'd probably call them "Triggerred transactions", but 
> it doesn'tmatter) sound awesome. As someone else highlighted, there are 
> implementation difficulties to consider, but I dont think that it would be 
> too onerous.
> 
> In terms of spending from another account but recording against a 
> sub-account, its easy:
> Dr Exp whatever account
> Cr Cash I pay for something awesome
> Dr Parent account the amount I paid
> Cr sub-account the amount I paid
> 
> This is (like all of our segregating money transactions) a virtual one, but 
> it wont affect your reconciling (because as discussed previously we are 
> reconciling by the parent and including sub-accounts).
> Hmmm now that I re-read your email, I think you might have meant this 
> already. Sorry!
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> Matt
> 
> 
>  Original message 
> From: Adrien Monteleone <adrien.montele...@gmail.com 
> <mailto:adrien.montele...@gmail.com>> 
> Date: 28/1/18 15:33 (GMT+10:00) 
> To: GNU Cash User <gnucash-user@gnucash.org 
> <mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>> 
> Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets] 
> 
> You can already use formulas in scheduled transactions, I just don’t think 
> you can use a present GC register value as a variable. (such as x% of the 
> balance of Assets:Checking) I could be wrong. It should be possible though to 
> use the value of one split as a variable so some auto-allocation might be 
> possible.
> 
> There’s also the issue with triggering the transaction based on an event 
> other than a date stamp. (such as triggering after you post a credit to 
> income or a debit to an checking account)
> 
> What we really need there isn’t so much a Scheduled Transaction but a 
> Template Transaction. (that can retain formulas)
> 
> As for keeping accounts straight, if someone in the real world wants to spend 
> money from a savings account by writing a check on their checking account - 
> that’s physically impossible. (barring auto adjusting as overdraft 
> protection) I don’t see why GnuCash should be any different. Trying to make 
> that possible I think would lead to all sorts of confusion as to where money 
> came from or where it should be. To help reduce the tendency to do so, I 
> suggested splitting up the sub-accounts based on where you are most likely to 
> draw funds from for those particular purposes. Otherwise, you’d have to do a 
> transfer from say ‘Savings’ to ‘Checking’ in GnuCash first just like you 
> would in the real world. But if you’re in the habit of spending from any ole’ 
> source for any ole’ purpose then by all means, keep the sub-accounts 
> separate, you’ll just have to include the transfer split in the expense 
> transaction or else do a separate transfer transaction.
> 
> Regards,
> Adrien
&

Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Adrien Monteleone]

Matt,

What Mike was talking about with Liabilities was with respect to ‘reserve’ or 
‘restricted’ funds. In the case of non-profits taking donations that can be 
earmarked
those funds have to be legally separated and cannot be used for any desired 
purpose.

As well, ‘deposits’ which are pre-payments set aside for particular purpose 
can’t be thrown into a general funds pool. (you might have to refund them if 
you don’t deliver the requested goods or services)

But both of those cases are real life liabilities.

The funds don’t ‘belong’ to whomever received them unless and until they are 
used for the appropriate purpose.

While what we are discussing is somewhat similar in concept, in real life, 
there is no actual liability incurred by not wanting to spend all you have and 
not save for vacation or the occasional night on the town, so using that type 
of account, while mathematically possible, isn’t necessarily the best idea to 
model what’s going on in the real world.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Jan 28, 2018, at 7:11 PM, Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> :-) you missed one of the previous posts. Using Liability accounts that way 
> is adding anoter "layer" of accounting to your system. When you look at what 
> liabilities really are, Adrien and I concluded on this thread that this 
> situation (segmenting money for future) is really using a separate asset 
> account. After all - creating a liability INCREASES your cash available. 
> However, shifting it to another asset account (either sub-account or 
> completely different area) reduces cash available AND allows you to record 
> the increasing amount you have segmented. If I get a chance, I think I'll 
> type all this up with some examples (it is easier to show with exampes).
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> Matt
>  Original message 
> From: Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepf...@dialup4less.com>
> Date: 29/1/18 00:51 (GMT+10:00)
> To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]
> 
> On 1/27/2018 10:25 PM, Matt Graham wrote:
>> Nice! It seems like we are getting somewhere. I am convinced that the 
>> process we think of budgeting where we are saving up for something is really 
>> a case of segmenting money within a sub-account. And it looks like Gnucash 
>> is already happy with this kind of situation - with the include sub-accounts 
>> in the recociliation window.
> Not exactly. This is a case where the term "budgeting" is being used in
> different ways meaning different things. Budgets my be legal
> (organizations, government entities) or advisory (personal, business)
> though of course businesses might have requirements to set aside funds
> << might be in the terms of a loan, etc. >>
> 
> ONE way of doing this is with liability accounts (typical -- account for
> amounts needed for taxes) but that method can also be used for "reserve
> funds" <<  I deal mainly with non-profits where "restricted funds" are
> common >>
> 
> Note that partitioning of a checking account in this way earlier
> described is still just "advisory" as it would NOT prevent you from
> writing a check for more than the balance remaining in the unrestricted
> portion of the account. Just you can't do that without seeing that you
> are doing it.
> 
> Michael D Novack
> 
> 
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Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Matt Graham]

Agree with your other email! A program should entertain whatever users are 
requesting for better functionality. Of course, open source volunteer 
developers can't be expected to drop everything to implement "my awesome idea". 
Hence why I'm going to try to contibute (sigh, always need more time).

Template transactions (I'd probably call them "Triggerred transactions", but it 
doesn'tmatter) sound awesome. As someone else highlighted, there are 
implementation difficulties to consider, but I dont think that it would be too 
onerous.

In terms of spending from another account but recording against a sub-account, 
its easy:
Dr Exp whatever account
Cr Cash I pay for something awesome
Dr Parent account the amount I paid
Cr sub-account the amount I paid

This is (like all of our segregating money transactions) a virtual one, but it 
wont affect your reconciling (because as discussed previously we are 
reconciling by the parent and including sub-accounts).
Hmmm now that I re-read your email, I think you might have meant this 
already. Sorry!

Thanks and regards,
Matt


 Original message 
From: Adrien Monteleone <adrien.montele...@gmail.com>
Date: 28/1/18 15:33 (GMT+10:00)
To: GNU Cash User <gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

You can already use formulas in scheduled transactions, I just don’t think you 
can use a present GC register value as a variable. (such as x% of the balance 
of Assets:Checking) I could be wrong. It should be possible though to use the 
value of one split as a variable so some auto-allocation might be possible.

