Making sense of budgets in GnuCash - totally confused

[Phil Longstaff]

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 8:17 PM, Richard Walker <
trustmeimanengineer at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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 don't know. Please log a bug in bugzilla. See
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Bugzilla. As an attachment, please attach a
gnucash xml file which demonstrates the problem. To do this:
1) run gnucash
2) use File -> Export -> Export Accounts    to export a new xml gnucash
file which has the account structure but no transaction data
3) load that file into gnucash. Use the budget page to enter some details
which show the problem
4) save the file and attach it to the bugzilla bug

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

You can provide budget lines for assets (e.g. savings account
contributions) and liabilities (loan principle repayments). The sum of
these appears as Transfers.


> 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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