Making sense of budgets in GnuCash - totally confused

[Richard Walker]

Hi there,

I've been using GnuCash for a several years, but have just started trying
to use the budget tool.

My goal is simple - I know approximately what money I'm expecting to come
in and go out, and I want to estimate what the balance will be in future
months. I've done this separately in a spreadsheet and I know what numbers
I'm expecting.

I've read the budgeting documentation
<http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.6/C/gnucash-guide/budget_creation1.html>and
budgeting
history wiki article, <http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Budget_History>but I'm
completely confused by the GnuCash budget tool.. I can't get things to add
up.

It seems 'obvious' that the bottom 4 rows are displaying totals, and that
the income line should list the total income each period, expenses the
total expenses. However, I can't seem to find anything that affects these
lines - they always display 0 no matter what budget details are entered, as
in the image below. Can anyone shed some light on this?

I can't find a description of what the transfers line is supposed to be?

The total line seems to ignore income and expenses, so I'm very confused as
to what this is actually for! I must be missing something.

I've also tried the "budget flow" report which looks more promising, but
I'm very confused by the way GnuCash is making things positive or negative
and I'm getting crazy numbers out. Happy to post an example.

Any suggestions welcome.

Best wishes,
Richard.

[image: Inline images 1]
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