There’s also the issue with triggering the transaction based on an event other 
than a date stamp. (such as triggering after you post a credit to income or a 
debit to an checking account)

What we really need there isn’t so much a Scheduled Transaction but a Template 
Transaction. (that can retain formulas)

As for keeping accounts straight, if someone in the real world wants to spend 
money from a savings account by writing a check on their checking account - 
that’s physically impossible. (barring auto adjusting as overdraft protection) 
I don’t see why GnuCash should be any different. Trying to make that possible I 
think would lead to all sorts of confusion as to where money came from or where 
it should be. To help reduce the tendency to do so, I suggested splitting up 
the sub-accounts based on where you are most likely to draw funds from for 
those particular purposes. Otherwise, you’d have to do a transfer from say 
‘Savings’ to ‘Checking’ in GnuCash first just like you would in the real world. 
But if you’re in the habit of spending from any ole’ source for any ole’ 
purpose then by all means, keep the sub-accounts separate, you’ll just have to 
include the transfer split in the expense transaction or else do a separate 
transfer transaction.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Jan 27, 2018, at 9:25 PM, Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Nice! It seems like we are getting somewhere. I am convinced that the process 
> we think of budgeting where we are saving up for something is really a case 
> of segmenting money within a sub-account. And it looks like Gnucash is 
> already happy with this kind of situation - with the include sub-accounts in 
> the recociliation window.
>
> I'm going to try this out over the next week or so and then try to 
> contriubute to the Tutorial and concepts guide on it. It can get pretty 
> complicated (for beginners) when you segment the money in your savings 
> acount, and then want to spend out of cash/checking etc. Is a pretty common 
> thing that people want out of Gnucash.
>
> After trying it, I'll also be in a position to suggest any feature changes 
> that would make it easier. Hinted already by others is the feature of 
> "formula" based data entry - doing data entry a bit like a spreadsheet, where 
> simple equations can be used often based on the values present in other 
> accounts/transactions... I'll leave that for now and explore it in my next 
> big discussion with you all!
>
> Thanks again - greatly appreciate your time,
> Matt
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: Adrien Monteleone <adrien.montele...@gmail.com 
> <mailto:adrien.montele...@gmail.com>>
> Date: 27/1/18 18:15 (GMT+10:00)
> To: GNU Cash User <gnucash-user@gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>>
> Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]
>
> That’s an interesting use of future dated transactions. Thanks!
>
>
> Regards,
> Adrien
>
> > On Jan 26, 2018, at 5:21 PM, Tommy Trussell <tommy.truss...@gmail.com 
> > <mailto:tommy.truss...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > I was following the budget discussion, and I decided to split 

Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Matt Graham]

:-) you missed one of the previous posts. Using Liability accounts that way is 
adding anoter "layer" of accounting to your system. When you look at what 
liabilities really are, Adrien and I concluded on this thread that this 
situation (segmenting money for future) is really using a separate asset 
account. After all - creating a liability INCREASES your cash available. 
However, shifting it to another asset account (either sub-account or completely 
different area) reduces cash available AND allows you to record the increasing 
amount you have segmented. If I get a chance, I think I'll type all this up 
with some examples (it is easier to show with exampes).

Thanks and regards,
Matt
 Original message 
From: Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepf...@dialup4less.com>
Date: 29/1/18 00:51 (GMT+10:00)
To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org
Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

On 1/27/2018 10:25 PM, Matt Graham wrote:
> Nice! It seems like we are getting somewhere. I am convinced that the process 
> we think of budgeting where we are saving up for something is really a case 
> of segmenting money within a sub-account. And it looks like Gnucash is 
> already happy with this kind of situation - with the include sub-accounts in 
> the recociliation window.
Not exactly. This is a case where the term "budgeting" is being used in
different ways meaning different things. Budgets my be legal
(organizations, government entities) or advisory (personal, business)
though of course businesses might have requirements to set aside funds
<< might be in the terms of a loan, etc. >>

ONE way of doing this is with liability accounts (typical -- account for
amounts needed for taxes) but that method can also be used for "reserve
funds" <<  I deal mainly with non-profits where "restricted funds" are
common >>

Note that partitioning of a checking account in this way earlier
described is still just "advisory" as it would NOT prevent you from
writing a check for more than the balance remaining in the unrestricted
portion of the account. Just you can't do that without seeing that you
are doing it.

Michael D Novack


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Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Adrien Monteleone]

ething is really a case 
> of segmenting money within a sub-account. And it looks like Gnucash is 
> already happy with this kind of situation - with the include sub-accounts in 
> the recociliation window.
> 
> I'm going to try this out over the next week or so and then try to 
> contriubute to the Tutorial and concepts guide on it. It can get pretty 
> complicated (for beginners) when you segment the money in your savings 
> acount, and then want to spend out of cash/checking etc. Is a pretty common 
> thing that people want out of Gnucash.
> 
> After trying it, I'll also be in a position to suggest any feature changes 
> that would make it easier. Hinted already by others is the feature of 
> "formula" based data entry - doing data entry a bit like a spreadsheet, where 
> simple equations can be used often based on the values present in other 
> accounts/transactions... I'll leave that for now and explore it in my next 
> big discussion with you all!
> 
> Thanks again - greatly appreciate your time,
> Matt
> 
> 
> ---- Original message ----
> From: Adrien Monteleone <adrien.montele...@gmail.com>
> Date: 27/1/18 18:15 (GMT+10:00)
> To: GNU Cash User <gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
> Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]
> 
> That’s an interesting use of future dated transactions. Thanks!
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Adrien
> 
>> On Jan 26, 2018, at 5:21 PM, Tommy Trussell <tommy.truss...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I was following the budget discussion, and I decided to split my comment
>> into a different thread. I'm not responding to any particular comment, and
>> this isn't quite germane to budgeting.
>> 
>> But I want to clear up a few misunderstandings I'm seeing folks express
>> about reconciling with sub-accounts. Subaccounts work very well, but they
>> do take a little maintenance.
>> 
>> WHEN TO USE SUBACCOUNTS
>> 
>> You can use subaccounts for several purposes, including budgeting, holding
>> onto money that isn't "yours" (a bond you're holding from a contractor for
>> successful completion of a project, for instance), identifying earmarked
>> funds, OR (as in the example below) simply stopping yourself from spending
>> down the account more than you'd like.
>> 
>> (If folks have additional suggested uses for subaccounts, bring em on!)
>> 
>> EXAMPLE: MINIMUM BALANCE VIEW
>> 
>> Here's a real-world (well it's real in MY world) example -- avoiding
>> "minimum balance" fees. The bank name has been changed to protect the
>> bookkeeper. ;-)
>> 
>> I have a checking account at BigBank.
>> 
>> Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking
>> 
>> The terms on that bank account say it doesn't cost me anything UNLESS the
>> balance drops below $2500, at which point I have to pay $8.50/month. (There
>> are some other miscellaneous fees, all higher when the balance goes low.)
>> 
>> SO to help avoid the $8.50/month expense, I created a sub account:
>> 
>> Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking:Minimum Balance
>> 
>> Then I created a transaction dated 2/15/2015, transferring $2500 from the
>> account to its subaccount:
>> 
>> (This is a representation of the BigBank Checking two-line auto-split
>> register. Items in the right column are "cr" and items in the left column
>> are "dr".)
>> 
>> 2/15/2015 min Minimum Balance   2500.00cr
>>   Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking:Minimum Balance   $2500.00dr
>>   Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking   $2500.00cr
>> 
>> When I reconciled my account the first time after creating this
>> transaction, I made sure to tick the "Include Subaccounts" checkbox on the
>> Reconcile Information dialog. I (as always) verified the ENDING balance
>> information exactly as it was shown on the bank's statement.
>> 
>> Also that first time I reconciled, I noticed TWO items to clear that
>> weren't actually on the bank statement -- $2500 in the funds in side and
>> $2500 in the funds out side of the reconcile window. I marked them BOTH as
>> "cleared."
>> 
>> From now on, I notice a few things have changed from before --
>> 
>> o - My default balance when I reconcile AND the running balance in the
>> BigBank Checking register will always show $2500 lower than I actually
>> have.
>> 
>> o - When I reconcile I always have to remember to override the default and
>> enter the ENDING balance as it is shown on BigBank's statement.
>> 
>> o - When I reconcile the "Inclu

Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/27/2018 10:25 PM, Matt Graham wrote:

Nice! It seems like we are getting somewhere. I am convinced that the process 
we think of budgeting where we are saving up for something is really a case of 
segmenting money within a sub-account. And it looks like Gnucash is already 
happy with this kind of situation - with the include sub-accounts in the 
recociliation window.
Not exactly. This is a case where the term "budgeting" is being used in 
different ways meaning different things. Budgets my be legal 
(organizations, government entities) or advisory (personal, business) 
though of course businesses might have requirements to set aside funds 
<< might be in the terms of a loan, etc. >>


ONE way of doing this is with liability accounts (typical -- account for 
amounts needed for taxes) but that method can also be used for "reserve 
funds" <<  I deal mainly with non-profits where "restricted funds" are 
common >>


Note that partitioning of a checking account in this way earlier 
described is still just "advisory" as it would NOT prevent you from 
writing a check for more than the balance remaining in the unrestricted 
portion of the account. Just you can't do that without seeing that you 
are doing it.


Michael D Novack


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Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[D via gnucash-user]

I'm glad you're going to look at documenting your suggestions in the Tutorial. 
I imagine they would fit as a special section in the budgets chapter.

As for the idea of having formulas active in the register, I think that there 
are a number of issues that need consideration and addressing.

First, when entering transactions, you already can enter numeric formulas 
(35/57), and Gnucash will calculate these. If I am entering transactions for 
real accounting events, then that is all I really need, it seems to me. 
Calculations with variables would only arise for future, tentative 
transactions. But entering future, tentative transactions goes counter to the 
idea that an accounting package tracks real transactions--using real 
money--rather than potential transactions. This has been where such discussions 
have foundered in the past on these lists. The scheduled transactions module 
attempts to finesse this by allowing formulas which are processed separately, 
and which create real transactions at specified points in time.

I imagine also that activating variable-based calculations into the register 
itself would require some serious reprogramming, and I do not know how likely 
that is to happen. I have read here that the register code is challenging to 
work with, and that an attempt to update the register has stalled.

Personally, I have come to believe that budgeting is fundamentally different 
from accounting, and keep them separate. I use a spreadsheet to track the few 
areas I choose to budget, and have a report in Gnucash that gives me usage 
numbers for those areas, which I transfer over manually. Gnucash's budget tools 
always hurt too much for my brain.

David

On January 28, 2018, at 8:27 AM, Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com> 
wrote:

Nice! It seems like we are getting somewhere. I am convinced that the process 
we think of budgeting where we are saving up for something is really a case of 
segmenting money within a sub-account. And it looks like Gnucash is already 
happy with this kind of situation - with the include sub-accounts in the 
recociliation window.

I'm going to try this out over the next week or so and then try to contriubute 
to the Tutorial and concepts guide on it. It can get pretty complicated (for 
beginners) when you segment the money in your savings acount, and then want to 
spend out of cash/checking etc. Is a pretty common thing that people want out 
of Gnucash.

After trying it, I'll also be in a position to suggest any feature changes that 
would make it easier. Hinted already by others is the feature of "formula" 
based data entry - doing data entry a bit like a spreadsheet, where simple 
equations can be used often based on the values present in other 
accounts/transactions... I'll leave that for now and explore it in my next big 
discussion with you all!

Thanks again - greatly appreciate your time,
Matt


 Original message 
From: Adrien Monteleone <adrien.montele...@gmail.com>
Date: 27/1/18 18:15 (GMT+10:00)
To: GNU Cash User <gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

That’s an interesting use of future dated transactions. Thanks!


Regards,
Adrien

> On Jan 26, 2018, at 5:21 PM, Tommy Trussell <tommy.truss...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was following the budget discussion, and I decided to split my comment
> into a different thread. I'm not responding to any particular comment, and
> this isn't quite germane to budgeting.
>
> But I want to clear up a few misunderstandings I'm seeing folks express
> about reconciling with sub-accounts. Subaccounts work very well, but they
> do take a little maintenance.
>
> WHEN TO USE SUBACCOUNTS
>
> You can use subaccounts for several purposes, including budgeting, holding
> onto money that isn't "yours" (a bond you're holding from a contractor for
> successful completion of a project, for instance), identifying earmarked
> funds, OR (as in the example below) simply stopping yourself from spending
> down the account more than you'd like.
>
> (If folks have additional suggested uses for subaccounts, bring em on!)
>
> EXAMPLE: MINIMUM BALANCE VIEW
>
> Here's a real-world (well it's real in MY world) example -- avoiding
> "minimum balance" fees. The bank name has been changed to protect the
> bookkeeper. ;-)
>
> I have a checking account at BigBank.
>
> Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking
>
> The terms on that bank account say it doesn't cost me anything UNLESS the
> balance drops below $2500, at which point I have to pay $8.50/month. (There
> are some other miscellaneous fees, all higher when the balance goes low.)
>
> SO to help avoid the $8.50/month expense, I created a sub account:
>
> Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking:Minimum Balance
>
> Then I created a transaction dated 2/15/201

Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Matt Graham]

Nice! It seems like we are getting somewhere. I am convinced that the process 
we think of budgeting where we are saving up for something is really a case of 
segmenting money within a sub-account. And it looks like Gnucash is already 
happy with this kind of situation - with the include sub-accounts in the 
recociliation window.

