4 ms·

I'm not so sure you want your bank to do this, because there is no easy aggregate view if you have multiple banks and/or other accounts to track. I have I thin

by ska 6y ago

I'm not so sure you want your bank to do this, because there is no easy aggregate view if you have multiple banks and/or other accounts to track. I have I think 6 currently with no way to merge (curse of bouncing between countries). Gnucash is as baroque as you say, but the only one of your options above that actually works and solves this problem (aggregate view) reasonably, of course that can't help you with things like virtual CC limit above. Still, it's much nicer than doing double entry with spreadsheets.

BeetleB 6y ago
I haven't used GnuCash in many years, but when I did, it did not support envelope budgeting.
- ska 6y ago
  Not out of the box, but easy enough to set up whatever scheme you would like. You can set up virtual asset accounts, or you can constrain things with liability accounts, etc.
- breckinloggins 6y ago
  The way I found to do it is to use the account tree feature to have "virtual subaccounts" under real accounts. That way you'd have something like: - Checking - Food - Housing - Entertainment - Emergency Reserve Your paycheck would go into checking and then you'd "fund" those subaccounts from the top level account. Then, when you reconcile your statements (I did it every day by going online), you "spend" out of the subaccounts.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    This is doable, but still a bit of a pain: I pay using different accounts (bank accounts or credit cards). Groceries, in particular, I pay with both checks and cards. Admittedly, this is still a problem with many envelope budgeting SW, but they usually have ways to mitigate this. The other problem: Say I have two checking accounts A and B, and I pay for groceries with A and car expenses with B. One month I overspend car stuff and my envelope for B is in the negative, and I don't have enough emergency reserve. I take money out of my grocery envelope under A to bring the car envelope in B back to 0. Now if I did this in GnuCash, it will show a wrong balance in one of my checking accounts (unless I physically transferred money between the two accounts). Your setup will work if you tend to spend everything from one account. I am curious, though: If you do it this way, doesn't it make reconciling a bit of a pain? Let me explain: When I go to do groceries, I usually have multiple categories I am purchasing (example below): 1. Groceries = $60 2. Supplies = $30 3. Miscellaneous (catch-all) = $10 I pay with a check of $100. How do you represent this in GnuCash? Will you list 3 separate transactions coming out of each virtual subaccount? If so, do you then not reconcile with your bank statement? Or does GnuCash let you mark it all as one transaction under Checking to make reconciliation easy? Ledger CLI has good support for "true" virtual accounts, so that the "real" accounts show the real world transactions (it will show up as one transaction from Checking to the Grocery Store), while simultaneously letting you split this into the 3 virtual budget accounts.
    - EE84M3i 6y ago
      Where do you live where grocery stores accept checks?
      - BeetleB 6y ago
        > Where do you live where grocery stores accept checks? Are you in Europe? I hear it's unusual there. In the US virtually every store will accept a check. There are still stores that will not take any card. And some stores that will take a a debit card but not a credit card. But they'll all pretty much take checks.
        EE84M3i 6y ago
        I lived in the US for 26 years and never witnessed anyone pay with a check at a grocery store or other similar retail establishment past the mid 2000s. I assumed they were no longer accepted?
        BeetleB 6y ago
        Most people will pay with either cash or card because it's more convenient. But I haven't heard of anyone that refused a check, unless it's a rather large transaction and they're concerned a check will bounce. I myself used checks and not cards for a bunch of years.
    - ska 6y ago
      Gnucash allows split transactions, so your case is not a problem. So your check of $100 out of your checking account gets split into 3 different places, e.g. expense accounts. Your actual representation of chequing accounts should really represent the bank account,so you shouldn't do what you describe (that lead to a wrong balance), your actual budgeting is done elsewhere. If you weren't doing envelope budgeting, you might just mark things into expense accounts, so they keep a running track of what you've spent. I haven't used it for a while so may get details a bit mixed, but the gist of it is right, If you want to do envelope style budgeting, you have a few possibilities. One is to do regular expense accounts but change your reporting period to say 1 month, and you use the report tools to see what is happening. In this way if you overspend in one, and underspend in another, it all rolls up into the same total. Another way would be more explicit, you would allocate a liability account 1st of each month for each "envelope" and then spend against that. You could freely transfer between these, and you can carry over etc. This would give you an up to date view easily. There are other schemes, depends what you want to make easy and what you make hard. By the way I'm pretty sure I remember gnucash has a built in budget tool also, but I've never used it; might be close enough to what you want to be the least effort.

