Hi Andrew, Thanks for your reply. You recommendation happens to be how I achieved it so far too - but it has a few issues with reporting:
* The phony asset and liability cancel each other out, so no net effect (make sense) * Until I make the corresponding expense I would like the fact I "owe money" to show up on my balance sheet. * When I overspend (allowed depending on type of fund), it's super weird with -ve asset and -ve liability. Again, this net effect is zero but it's hard to do the mental gymnastics to give account to my wife. * Some funds I can re-budget at will but some are obligatory (eg, 2nd Tithe - I can neither underspend or overspend this) * I feel both the budgeted funds and the obligatory funds affect my financial position and should show up in the balance sheet instead of net zero affect. * I feel funds shouldn't be able to go -ve willy nilly (should definitely affect my financial position if I allow it). *I have been thinking about it a lot though since sending my e-mail, I've come up with a subtly different strategy.* I got the idea about it thinking how my financial posture is at points a), b), c) in time: a) as I set aside money, my assets aren't changing but my liabilities are increasing b) as I spend money appropriately, I reduce my liabilities towards the goal. My cash assets also reduce at this point (or my credit card liability increases) c) if I over spend, I advance myself the money (a liability), I reduce my cash assets also to meet the expense Thinking about it this way I arrived at this structure: Assets:Cash Liabilities:Fund:Travel Liabilities:Fund:Travel:Advanced Equity:Fund:Travel a) I can schedule transactions to set aside: Liabilities:Fund:Travel (credit) -> Equity:Fund:Travel (debit) b) I can expense from my fund (split transaction), I should debit my corresponding liability by the same amount: Assets:Cash (credit) -> Expenses:Travel (debit) Equity:Fund:Travel (credit) -> Liabilities:Fund:Travel (debit) c) if I over spend, I can add another split, (should prevent the Liabilities:Fund:Travel from showing a -ve balance): Liabilities:Fund:Travel:Advanced (credit) -> Equity:Fund:Travel (debit) Doing it this way, the Balance Sheet and Net Worth charts reflect reality a bit more (in my opinion): a) balance sheet shows real assets and my fund as a liability. My equity is also reduced (I set aside the money) b) balance sheet shows real assets have reduced (spent cash), and my fund (liability) is spent, so reduced (or no) liability. My equity stays the same as my money is no longer set aside, but my cash assets are reduced. This is different in case of credit card use: my equity increases, my assets stay the same, but my liabilities also stay the same. c) balance sheet shows real assets have reduced (spent cash), and my fund is spent but I had to "borrow" money to advance the loan so I'm still liable for the deficit. My equity is also reduced (I've set aside money in advance) In case of net worth (aka Equity): a) +ve (assuming not setting aside more than my income), assets unchanged, liabilities increased, so net worth decreased b) +ve both assets and liabilities decreased, net worth unchanged c) -ve net worth (oops, I overspent), assets decreased, (some) liability remains (advanced), so net worth decreased *NOTE: when fund is overspent, the scheduled transactions have to be corrected as follows until the advance is repaid:* Liabilities:Fund:Travel (credit - less any advanced) -> Equity:Fund:Travel (debit - less any advanced) Liabilities:Fund:Travel (credit - residual) -> Liabilities:Fund:Advanced (debit - residual) *Assuming that overspending should be limited, this hassle shouldn't be the norm.* If it's a budgeted fund, you could also just go back and set aside more retroactively to compensate and adjust your budget to suit if you like. If it's an obligatory fund, the advanced amount needs to be repaid within the accounting period, or it will carry over to the next period (if permissible). I still feel this is more complicated than I would like. So still soliciting more ideas... Let me know what you think, Daniel -- In the beginning Kibo created the Internet. Now the Internet was formless, and empty. Randomness was upon the face of computing, and the Spirit of ARPA moved upon the face of the computers. Then Kibo said, "Let there be data": and there was data. Kibo saw the data, and it was good, so Kibo divided the data from the randomness, and Kibo named the data Information, and the randomness Clueless. And the Information and the Clueless were the first Network. On Mon, Aug 5, 2024 at 7:22 PM Andrew Beattie <andrewbt...