Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/4/2018 1:21 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:
> Looks nice. My main concern with these "shadow accounts" is that they will,
> by default, be counted in the Net worth reports, income reports, etc, and
> must be manually deselected every time.
>
> In my view budget allocations are technically "outside the books" and must
> therefore ideally be recorded in ways that don't affect the everyday data
> and reports.
>
The problems people have been discussing are really "work flow" and "how 
done" issues.

a) As noted in the second paragraph, technically "outside the books". So 
ONE solution is to do just that, a separate set of "books" (gnucash can 
handle many). That obviously would mean no effect on reports run against 
the regular books. And of course that could be using the built in budget 
facility.

b) But it seems most would prefer not having to switch books to record 
the effect on budget items resulting from the real transactions. I can 
think of MANY ways to put the "budget" accounts so that they would have 
no net effect on reports, total of the parent standing accounts (asset, 
liability, equity). What I can't see is any easy way to "automate" 
because IN GENERAL users, especially non-organizational users, will be 
ADJUSTING budget allocations on the fly as needed << don't need a vote 
of some board to authorize that >>

c) Some people seem to be confused about "liabilities" thinking that 
they NECESSARILY represent an actual debt (the most common use) instead 
of possibly representing a CONDITIONAL debt. I will note that some of 
the things I have mentioned in this context (especially for non-profit 
orgs) may be changing << I have heard that new accounting practice will 
allow some restricted funds not to be considered liabilities 
until/unless something prevents their use for the intended purpose 
instead of as now from the get go as a conditional debt* >>

d) IF I wanted to put the "envelopes" in my main books, I could put them 
under assets, liabilities, or equity WITHOUT affecting the totals of any 
of those. Thus:
        Budget     (the parent)
              Total allocated funds    (debit side?)
                Allocations                   (credit side?)
                    Each individual envelope
        << all that matters is that Total Allocated Funds and 
Allocations be on opposite sides --- which means the total for the 
parent "Budget" will be ZERO >>

Michael D Novack

* In my practical experience, donors of conditional gifts or grants 
often will agree to a change of use, extension of time to use, etc. But 
I have never had to deal with governmental grants, etc. which I suspect 
would be less forgiving. But I also have practical experience where ALL 
there is is budget accounting << the organization or committee has no 
funds in hand --- the budget represents what will be reimbursed if the 
committee votes to authorize an expenditure and some committee member 
goes out and spends the money --- and then submits the receipts to the 
town treasurer for reimbursement. The committee must track "how much do 
we have left to spend" or somebody will be out of pocket >>