Budget questions. (wordy)

[Thomas Bushnell BSG]

Chris Shoemaker <c.shoemaker at cox.net> writes:

> I informally polled a few professional accountants on this question,
> and the consensus was that they generally *do* try to keep budgeting
> categories as close as possible to expense accounts, down to a certain
> level of detail.  When there's a difference it's usually just that the
> expense accounts are more specific than the budget categories.

Sure; all I mean is that for me they are *exactly* the same; the same
was true when I was a church parish treasurer.  More sophisticated
organizations may need more flexibility.

> Your description of "cash budgeting" sounds like you're summing all
> cash debits and credits into one number for each period.  That seems
> like generating a periodic projected cash-flow report, yes?  

Yes, except that budgeting and accounting are different tasks in my
thinking.  I'm content to continue budgeting with gnumeric; it's a
more static process.  (I make one budget in the year, I tweak it as
necessary.  I enter hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of transactions
in my accounting in the same year.)

> If you make budget entries for all your income, expense, liability
> and cash assets, wouldn't you get this number by summing the column
> for each period?

I don't know, I don't enter budget entries in gnucash.  So I don't
know what those entries are.

I was describing the way I think about it.  I hope that gnucash can
support my model; if it doesn't I'm very likely to continue budgeting
the way I do now, in gnumeric.

Budgeting, unlike accounting, is not so standardized.  

Thomas