Budgets - "Budget Transactions"

[David T.]

Dale,

What you describe sounds something like this:

http://allmybrain.com/2008/12/15/better-budgeting-with-gnucash/ <http://allmybrain.com/2008/12/15/better-budgeting-with-gnucash/>
and
http://allmybrain.com/2011/01/26/simplified-envelope-budgeting-for-gnucash/ <http://allmybrain.com/2011/01/26/simplified-envelope-budgeting-for-gnucash/>

Would that approach meet your needs?

David

> On Jan 2, 2016, at 12:51 AM, Dale Alspach <alspach at math.okstate.edu> wrote:
> 
> I was not thinking of routine regular transactions so much. 
> 
> Suppose that you need to accumulate funds for a $500 vacation expense
> that will occur in June.  You decide to set aside $100 for each month
> Jan. - May. You could alter your account tree and split the funds in your
> checking account into a current expense account and a vacation account.
> Each month you would then transfer $100 into the vacation account. Suppose
> you have several similar items, e.g., homeowner's insurance, property
> taxes, an annual maintenance fee.  These all have different lump sum
> payment dates. Do you want to create separate subaccounts for each lump
> sum payment? You could create one subaccount, e.g., restricted funds,
> and place all of these partial payments into this one subaccount. Then
> you would effectively budget what must be in this asset account each
> month. Of course when you balance your checking account you have to
> remember to have gnucash use all of the subaccounts.
> 
> If you have budget transactions, for the vacation you
> encumber the $100 additional each month Jan.-May and insert a future budget
> transaction in June that actually represents the expense. You would do a
> similar thing for each such expense. 
> 
> The budget transaction allows you to
> shift the timing of an expense for budgeting purposes but keeps the
> transaction accounts as an accurate picture of the current state of the
> finances. 
> 
> Assuming that the creation and deletion of encumbrances is not
> too painful, a user could do "what if" analysis in gnucash as part of the
> process of creating or revising a budget.
> 
> Dale
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