I'm going to try this out over the next week or so and then try to contriubute 
to the Tutorial and concepts guide on it. It can get pretty complicated (for 
beginners) when you segment the money in your savings acount, and then want to 
spend out of cash/checking etc. Is a pretty common thing that people want out 
of Gnucash.

After trying it, I'll also be in a position to suggest any feature changes that 
would make it easier. Hinted already by others is the feature of "formula" 
based data entry - doing data entry a bit like a spreadsheet, where simple 
equations can be used often based on the values present in other 
accounts/transactions... I'll leave that for now and explore it in my next big 
discussion with you all!

Thanks again - greatly appreciate your time,
Matt


 Original message 
From: Adrien Monteleone <adrien.montele...@gmail.com>
Date: 27/1/18 18:15 (GMT+10:00)
To: GNU Cash User <gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

That’s an interesting use of future dated transactions. Thanks!


Regards,
Adrien

> On Jan 26, 2018, at 5:21 PM, Tommy Trussell <tommy.truss...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was following the budget discussion, and I decided to split my comment
> into a different thread. I'm not responding to any particular comment, and
> this isn't quite germane to budgeting.
>
> But I want to clear up a few misunderstandings I'm seeing folks express
> about reconciling with sub-accounts. Subaccounts work very well, but they
> do take a little maintenance.
>
> WHEN TO USE SUBACCOUNTS
>
> You can use subaccounts for several purposes, including budgeting, holding
> onto money that isn't "yours" (a bond you're holding from a contractor for
> successful completion of a project, for instance), identifying earmarked
> funds, OR (as in the example below) simply stopping yourself from spending
> down the account more than you'd like.
>
> (If folks have additional suggested uses for subaccounts, bring em on!)
>
> EXAMPLE: MINIMUM BALANCE VIEW
>
> Here's a real-world (well it's real in MY world) example -- avoiding
> "minimum balance" fees. The bank name has been changed to protect the
> bookkeeper. ;-)
>
> I have a checking account at BigBank.
>
> Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking
>
> The terms on that bank account say it doesn't cost me anything UNLESS the
> balance drops below $2500, at which point I have to pay $8.50/month. (There
> are some other miscellaneous fees, all higher when the balance goes low.)
>
> SO to help avoid the $8.50/month expense, I created a sub account:
>
> Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking:Minimum Balance
>
> Then I created a transaction dated 2/15/2015, transferring $2500 from the
> account to its subaccount:
>
> (This is a representation of the BigBank Checking two-line auto-split
> register. Items in the right column are "cr" and items in the left column
> are "dr".)
>
>  2/15/2015 min Minimum Balance   2500.00cr
>Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking:Minimum Balance   $2500.00dr
>Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking   $2500.00cr
>
> When I reconciled my account the first time after creating this
> transaction, I made sure to tick the "Include Subaccounts" checkbox on the
> Reconcile Information dialog. I (as always) verified the ENDING balance
> information exactly as it was shown on the bank's statement.
>
> Also that first time I reconciled, I noticed TWO items to clear that
> weren't actually on the bank statement -- $2500 in the funds in side and
> $2500 in the funds out side of the reconcile window. I marked them BOTH as
> "cleared."
>
> From now on, I notice a few things have changed from before --
>
> o - My default balance when I reconcile AND the running balance in the
> BigBank Checking register will always show $2500 lower than I actually
> have.
>
> o - When I reconcile I always have to remember to override the default and
> enter the ENDING balance as it is shown on BigBank's statement.
>
> o - When I reconcile the "Include Subaccounts" checkbox is ticked and it
> needs to stay ticked. (It seems to "remember" the setting from session to
> session, as you would hope.)
>
> o - I also notice when I'm reconciling that when I "jump" to a transaction
> by double-clicking on an item in the funds in / fu

Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Adrien Monteleone]

That’s an interesting use of future dated transactions. Thanks!


Regards,
Adrien

> On Jan 26, 2018, at 5:21 PM, Tommy Trussell  wrote:
> 
> I was following the budget discussion, and I decided to split my comment
> into a different thread. I'm not responding to any particular comment, and
> this isn't quite germane to budgeting.
> 
> But I want to clear up a few misunderstandings I'm seeing folks express
> about reconciling with sub-accounts. Subaccounts work very well, but they
> do take a little maintenance.
> 
> WHEN TO USE SUBACCOUNTS
> 
> You can use subaccounts for several purposes, including budgeting, holding
> onto money that isn't "yours" (a bond you're holding from a contractor for
> successful completion of a project, for instance), identifying earmarked
> funds, OR (as in the example below) simply stopping yourself from spending
> down the account more than you'd like.
> 
> (If folks have additional suggested uses for subaccounts, bring em on!)
> 
> EXAMPLE: MINIMUM BALANCE VIEW
> 
> Here's a real-world (well it's real in MY world) example -- avoiding
> "minimum balance" fees. The bank name has been changed to protect the
> bookkeeper. ;-)
> 
> I have a checking account at BigBank.
> 
> Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking
> 
> The terms on that bank account say it doesn't cost me anything UNLESS the
> balance drops below $2500, at which point I have to pay $8.50/month. (There
> are some other miscellaneous fees, all higher when the balance goes low.)
> 
> SO to help avoid the $8.50/month expense, I created a sub account:
> 
> Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking:Minimum Balance
> 
> Then I created a transaction dated 2/15/2015, transferring $2500 from the
> account to its subaccount:
> 
> (This is a representation of the BigBank Checking two-line auto-split
> register. Items in the right column are "cr" and items in the left column
> are "dr".)
> 
>  2/15/2015 min Minimum Balance   2500.00cr
>Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking:Minimum Balance   $2500.00dr
>Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking   $2500.00cr
> 
> When I reconciled my account the first time after creating this
> transaction, I made sure to tick the "Include Subaccounts" checkbox on the
> Reconcile Information dialog. I (as always) verified the ENDING balance
> information exactly as it was shown on the bank's statement.
> 
> Also that first time I reconciled, I noticed TWO items to clear that
> weren't actually on the bank statement -- $2500 in the funds in side and
> $2500 in the funds out side of the reconcile window. I marked them BOTH as
> "cleared."
> 
> From now on, I notice a few things have changed from before --
> 
> o - My default balance when I reconcile AND the running balance in the
> BigBank Checking register will always show $2500 lower than I actually
> have.
> 
> o - When I reconcile I always have to remember to override the default and
> enter the ENDING balance as it is shown on BigBank's statement.
> 
> o - When I reconcile the "Include Subaccounts" checkbox is ticked and it
> needs to stay ticked. (It seems to "remember" the setting from session to
> session, as you would hope.)
> 
> o - I also notice when I'm reconciling that when I "jump" to a transaction
> by double-clicking on an item in the funds in / funds out lists, the
> transaction opens into a different kind of "general ledger" style register
> that includes ALL transactions in the account and subaccounts. It exactly
> resembles the kind of register that appears when you search for
> transactions. It has a "plus" (+) mark in its tab and looks different from
> the "ordinary" register.
> 
> 
> Obviously at any time I can "overspend" and the primary account balance
> will go negative, with either dire or negligible real-world repercussions.
> But if I ignore the red (negative) balance numbers and keep the balances in
> the red, I've eliminated the reason for having the subaccount in the first
> place.
> 
> I can raise or lower the minumum balance at any time by creating another
> transaction between the account and subaccount.
> 
> 
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Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Tommy Trussell]

