Tracking Money in Savings Account

[Wayne Bird]

Anthony,

Thanks for the explanation.  Yes, I meant reconciling.  And it sounds like it's no problem!  Well, at this point, I believe I just need to decide how I want to have GnuCash work for me -- having asset subaccounts for all my expenses (the envelope system) or subaccounts for items that I must track separately, i.e. long-range savings items, monies I need to track separately for my wife, etc.  or maybe none as Michael pointed out: "Bookkeeping is about ACTUAL transactions, not transactions that might or might not occur. For projected transactions (planning) we use a budget."

Thanks everyone for your help, it has all been extremely useful, you guys are great!

Wayne

> To: fireflys_98 at yahoo.com; brakhane at googlemail.com; wrbird at hotmail.com
> CC: derek at ihtfp.com; warlord at mit.edu; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: Tracking Money in Savings Account
> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 15:19:57 -0500
> From: adardis at gmail.com
> 
> If by `balancing' you mean reconciling, you reconcile the checking  
> account, and make sure to check the "Include subaccounts" box in the  
> opening reconcile dialog. It will pick up all the transactions against all  
> the subaccounts.
> 
> This behavior is sort of perfect for what you want: your checking account  
> shows the balance minus the hold-asides that you have in your subaccounts,  
> so it's telling you what you want it to about what you have available --  
> taking the hold-asides into account; the real amount only appears when you  
> reconcile, and when you are looking at the Accounts page balance for the  
> checking account.
> 
> 
> On Fri, 17 Dec 2010 13:03:11 -0500, Wayne Bird <wrbird at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > James,
> >
> > Thanks for the example!  This is very helpful, but again, I don't want  
> > to force GnuCash into being an envelope system, if there is a better  
> > way.  Or at least my goal is to learn as much as I can about the  
> > "standard" method.
> >
> > Now that said, I find it interesting that under the Accounts tab the  
> > checking acct total is $1,813.00, but when I open the checking account I  
> > have a balance of $1,400.  I would imagine this is because the Accounts  
> > tab is giving the overall total (subaccounts included).  Whereas, when  
> > you go into the checking account, it's only showing the total for that  
> > particular account (no subaccounts included).  I can see how this can  
> > get ugly.  But this will be the case any time there's a subaccount in  
> > checking.  Yes, balancing can be interesting.  I don't remember who it  
> > was, but someone posted that their checking account was only a place  
> > holder for all their subaccounts.  I wonder how that works for balancing?
> >
> > Wayne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:58:14 -0800
> > From: fireflys_98 at yahoo.com
> > Subject: RE: Tracking Money in Savings Account
> > To: brakhane at googlemail.com; wrbird at hotmail.com
> > CC: adardis at gmail.com; derek at ihtfp.com; warlord at mit.edu;  
> > gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> >
> > So attached is my stupidly simple sample of what I think an envelope  
> > system could be.
> >
> > Note, I've not made this very detailed, doesn't include worrying too  
> > much about pay, it's just net income (not splitting to savings accounts,  
> > or anything else)
> >
> > I moved $100 into the Electric Envelope ready to pay a bill (that was  
> > then paid)
> > I moved $100 into Phone Envelope ready to pay the phone bill, it's setup  
> > to pay in a few days time.
> > I moved $100 into my envelope for buying something that I wanted to save  
> > up for, obviously not buying anything with it yet, so it's just sitting  
> > there.
> >
> > The complex bit, as far as I'm concerned is going to be balancing the  
> > accounts, since you'll have a bunch of splits that the bank doesn't have.
> >
> > - James Duerr
> >
> >
> >
> > E-mail: FireFlys_98 at yahoo.com
> >
> > ---------------------
> >
> > Discover a lost art - play Marbles. May 2004
> >
> > www.marillion.com
> >
> >
> >