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Daniel > > I’ve understood that you want to allocate some of your bank balance(s) to > savings goal(s) and then have a "balance available" after setting the money > aside. It is a question I’ve asked myself if the past and you prompted me > to work out how I could to do it. > > I’m no Gnucash expert and I don’t know if there’s a non double entry > solution, but could suggest a reasonably simple double entry approach that > would work for my setup and might go some of the way towards what you’re > looking for. > > In Assets I have an account Bank which I use as a parent for a couple of > bank accounts. > > For each bank account where I wanted to set something aside, I could > create a new liability type account underneath the bank account called > “Allocated for savings goals” or something. > > Also within the Bank parent I could create an asset account "Savings > goals". If I had more than one goal I could make that a parent and create > sub accounts to track them. > > Then I’d use double entry/scheduled transactions to make the > provisions/set aside money in line with my goals in the new accounts. > These new accounts are “memo” accounts and entries would not be mixed with > real entries. When the money is actually used there’d be a real entry > reflecting the cash flow transaction and I’d need to manually clear the > memo accounts with reversing entries. > > Looking at the accounts list: > > - my Bank parent account would show the total amount I have in my bank > accounts > - the “Savings goals” account(s) would show how much of the real balance > is set aside for the goals(s) > - the real bank accounts would show the net amount available after setting > money aside > - the sub account “Allocated for savings goals” accounts beneath my real > bank accounts > > So as an example, if I have 1000 in a real bank account, the account in > the accounts list might show as 100 which is the available balance, then > the sub account would show as 900 which is how much I’ve set aside. > Because I’m not touching the transactions in the real bank accounts, when I > open them I’d see the true balance and reconciliations etc would work as > normal. > > Not sure if that helps, but I think I’ll give it a go myself! > > Cheers > > Andrew > > > On 5 Aug 2024, at 02:27, Daniel Sheffield <d.j.yo...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > I'm using gnucash to manage my personal finances. It's great for tracking > > my expenses and I can even forecast short-term (a few months) but > schedule > > transactions in advance for big ticket items and other regular > > expenses (loan repayments). For other more irregular expenses, I use the > > budget tool. > > > > BUT > > > > I'm trying to keep track of savings towards a goal, but without opening > an > > actual account or making any real world transactions to achieve it. > > ie, I want to keep a tab of what money is available for a specific use > and > > be able to see at a glance what the balance of each fund is. > > > > I have been using the budget tool to track how well I stick to it, but > the > > budget is not necessarily precise down to the last cent so it seems > > inappropriate to use the budgeting tool to track an internal account. > > > > In essence, I would like to use a solution that would be robust enough > that > > I could use it to track actual customer accounts if I were a business > > (assuming local laws would actually allow this sort of behaviour - > keeping > > all the money in one pot so to speak). > > > > A concrete example would be good as I have tried various ways (including > > Trading Accounts) and they all seem to have some shortcomings. > > > > I can give example of what I've tried on request - I'm trying to keep > this > > initial mail short. > > > > ps, I'm starting to think that GnuCash is not the right tool for this > > specific task, as double-entry accounting for this purpose is introducing > > more risk of errors (in my opinion) than single-entry accounting... but > > then again, I'm probably doing wrong. > > > > Cheers, > > Daniel S > > > > -- > > In the beginning Kibo created the Internet. Now the Internet was > formless, > > and empty. Randomness was upon the face of computing, and the Spirit of > > ARPA moved upon the face of the computers. Then Kibo said, "Let there be > > data": and there was data. Kibo saw the data, and it was good, so Kibo > > divided the data from the randomness, and Kibo named the data > Information, > > and the randomness Clueless. And the Information and the Clueless were > the > > first Network. > > _______________________________________________ > > gnucash-user mailing list > > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > > ----- > > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > > _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