I was following the budget discussion, and I decided to split my comment
into a different thread. I'm not responding to any particular comment, and
this isn't quite germane to budgeting.

But I want to clear up a few misunderstandings I'm seeing folks express
about reconciling with sub-accounts. Subaccounts work very well, but they
do take a little maintenance.

WHEN TO USE SUBACCOUNTS

You can use subaccounts for several purposes, including budgeting, holding
onto money that isn't "yours" (a bond you're holding from a contractor for
successful completion of a project, for instance), identifying earmarked
funds, OR (as in the example below) simply stopping yourself from spending
down the account more than you'd like.

(If folks have additional suggested uses for subaccounts, bring em on!)

EXAMPLE: MINIMUM BALANCE VIEW

Here's a real-world (well it's real in MY world) example -- avoiding
"minimum balance" fees. The bank name has been changed to protect the
bookkeeper. ;-)

I have a checking account at BigBank.

Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking

The terms on that bank account say it doesn't cost me anything UNLESS the
balance drops below $2500, at which point I have to pay $8.50/month. (There
are some other miscellaneous fees, all higher when the balance goes low.)

SO to help avoid the $8.50/month expense, I created a sub account:

Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking:Minimum Balance

Then I created a transaction dated 2/15/2015, transferring $2500 from the
account to its subaccount:

(This is a representation of the BigBank Checking two-line auto-split
register. Items in the right column are "cr" and items in the left column
are "dr".)

  2/15/2015 min Minimum Balance   2500.00cr
Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking:Minimum Balance   $2500.00dr
Assets:Current Assets:BigBank Checking   $2500.00cr

When I reconciled my account the first time after creating this
transaction, I made sure to tick the "Include Subaccounts" checkbox on the
Reconcile Information dialog. I (as always) verified the ENDING balance
information exactly as it was shown on the bank's statement.

Also that first time I reconciled, I noticed TWO items to clear that
weren't actually on the bank statement -- $2500 in the funds in side and
$2500 in the funds out side of the reconcile window. I marked them BOTH as
"cleared."

>From now on, I notice a few things have changed from before --

o - My default balance when I reconcile AND the running balance in the
BigBank Checking register will always show $2500 lower than I actually
have.

o - When I reconcile I always have to remember to override the default and
enter the ENDING balance as it is shown on BigBank's statement.

o - When I reconcile the "Include Subaccounts" checkbox is ticked and it
needs to stay ticked. (It seems to "remember" the setting from session to
session, as you would hope.)

o - I also notice when I'm reconciling that when I "jump" to a transaction
by double-clicking on an item in the funds in / funds out lists, the
transaction opens into a different kind of "general ledger" style register
that includes ALL transactions in the account and subaccounts. It exactly
resembles the kind of register that appears when you search for
transactions. It has a "plus" (+) mark in its tab and looks different from
the "ordinary" register.


Obviously at any time I can "overspend" and the primary account balance
will go negative, with either dire or negligible real-world repercussions.
But if I ignore the red (negative) balance numbers and keep the balances in
the red, I've eliminated the reason for having the subaccount in the first
place.

I can raise or lower the minumum balance at any time by creating another
transaction between the account and subaccount.


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>
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Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Adrien Monteleone]

If they are allocations from the parent then the parent should have the 
reversing entry already and it should wash.

The only issue would be if you transfer from say Checking to a sub of Savings.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Jan 26, 2018, at 5:47 AM, Maf. King  wrote:
> 
> On Friday, 26 January 2018 11:34:52 GMT David T. via gnucash-user wrote:
>> Adrien,
>> 
>> A small point: there is an option on the reconcile window to include
>> subaccounts, so that should not pose a problem.
>> 
>> David
>> 
> 
> David,
> 
> I too thought about that option, but also considered that the transactions to 
> allocate funds to the sub-accounts wouldn't show on the statement from the 
> bank.  So it will still take a bit of manual figuring out to reconcile such 
> an 
> account structure.
> 
> 0.02
> Maf.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Maf. King
> PGP Key fingerprint = 8D68 A91F 733B 2C1F 43B7  2B7C E591 E8E1 0DE7 C542
> 
> 
> 

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Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Adrien Monteleone]