by ska 6y ago

BeetleB 6y ago

I haven't used GnuCash in many years, but when I did, it did not support envelope budgeting.

ska 6y ago
Not out of the box, but easy enough to set up whatever scheme you would like. You can set up virtual asset accounts, or you can constrain things with liability accounts, etc.
breckinloggins 6y ago
The way I found to do it is to use the account tree feature to have "virtual subaccounts" under real accounts. That way you'd have something like: - Checking - Food - Housing - Entertainment - Emergency Reserve Your paycheck would go into checking and then you'd "fund" those subaccounts from the top level account. Then, when you reconcile your statements (I did it every day by going online), you "spend" out of the subaccounts.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  This is doable, but still a bit of a pain: I pay using different accounts (bank accounts or credit cards). Groceries, in particular, I pay with both checks and cards. Admittedly, this is still a problem with many envelope budgeting SW, but they usually have ways to mitigate this. The other problem: Say I have two checking accounts A and B, and I pay for groceries with A and car expenses with B. One month I overspend car stuff and my envelope for B is in the negative, and I don't have enough emergency reserve. I take money out of my grocery envelope under A to bring the car envelope in B back to 0. Now if I did this in GnuCash, it will show a wrong balance in one of my checking accounts (unless I physically transferred money between the two accounts). Your setup will work if you tend to spend everything from one account. I am curious, though: If you do it this way, doesn't it make reconciling a bit of a pain? Let me explain: When I go to do groceries, I usually have multiple categories I am purchasing (example below): 1. Groceries = $60 2. Supplies = $30 3. Miscellaneous (catch-all) = $10 I pay with a check of $100. How do you represent this in GnuCash? Will you list 3 separate transactions coming out of each virtual subaccount? If so, do you then not reconcile with your bank statement? Or does GnuCash let you mark it all as one transaction under Checking to make reconciliation easy? Ledger CLI has good support for "true" virtual accounts, so that the "real" accounts show the real world transactions (it will show up as one transaction from Checking to the Grocery Store), while simultaneously letting you split this into the 3 virtual budget accounts.
  - EE84M3i 6y ago
    Where do you live where grocery stores accept checks?
    - BeetleB 6y ago
      > Where do you live where grocery stores accept checks? Are you in Europe? I hear it's unusual there. In the US virtually every store will accept a check. There are still stores that will not take any card. And some stores that will take a a debit card but not a credit card. But they'll all pretty much take checks.
      - EE84M3i 6y ago
        I lived in the US for 26 years and never witnessed anyone pay with a check at a grocery store or other similar retail establishment past the mid 2000s. I assumed they were no longer accepted?
        BeetleB 6y ago
        Most people will pay with either cash or card because it's more convenient. But I haven't heard of anyone that refused a check, unless it's a rather large transaction and they're concerned a check will bounce. I myself used checks and not cards for a bunch of years.
  - ska 6y ago
    Gnucash allows split transactions, so your case is not a problem. So your check of $100 out of your checking account gets split into 3 different places, e.g. expense accounts. Your actual representation of chequing accounts should really represent the bank account,so you shouldn't do what you describe (that lead to a wrong balance), your actual budgeting is done elsewhere. If you weren't doing envelope budgeting, you might just mark things into expense accounts, so they keep a running track of what you've spent. I haven't used it for a while so may get details a bit mixed, but the gist of it is right, If you want to do envelope style budgeting, you have a few possibilities. One is to do regular expense accounts but change your reporting period to say 1 month, and you use the report tools to see what is happening. In this way if you overspend in one, and underspend in another, it all rolls up into the same total. Another way would be more explicit, you would allocate a liability account 1st of each month for each "envelope" and then spend against that. You could freely transfer between these, and you can carry over etc. This would give you an up to date view easily. There are other schemes, depends what you want to make easy and what you make hard. By the way I'm pretty sure I remember gnucash has a built in budget tool also, but I've never used it; might be close enough to what you want to be the least effort.