[Kmymoney] Re: Introduction & Budgeting question

[Thomas Baumgart]

Hi Ian,

on Monday 29 November 2010 13:33:35 Ian Waddington wrote:

> Hi
> 
> Introduction
> I've have been looking for an MS-Money replacement to start using from the
> New Year and have been considering Gnucash, however, over the weekend
> someone very kindly pointed out that the answers to some of my questions
>  had already been answered by the recent release of KMyMoney so here I am.

Just in case anyone asks: that someone was me :)

>  I have it installed 4.5.0 onto a clean Kubuntu 10.10 build onto an old
>  laptop and so far so good.  I did wonder about trying the app on Windows 7
>  bit thought I'd leave that till another day.  It was the complete lack of
>  forecasting that I couldn't fathom in Gnucash, how do I stop going
>  overdrawn using Gnucash if I cannot forecast my balance.
> 
> My budgeting question
> I have a question about how KMyMoney deals with annual budgeting items. If
>  I budget £120 to be spent at any time during the year I'd like to know
>  what by budget would be at the beginning of February for the remainder of
>  the year if I had spent nothing during January. By my math it should still
>  be £120, could someone please let me know if this is how KMyMoney works? 

This involves two steps: entering the budget in the first place and then 
monitoring it using the report features.  KMyMoney supports (just as MS-Money) 
three different values for a budget entry: monthly (where the value is 
multiplied by 12 to get a yearly figure), yearly (where the value entered is 
divided by 12 to get a monthly figure) and individual (which allows you to 
enter 12 separate values and those get added to become the yearly figure).

When time elapses, you can use the actual vs. budgeted reports to see what 
happens. In case you are only interested in the totals, you can disable the 
monthly columns and see just those totals. Oh, the reports show you three 
columns: actual, budget and difference

And yes, given your example it should still show 0 as acutal, £120 as budget 
and £120 as difference. In case you entered a yearly budget, the monthly 
columns show  £10 for each month which might not tell you what you're looking 
for.


>  If it is I might be able to discard my spreadsheets.

> 
> To summarise my point - monthly budgets are just that monthly, you either
> spend it or lose it, whereas the annual budget should be available all year
> (until overspent of course).

-- 

Regards

Thomas Baumgart

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