is to enter the receipt of funds - say a paycheck and 
>> then automatically allocate portions to different subs based on priority and 
>> if they are ‘full’ or not based on a savings goal.
>> 
>> If you have any other approach for figuring out amounts to allocate, I’m 
>> game for trying it.
>> 
>> Anyhow, those are my thoughts on the subject.
>> 
>> Thanks for starting the topic, it’s helped me consider tackling this again.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Adrien
>> 
>>> On Jan 26, 2018, at 12:22 AM, Matt Graham <matt_graham2...@hotmail.com> 
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>  You beat me to the punch on a couple of things. Yes, I have the tendency 
>>> to over-complicate. I think there needs to be a simple way to do what 
>>> people want though...
>>> 
>>> I started plotting things out more and came to similar conclusions.
>>> 
>>> First, when I say “fake” I mean “not corresponding to physical money – 
>>> cash, account balance etc”. You’re right, its bad terminology, and I like 
>>> the way you think of accounts as just a “thing”.
>>> 
>>> Second, I have tried a number of other programs for my financial needs. All 
>>> of them have various advantages and disadvantages. So with no clear winner, 
>>> I thought I’d try to make GNUCash better...
>>> 
>>> “Categories” is a vague word and risks things getting complicated. Perhaps 
>>> all of this allocation of money concept would work best if GNUCash 
>>> introduced “categories” purely for allocation? Applications where we are 
>>> allocating things on the side without actually changing our accounts? Lets 
>>> keep that aside and see if it works once we agree on everything else – 
>>> sounds complicated (and I cringe at adding a new ‘semi-account’ type).
>>> 
>>> Thinking about things further (and trying it) I agree 100% that liabilities 
>>> aren’t involved. Allocating money to something decreases the amount of cash 
>>> (agree with your term – LET “cash” = “liquid assets”), which would 
>>> correspond to a decreased liability... Makes no sense having negative 
>>> liabilities. My bad.
>>> 
>>> I tried fiddling with equity as you (tentatively) suggested too, but this 
>>> didn’t really make sense either. You end up with negative equity accounts 
>>> showing how much you have to spend...
>>> 
>>> So yes – I agree It is asset to asset... Decreasing cash available (asset) 
>>> is balanced by increasing cash to spend on a purpose later (asset).
>>> 
>>> Creating a sub-account to your physical cash or bank account to track 
>>> allocated money is only good if you are always going to spend out of that 
>>> account. If I’m tracking my spending money from my bank account, but then 
>>> spend out of my cash on spending money...
>>> Dr increase Expense
>>> Cr decrease physical cash I used to pay
>>> Cr decrease the amount in that sub account – gets it out of that sub 
>>> account
>>> Dr increase the amount in parent account – puts it back in the parent...
>>> It works, I guess, but just seems weird transferring balance between the 
>>> child and parent like this.
>>> 
>>> So they way I’m thinking of trialling is having a separate asset account 
>>> “Allocated Assets” (separate from Current and Fixed assets). That way when 
>>> allocating money the decrease (cr) in current assets (an account I’ve put 
>>> as “Money Allocated”) is balanced by the increase (dr) in the specific 
>>> “Allocated Assets”:”Spending Money” account.
>>> Spending is the same as above, but the increase to make  “Money Allocated” 
>>> less negative is balanced by the decrease in the relevant Allocated assets 
>>> account
>>> 
>>> Of course, all of this still means i’m entering four lines for one 
>>> expenditure. The good news is that I only really have four accounts that 
>>> involve allocated money like this (2 spending money, Holiday, and 
>>> restaurant/café spending). Since all of this is a very common application 
>>> for most personal users, I’m wondering if there is an easier way – 
>>> “categories” defined against an expense account that just track how much 
>>> you have “allocated” to that purpose? Would need both aspects – viewing 
>>> “how much I have left” to spend for that purpose (budget line item?), but 
>>> also ensuring “I have the money in my accounts to be able to buy it”. That 
>>> all sounds too complicated – i

Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Christopher Lam]

Hi Matt
I think there is merit in your idea.
I think some of the logic has already been baked into the Scheduled
Transactions (SX) facility.
So far, we know the transactions in the database are perfect for recording
*past* activity. Sometimes I'll also record transactions in the future e.g.
for upcoming tax payments. These appear under a blue line in the register,
and affects the Future Balance.

However *future* transactions are of the following types
(1) regular expected amounts eg monthly mortgage repayments, utility bills
(eg approx $200/qtr), annual land taxes (eg $1000/yr)
(2) regular budgeting (e.g. I can allocate 30% of my income towards income
tax, and every quarter will actually pay it)
(3) envelope budgeting (e.g. we can allocate $100 /month towards luxuries,
and any luxuries will need to be limited to $100/month, or $600/halfyear
holiday)
(4) long-term planning (e.g. in 15 years' time, my investment of $500/month
at approx 7%pa must reach $160,000)
(5) I must have a cash float of $5000 at hand for emergencies
(6) any other?

The SX is good at (1) and we can count future expenses with the Future
Scheduled Transactions Summary report, which aggregates all future SX
amounts in a time period.
(2) would be in my wishlist: set up formula "(CurrBalance of
Income:Paycheck * 0.3 - CurrBalance of Expense:IncomeTax)" is the expected
approximate tax liability.
(3) is also very popular and enforced by the likes of YNAB. No automated
mechanism within Gnucash. Can be done with the virtual accounts as
described.
 Another way is as follows - "Balance of Expenses:Luxuries must increase by
$100/month" please report its variance.
(4) is out of scope.
(5) is somewhat possible by enabling the "Future Minimum" column in the
main Account View, but doesn't take into account the SX amounts.

On 26 January 2018 at 11:29, Matt Graham 
wrote:

> Hi All!
> I’m going to discuss (and get people’s opinions) on a way in which many
> users (myself included) struggle to get “what they want” from GNUCash
> budgeting. GNUcash is very strict on proper double-entry bookkeeping
> practices (which I love). In accounting, “budgeting” means that you are
> plotting out exactly when you are going to change account values in what
> way. It is forecasting the future states of the accounts.
>
> So if you have a monthly bill of $50 you need to pay – easy. You enter it
> into the monthly periods - both expense account and asset account. You know
> you will spend that amount, and you (usually) know what asset account you
> are spending it out of. This is budgeting, and allows you to see that you
> are not losing money overall and sending yourself broke by end of year.
>
> The next thing that people call “budgeting” is when they want to save up
> for something, but don’t have a distinct plan of when it will be spent or
> how it will be paid for. My example is “Spending Money” (but perhaps
> “holiday savings” is a better example). I allocate $100 every month to
> myself and my wife to spend as we want (hobbies, clothes, etc). If we don’t
> spend it, it builds up allowing us to buy bigger stuff later. So I should
> put $100 in each budget period against those two expense accounts, right?
> NO, NO, NO From an accounting perspective, nothing is necessarily going
> to be spent out of my “Spending money” expense account. It is an allocation
> of money, not a spending of money. I can’t predict in advance any real
> changes to my asset or expense accounts from this monthly “allocation of
> money”. What I am doing from an accounting perspective is setting up a
> liability on myself – a promise to give money later to someone (in this
> case a promise to give money to myself). The reduction in my assets (cash)
> is as completely fake as the increase in liability – none of my cash or
> credit accounts have changed in value.
>
> For now I’m going to call this application “Future allocated money”, and
> controversially say that it is NOT “budgeting”.
>
> So if you have some ‘budget’ purpose such as this, and lament that GNUCash
> can’t give you the running total, the way to deal with it is the way this
> person describes:
> http://allmybrain.com/2008/12/15/better-budgeting-with-gnucash/
>
> The fake asset account is used to show the money that has been allocated
> for certain purposes in the future (ie is unavailable). It needs to be a
> fake account, because usually we don’t know in advanced which asset account
> we are going to spend the allocated money out of. If you know which asset
> account you are going to be spending the money out of, then sure you can
> just create a sub-account to record the amount allocated to this. In this
> case, you don’t really need to record the liability at all (the liability
> is effectively shown in your sub-account), and the transactions become
> easier – just transferring between that sub-account and the actual expense
> account when you spend. But for most people, you need a fake asset 

Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Maf. King]

On Friday, 26 January 2018 11:34:52 GMT David T. via gnucash-user wrote:
> Adrien,
> 
> A small point: there is an option on the reconcile window to include
> subaccounts, so that should not pose a problem.
> 
> David
> 

David,

I too thought about that option, but also considered that the transactions to 
allocate funds to the sub-accounts wouldn't show on the statement from the 
bank.  So it will still take a bit of manual figuring out to reconcile such an 
account structure.

