Tracking Money in Savings Account

[Daniel Trezub]

Derek:

To me, considering "future expenses" is related with the ability to know my
account balance in any given date in the future. This is what the CashFlow
Forecast report in MS Money tell you, and I think this is what Wayne and Ian
were talking about. To do so, we must consider all TXs that will occour in
some point at the future as "future expense", as well as consider the
"future incomes" too. It does not matter if they are regular bills or a big
flat TV to be bought next june.

Your needs (following your understanding of the matter) can be easily
handled by GC (I think), but Wayne´s and mine´s will need a new report or a
whole new feature.

I´ve wrote up some considerations about this matter back in april (see
below) here in the list, but I didn´t know I should file a request in
Bugzilla. I´ll try to put my considerations in the wiki so others can add to
it, and then try to file a request (and I´d love to have some guidance about
how a FS should be wrote).

Thanks for the VERY healthy discussion, guys!

===
My consideratins about the CashFlow Forecast Feature:

Great!

My experience with this kind of feature comes from MS Money, so I think my
> vision is very related to MM's features. Keep in mind the following is my
> particular vision.
>
> I'd like to have the following views/reports for this feature:
> 1. A report showing the values for all selected accounts month by month
> (just like the actual budget view) or week by week, but for the months/weeks
> to come.
> 2. A line graph illustrating the above.
>
> This is the way GC would get the data to populate the views:
> 1. Scheduled transactions: GC would look at scheduled transactions and
> simply add them to the data.
> Since SXs already have a possible ending date, GC would take this into
> account.
> The user should be able to select if a SX would be included in the Forecast
> upon SX creation, with the default to 'yes'.
>
> 2. Previous transactions: here we have three types of previous
> transactions:
>
> a) the ones that occur regularly every once (i.e. the club's fee in january
> and june, the paycheck every 5th of the month)): This type would already be
> covered by GC as they will already be entered in the SX (see the "c" type
> below)
>
> b) the ones that occur frequently but not regularly (i.e. groceries
> expenses, and almost every expense that does not fit in "a"): GC would look
> at the previous X months (being X selected by the user) and calculate the
> average ammount for this accounts. In my oppinion, an weekly average would
> be good. This average would then be added to the data for the Forecast.
> Let's say I've spend a total of $500 in groceries in the last 5 months. GC
> would take this total and calculate an average of $25/week ($100/month, 4
> weeks/month) for my groceries expenses.
>
> c) the ones that happen once in a lifetime (i.e. that don't have a defined
> frequency, as lottery wins, gifts, etc): The ideal cenario would be that GC
> would be aware of these one-time transactions and would ask the user if they
> would be added to the Forecast. If this is possible, then GC would be able
> to ask if the user would like to add the transaction as a SX, and then they
> would fall under the "a" type above.
>
> The most automated this Forecast is, the better. This is why I don't like
> the idea of adding new dialogs or making the user enter new data into
> his/her existing GC file. I think the Forecast can work well with minimum
> user decisions.
>
> Upon creating the Forecast Report/Graph, the user should be presented with
> a dialog asking:
> 1. the accounts to include in the Forecast (or use the Accounts properties
> for the Forecast - i.e. each account could include an option to add/remove
> it from the Forecasts)
> 2. the SXs to be included in the Forecast (or use the SX properties - i.e.
> each SX could include an option to add/remove it from the Forecasts)
> 3. how many months should GC look back to gather data
> 4. if the report would be monthly or weekly
> 5. the ending date of the forecast
>
> A bonus would be if GC could look at the specified budget and get data from
> there :)
>
> This is my vision. Any ideas? Comments? Criticism?
>
=====
Daniel Trezub
http://www.gameblogs.com.br


On 17 December 2010 13:28, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:

> Wayne Bird <wrbird at hotmail.com> writes:
>
> > Derek,
> >
> >> You only need to follow the subaccount structure *IF YOU ARE TRYING TO
> >> BUDGET FOR FUTURE EXPENSES*. For example, if you're trying to budget
> >> for a TV, saving $50 each month to build up the $2000 for that TV, that
> >> would be when you'd want a Savings (or Checking) Subaccount.
> >>
> >> However in this case the subaccounts don't make sense. You're just
> >> using them as passthrough accounts, not as budgeting envelopes.
> >
> > I'm beginning to understand a little bit more.  I'm really mixed up
> between
> > putting everything in envelopes (subaccounts) or nothing at all.  So I
> > understand what you mean by budgeting for future expenses, but isn't
> > everything really being budgeted for future expenses -- gasoline,
> groceries,
> > utilities, bi-annual insurance premiums, etc.?  Maybe, instead of
> subaccounts,
> > I should use the budgeting feature of GnuCash?
>
> I guess it depends how you look at it.  I don't consider my regular
> monthly or weekly expenses to be "future" expenses.  They are expenses
> that happy regularly, and it's easy to see whether I've spent it this
> month or not by just looking at my accounts.
>
> To me, a future expense is one that I need to save for over multiple
> months, multiple pay periods, like buying a TV, a new Car, a vacation,
> etc.
>
> > Please don't give up on me!
>
> -derek
>
> --
>       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
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