Stupid Question: Bucket Balance vs. Balance
Dave
I was wondering exactly what would cause your Bucket Balance to be
different than you Balance (at the bottom of MW) and then also versus
the balance listed for that account in the top left account list.
This is probably very simple and I should know it but I cannot find a
53 cent difference between them and I don't know why.
Thank you!
Kevin Hoctor
Dave,
Usually these are caused by transaction that has not been assigned
properly to a bucket or a starting cash flow amount that didn't
exactly match with your total account balances at that time. Sometimes
this has to do with your cash account.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
ke...@nothirst.com
No Thirst Software LLC
http://nothirst.com
http://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com
Dave
Thanks!
Dave
transactions and all of them are assigned to a bucket, what would
reflect "properly?" And how would I find that.
Lastly, what would indicate that I made a mistake on my starting cash
flow?
Thanks!
The Watkinson Family
any transfers (transfers require special consideration), and you do
not have any Future Pending transactions, then the problem must be
with your cash flow. You can add up all the money that you had in
your buckets vs the money that you had in accounts on the day that you
started tracking cash flow (always the beginning of the month). These
two sums will most likely differ by 59 cents.
To fix the difference adjust your Initial Cash Flow amount by 59 cents
(Edit -> Change Cash Flow Start Date, change the Amount field).
Blair
Kevin Hoctor
> I know it's not the cash account. And, I have gone through all my
> transactions and all of them are assigned to a bucket, what would
> reflect "properly?" And how would I find that.
>
Dave,
If your pennies off, then it's probably an odd money flow. Click on
the income bucket(s) you used to do allocations and start looking at
the recent money flows in the Bucket Detail to the right. Do you have
any with odd change amounts that could be the problem? Next look at
other buckets that you may have moved money between.
> Lastly, what would indicate that I made a mistake on my starting cash
> flow?
If you look at your available cash (total of all spending accounts
including your cash account) on that date, it should match your
starting cash flow amount exactly.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
ke...@nothirst.com
Dave
I found a few transfers that were labeled with buckets (big no-no!)
and fixed those. Now I have an entirely different difference between
the two. It is something like 26.07. I searched for it and can't find
anything.
Anybody got a suggestion?
TIA
Lance
> Okay I give up.
>
> I found a few transfers that were labeled with buckets (big no-no!)
> and fixed those. Now I have an entirely different difference between
> the two. It is something like 26.07. I searched for it and can't find
> anything.
>
> Anybody got a suggestion?
>
> TIA
>
MoneyWell so I now verify my accounts balances equal my bucket
balances every time I use MoneyWell so I catch these mistakes the same
day I make them. I wish MoneyWell would enforce this type of checking
by default because tracking down these mistakes weeks after they were
made can be a painful process.
Not sure if this will help, but I've found the following have been the
various sources of account balances not equaling my bucket balances:
1) Future pending transactions: make sure these (with an orange
background) are not showing. Of course if you're only off by 53 cents,
this probably isn't your problem.
2) Not selecting all accounts: make sure you select all of your
spending accounts when doing the compare. But again, this would
probably put you off by more than 53 cents.
3) Unbucketed transactions: make sure all transactions have a bucket,
except for transfers between spending accounts (transfers from a
spending account to a non-spending account should have a bucket on one
side though)
4) Duplicate transactions/incorrect amounts: if you set up future
transactions and then download from your bank, this can be a frequent
problem. Reconcile your accounts to help catch these.
5) Split transactions: I've run into numerous problems with split
transactions. If you have any of these, review each one and make sure
all their children have buckets and the same date and transaction
status (Open/Cleared/Reconciled) and the total amount is correct.
If all of those check out, perhaps your starting cash flow balance is
off as already suggested. Is this the first time you've compared
balances, or did they used to match and they just recently started
diverging?
If you really want to track this down, it's possible to use some SQL
to go back in time and calculate your account balances and bucket
balances for past days and find where you started diverging (I posted
a thread about this a few weeks back). Of course, at this point it
might just be simpler to start over with a new cash flow balance from
the beginning of this month and make sure you keep an eye on the
balances going forward.
-Lance
Druzyne
into account ALL transactions with buckets assigned, including
"pending" transactions, and transfers. The top left Balance includes
only the transactions that are not Pending, and the bottom Balance
only includes transactions up to the day you have selected in the
Transaction List.
My suggestion to you, and others, is to only worry if the Bucket
Balance exceeds your account balances. If the Bucket Balance is less,
and you only focus on your bucket balances, that simply means you're
spending less money than you have available, which should be your goal
anyways. So don't worry!! You're doing yourself a favor and saving! If
you want to find out how much you have saved, just subtract the Bucket
Balance from your account balances.