0.02
Maf.



-- 
Maf. King
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Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Adrien Monteleone]

espond 
> to a decreased liability... Makes no sense having negative liabilities. My 
> bad.
>  
> I tried fiddling with equity as you (tentatively) suggested too, but this 
> didn’t really make sense either. You end up with negative equity accounts 
> showing how much you have to spend...
>  
> So yes – I agree It is asset to asset... Decreasing cash available (asset) is 
> balanced by increasing cash to spend on a purpose later (asset).
>  
> Creating a sub-account to your physical cash or bank account to track 
> allocated money is only good if you are always going to spend out of that 
> account. If I’m tracking my spending money from my bank account, but then 
> spend out of my cash on spending money...
> Dr increase Expense
> Cr decrease physical cash I used to pay
> Cr decrease the amount in that sub account – gets it out of that sub 
> account
> Dr increase the amount in parent account – puts it back in the parent...
> It works, I guess, but just seems weird transferring balance between the 
> child and parent like this.
>  
> So they way I’m thinking of trialling is having a separate asset account 
> “Allocated Assets” (separate from Current and Fixed assets). That way when 
> allocating money the decrease (cr) in current assets (an account I’ve put as 
> “Money Allocated”) is balanced by the increase (dr) in the specific 
> “Allocated Assets”:”Spending Money” account.
> Spending is the same as above, but the increase to make  “Money Allocated” 
> less negative is balanced by the decrease in the relevant Allocated assets 
> account
>  
> Of course, all of this still means i’m entering four lines for one 
> expenditure. The good news is that I only really have four accounts that 
> involve allocated money like this (2 spending money, Holiday, and 
> restaurant/café spending). Since all of this is a very common application for 
> most personal users, I’m wondering if there is an easier way – “categories” 
> defined against an expense account that just track how much you have 
> “allocated” to that purpose? Would need both aspects – viewing “how much I 
> have left” to spend for that purpose (budget line item?), but also ensuring 
> “I have the money in my accounts to be able to buy it”. That all sounds too 
> complicated – it would be easier to allow the user to tag an expense account, 
> and have GNUCash automatically maintain the necessary “Allocated” asset 
> accounts...
>  
> I don’t think I am overthinking too far though, purely because it seems like 
> a common thing people want. Hence, solution required... Philosophy of 
> accounting tells us that this kind of allocation is: double entry on 
> Asset/Asset when allocating, two double entries (Asset/Expense and 
> Asset/Asset) when spending.
>  
> Hmmm Same conclusion as before – I’m going to try it out for a while 
> before suggesting any program changes...
>  
> Thanks and regards,
> 
> Matt
>  
> From: Adrien Monteleone
> Sent: Friday, 26 January 2018 4:32 PM
> To: GNU Cash User
> Subject: Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets
>  
> Here’s my attempt to save you a few months…
> 
> I think you’re spinning wheels into something more complicated than it needs 
> to be.
> 
> For starters, there’s no reason any liability account or expense account 
> should enter the picture of ‘saving’ for any particular purpose. ‘Spending 
> Money’ savings is NOT an expense. Why would anyone think to record it that 
> way?
> 
> An expense is when you actually receive something of value and you owe 
> someone else in exchange. (goods or services)
> 
> If you pay for those goods or services at the same time you receive them, you 
> just record the expense.
> 
> If however, you receive the goods or services and then pay later - an accrued 
> expense - then you use a liability account to track what you owe. (you still 
> record the expense when you receive the goods or services)
> 
> If you pay for goods or services *before* receiving them, it’s not an expense 
> yet. (a deferred expense) It’s a shift from one asset, likely 'cash', to 
> another asset called 'prepaid expenses.’ (cash is generic for liquid assets, 
> this includes checking and savings) When you actually use that asset, that 
> is, either receive the service or the goods, then you record the expense. 
> (you’d also do this for other assets you acquire and use up later - like 
> supplies. Depreciation is an example of a deferred expense for special assets 
> you paid up front for but use up slowly)
> 
> If however, you’ve not received any goods or services, and you don’t know if 
> you actually will and haven’t yet paid for them, then expenses and 
> liabilities aren’t even in the picture.
> 
> All you are

RE: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Matt Graham]

 You beat me to the punch on a couple of things. Yes, I have the tendency to 
over-complicate. I think there needs to be a simple way to do what people want 
though...

I started plotting things out more and came to similar conclusions.

First, when I say “fake” I mean “not corresponding to physical money – cash, 
account balance etc”. You’re right, its bad terminology, and I like the way you 
think of accounts as just a “thing”.

Second, I have tried a number of other programs for my financial needs. All of 
them have various advantages and disadvantages. So with no clear winner, I 
thought I’d try to make GNUCash better...

“Categories” is a vague word and risks things getting complicated. Perhaps all 
of this allocation of money concept would work best if GNUCash introduced 
“categories” purely for allocation? Applications where we are allocating things 
on the side without actually changing our accounts? Lets keep that aside and 
see if it works once we agree on everything else – sounds complicated (and I 
cringe at adding a new ‘semi-account’ type).

Thinking about things further (and trying it) I agree 100% that liabilities 
aren’t involved. Allocating money to something decreases the amount of cash 
(agree with your term – LET “cash” = “liquid assets”), which would correspond 
to a decreased liability... Makes no sense having negative liabilities. My bad.

I tried fiddling with equity as you (tentatively) suggested too, but this 
didn’t really make sense either. You end up with negative equity accounts 
showing how much you have to spend...

So yes – I agree It is asset to asset... Decreasing cash available (asset) is 
balanced by increasing cash to spend on a purpose later (asset).

Creating a sub-account to your physical cash or bank account to track allocated 
money is only good if you are always going to spend out of that account. If I’m 
tracking my spending money from my bank account, but then spend out of my cash 
on spending money...
Dr increase Expense
Cr decrease physical cash I used to pay
Cr decrease the amount in that sub account – gets it out of that sub account
Dr increase the amount in parent account – puts it back in the parent...
It works, I guess, but just seems weird transferring balance between the child 
and parent like this.

So they way I’m thinking of trialling is having a separate asset account 
“Allocated Assets” (separate from Current and Fixed assets). That way when 
allocating money the decrease (cr) in current assets (an account I’ve put as 
“Money Allocated”) is balanced by the increase (dr) in the specific “Allocated 
Assets”:”Spending Money” account.
Spending is the same as above, but the increase to make  “Money Allocated” less 
negative is balanced by the decrease in the relevant Allocated assets 
account

Of course, all of this still means i’m entering four lines for one expenditure. 
The good news is that I only really have four accounts that involve allocated 
money like this (2 spending money, Holiday, and restaurant/café spending). 
Since all of this is a very common application for most personal users, I’m 
wondering if there is an easier way – “categories” defined against an expense 
account that just track how much you have “allocated” to that purpose? Would 
need both aspects – viewing “how much I have left” to spend for that purpose 
(budget line item?), but also ensuring “I have the money in my accounts to be 
able to buy it”. That all sounds too complicated – it would be easier to allow 
the user to tag an expense account, and have GNUCash automatically maintain the 
necessary “Allocated” asset accounts...

I don’t think I am overthinking too far though, purely because it seems like a 
common thing people want. Hence, solution required... Philosophy of accounting 
tells us that this kind of allocation is: double entry on Asset/Asset when 
allocating, two double entries (Asset/Expense and Asset/Asset) when spending.

Hmmm Same conclusion as before – I’m going to try it out for a while before 
suggesting any program changes...

Thanks and regards,

Matt

From: Adrien Monteleone<mailto:adrien.montele...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, 26 January 2018 4:32 PM
To: GNU Cash User<mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

Here’s my attempt to save you a few months…

I think you’re spinning wheels into something more complicated than it needs to 
be.

For starters, there’s no reason any liability account or expense account should 
enter the picture of ‘saving’ for any particular purpose. ‘Spending Money’ 
savings is NOT an expense. Why would anyone think to record it that way?

An expense is when you actually receive something of value and you owe someone 
else in exchange. (goods or services)

If you pay for those goods or services at the same time you receive them, you 
just record the expense.

If however, you receive the goods or services and then pay later - an accrued 
expense - then you use

Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Adrien Monteleone]

Here’s my attempt to save you a few months…

I think you’re spinning wheels into something more complicated than it needs to 
be.

For starters, there’s no reason any liability account or expense account should 
enter the picture of ‘saving’ for any particular purpose. ‘Spending Money’ 
savings is NOT an expense. Why would anyone think to record it that way?

An expense is when you actually receive something of value and you owe someone 
else in exchange. (goods or services)

If you pay for those goods or services at the same time you receive them, you 
just record the expense.

If however, you receive the goods or services and then pay later - an accrued 
expense - then you use a liability account to track what you owe. (you still 
record the expense when you receive the goods or services)

If you pay for goods or services *before* receiving them, it’s not an expense 
yet. (a deferred expense) It’s a shift from one asset, likely 'cash', to 
another asset called 'prepaid expenses.’ (cash is generic for liquid assets, 
this includes checking and savings) When you actually use that asset, that is, 
either receive the service or the goods, then you record the expense. (you’d 
also do this for other assets you acquire and use up later - like supplies. 
Depreciation is an example of a deferred expense for special assets you paid up 
front for but use up slowly)

If however, you’ve not received any goods or services, and you don’t know if 
you actually will and haven’t yet paid for them, then expenses and liabilities 
aren’t even in the picture.

All you are doing is segregating assets for informational purposes. (the 
practice of ‘envelope budgeting’ fits this model) The only accounts involved 
are asset accounts.

They aren’t ‘fake’ any more than any other account in your books is fake. If by 
‘fake’ you mean they don’t correspond to a real world account held at some 
institution then that goes for nearly all accounts in your ledger save a small 
handful. (unless you are quite the prolific banker, borrower, investor or 
credit spender)

The point of accounts is to track where money comes from and goes to. Some of 
those accounts *might* have real-world counterparts, but they are all no more 
‘real’ or ‘fake’ than any other. Accounts are ‘reasons’, not physical things. 
(note, ‘account’ is not some special term. You have an ‘account’ at a bank, 
because they created one in their books to track the money you gave them. They 
have lots of other accounts on their books that don’t correspond like you think 
they do. Your ‘account’ at your bank is simply their ‘reason’ for having money 
that doesn’t belong to them.) I might draw the ire of those wanting to have 
GnuCash stand apart from Intuit products, but basically, your Chart of Accounts 
is just a Chart of Categories, Chart of Classifications, or Chart of Reasons to 
be more accurate. It is a system of classification. Don’t think even of 
‘account’ as a thing, it’s a really a verb in this sense - you are ‘accounting’ 
for why something is or why it happened.

For the purpose of planning expenses, the GnuCash budgeting module can help. 
(certainly, it is limited and needs improvement)

For the purpose of putting money aside or segregating it so you don’t 
‘accidentally’ spend it, that’s just financial discipline. Some people find 
that they can utilize sub-accounts or special savings/asset accounts for this 
purpose to ‘hide’ the money from themselves. This can cause a mess with 
reconciliation though.

Budgeting is the process of planning your expenses. Saving is the process of 
not spending. The two are not the same thing. (but certainly one influences the 
other)

Using sub-accounts or other asset accounts has the advantage of being able to 
see how much you’ve saved, but not how much you have left towards a goal. I 
suppose one could get creative with equity accounts in this regard, but it 
might be more work than necessary. (I hesitated to even mention it) Certainly a 
special set of ‘savings goals’ liability accounts could be used as well, but 
there again, this is confusing the issue of what a liability really is or 
isn’t. Your balance sheet would be all out of whack. (unless you don’t care)

With the envelope method, you aren’t creating liabilities by saving. (even 
negative liabilities!) You’re just taking some of your assets and putting them 
inside envelopes. Those are still assets. They don’t change their nature 
because of the envelope. You don’t suddenly have this not-quite nefarious 
non-expense or imaginary negative debt. You just separated your cash to keep it 
out of your wallet so you can pay your bills, buy gifts, make charitable 
donations, or have a small savings to cover emergencies instead of splurging on 
impulse buys or going out to dinner instead of cooking.

What you have are assets that you want to earmark, at least temporarily and not 
even by hard and fast rule necessarily. You really don’t *owe* that money to 
anyone.

So I would