On the other hand, if your Bucket Balance exceeds your account
balances, then you might not have been accurate with your starting
cash flow amount, or your income amount.
//Drew
Lance
> My suggestion to you, and others, is to only worry if the Bucket
> Balance exceeds your account balances. If the Bucket Balance is less,
> and you only focus on your bucket balances, that simply means you're
> spending less money than you have available, which should be your goal
> anyways. So don't worry!! You're doing yourself a favor and saving! If
> you want to find out how much you have saved, just subtract the Bucket
> Balance from your account balances.
>
is the money flow equivalent of reconciling your bank accounts. Sure,
if the bank says I have more money in my account than I think I
should, I'm happy, but that's still not a good place to be in. It
means some mistake was made somewhere and it may come back to bite me
eventually. Yes we should all spend less than we earn, but that should
be a conscience decision, not an artifact of mistakes we've made in
data entry.
I still think MoneyWell should enforce this check by default as it is
a huge stumbling block for new users. There could be a preference
option for turning it off if you really want to, although I have yet
to hear a compelling case for why you'd intentionally let your account
balances diverge from your bucket balances.
-Lance
Druzyne
> I disagree.
We may have to agree to disagree. However, I do want to respond to
your comments...
> Yes we should all spend less than we earn, but that should
> be a conscience decision, not an artifact of mistakes we've made in
> data entry.
>
> I still think MoneyWell should enforce this check by default as it is
> balances diverge from your bucket balances.
far below my account balances. To me, bucket amounts are what you have
decided to spend, and I DO NOT want to spend every penny I own. Some
of the money I have in savings I plan to spend, but most of it is
money that should not factor into my plans for spending.
Fundamentally, however, bucket balances are meta-information separate
from reality, and have different meaning for individual users. They
are simply a tool for your goals, and it's up to you to form them into
depictions of what you need to know. It's fine if you see them as
another way of catching errors in data entry. I want buckets to allow
me to save as much as possible, so it's useful for me to have balances
that tell me I have less to spend than I actually do. Forcing this
metadata to fit reality with default behavior, however, will disrupt
its benefits to users like me.
The Watkinson Family
On Apr 16, 2009, at 5:15 PM, Druzyne wrote:
>
>
>> I disagree.
>
> We may have to agree to disagree. However, I do want to respond to
> your comments...
>
>> Yes we should all spend less than we earn, but that should
>> be a conscience decision, not an artifact of mistakes we've made in
>> data entry.
>>
>> I still think MoneyWell should enforce this check by default as it is
>> a huge stumbling block for new users.... ...although I have yet
>> to hear a compelling case for why you'd intentionally let your
>> account
>> balances diverge from your bucket balances.
This one issue has been brought up at least as much as any other
issue... and every time, it is very difficult to analyze the cause for
out-of-balance relationships because of a variety of factors
involved. What Lance says is true, however, that the checks are
relatively mechanical and could be enforced by the program.
Furthermore, most of the time, the reason the numbers are out of
balance aren't due to intentional differences in starting cash flow,
but usually because of a misunderstanding in how to apply transfers to
buckets, or what starting cash flow is, or the nature of money flows,
etc... If this is the case, a difference, even positive, isn't much
of a comfort because this misunderstanding could create a negative
relationship very quickly.
> I very consciously made the decision to allow my Bucket Balance to be
> far below my account balances. To me, bucket amounts are what you have
> decided to spend, and I DO NOT want to spend every penny I own. Some
> of the money I have in savings I plan to spend, but most of it is
> money that should not factor into my plans for spending.
Nonetheless, even your bucket balance and account balance should be
different by a set and known amount if you continue to use MoneyWell
correctly:
Bucket Balances + Money not accounted for during startup + money
deposited not assigned to buckets = Account balance
The "delta" above, or the difference between your bucket balances and
account balances, should remain the same unless you intentionally
deposit more money that you choose not to allocate to a bucket. In
this way, integrity between the bucket balance and account balance
could still be enforced, recognizing that there is an intentional
buffer created that accounts for the difference, and could even be
reported by MoneyWell.
More importantly, however, I don't think that this is an either-or...
I don't think that it's either spend every penny I make (and allocate
all money to buckets) or save some money (and not account for all my
money in buckets). Some money can be reserved in Income buckets, set
aside for specific purposes. Income can also be reserved in expense
buckets for future savings, as well as both planned and unplanned
expenses.
> Fundamentally, however, bucket balances are meta-information separate
> from reality, and have different meaning for individual users. They
> are simply a tool for your goals, and it's up to you to form them into
> depictions of what you need to know. It's fine if you see them as
> another way of catching errors in data entry. I want buckets to allow
> me to save as much as possible, so it's useful for me to have balances
> that tell me I have less to spend than I actually do. Forcing this
> metadata to fit reality with default behavior, however, will disrupt
> its benefits to users like me.
Wouldn't having a savings bucket accomplish the same thing with the
added benefit of knowing exactly how much you have saved? There are
merits on both sides, and many have been discussed, as to whether a
savings bucket should be an income or an expense bucket. Nonetheless,
if you insisted on balance integrity and maintained a Savings bucket,
it seems like you would still be able save as much as possible, but
now also track the amount of that savings.
With such a setup, You could answer questions like:
How much do I have that isn't committed to future expenses?
How much of a deductible do I need on my insurance (can I save money
on premiums)?
If I get laid off, how long do I have to look for a better job?
How much money do I have to start a new business?
Can I financially help my family member or friend in need?
How much can I contribute to the good cause discussed at church last
Sunday?
How much extra money do I have to apply to outstanding debts?
Can I pay for the repairs for the recent emergency with money on hand?
Grace to you,
Blair
Lance
> I very consciously made the decision to allow my Bucket Balance to be
> far below my account balances. To me, bucket amounts are what you have
> decided to spend, and I DO NOT want to spend every penny I own. Some
> of the money I have in savings I plan to spend, but most of it is
> money that should not factor into my plans for spending.
>
"Savings" bucket where you move this money into. That way all your
balances still add up and you just treat funds in the Surplus bucket
as "off limits". IMO, this would be more straightforward than
purposely creating an accounting hole to achieve the same thing. I'm
not sure you really want to hide money from yourself.
> Fundamentally, however, bucket balances are meta-information separate
> from reality, and have different meaning for individual users. They
> are simply a tool for your goals, and it's up to you to form them into
> depictions of what you need to know. It's fine if you see them as
> another way of catching errors in data entry. I want buckets to allow
> me to save as much as possible, so it's useful for me to have balances
> that tell me I have less to spend than I actually do. Forcing this
> metadata to fit reality with default behavior, however, will disrupt
> its benefits to users like me.
model. You can achieve the same thing while still accounting for every
dollar without any extra effort as I mentioned above.
If you purposely allocate only a subset of your account balances to
your buckets, what do you do with the remainder? Just let it sit in
your account? How do you track it? It would be very dangerous to spend
or transfer any of it as you have no way to know how much "extra" is
in there.
In a physical envelope system, it's impossible to over-allocate as you
wouldn't physically have the cash to put in an envelope, but MoneyWell
offers no such protection. To me, letting your bucket balances diverge
from your account balances is the same as never reconciling your
checking account. If you don't periodically tie your MoneyWell data to
reality, you will eventually get bit.
-Lance
Lance
wrote:
>
> This one issue has been brought up at least as much as any other
> issue... and every time, it is very difficult to analyze the cause for
> out-of-balance relationships because of a variety of factors
> involved. What Lance says is true, however, that the checks are
> relatively mechanical and could be enforced by the program.
> Furthermore, most of the time, the reason the numbers are out of
> balance aren't due to intentional differences in starting cash flow,
> but usually because of a misunderstanding in how to apply transfers to
> buckets, or what starting cash flow is, or the nature of money flows,
> etc... If this is the case, a difference, even positive, isn't much
> of a comfort because this misunderstanding could create a negative
> relationship very quickly.
>
Looks like you just beat me to the reply, but I think we're basically
saying the same thing.
Representing every dollar in your spending accounts in a bucket (even
if you don't intend to spend it) has many advantages and no real
disadvantages. There ARE many disadvantages to not doing this, and I
have yet to see a compelling advantage you would gain by not doing
it.
-Lance
The Watkinson Family
I agree wholeheartedly! I just wish there were away to setup
MoneyWell to ensure integrity.
Perhaps a process could be implemented in a future iteration where you
could identify when you setup the document which accounts should be
included as cash accounts. From there, it's easy to identify your
starting cash flow amount--all you would need to do is assign a date.
When the date is assigned, MoneyWell knows what the account balance of
your cash accounts was on that date and it could allow you to assign
that money to your income buckets for your starting cash flow. This
process would probably dramatically simplify the initial challenges of
starting with MoneyWell.
In fact, if someone is just getting started with the software, and
they fall off the wagon after the first month, perhaps they could be
allowed to change the cash flow start date, which would basically hide
bucket assignments prior to that date and make all money in cash
accounts on the newly selected date available in an income bucket
again. Thus, a person could "start over" with bucket tracking without
losing the transaction data.
Then, MoneyWell can identify when a transfer or transaction is not
appropriately assigned to a bucket (since assignments follow a certain
set of "rules," they would be easy to enforce).
Blair
Druzyne
the best way to go – I simply offered my approach as a suggestion. I
am instead trying to convince you that perhaps not everyone uses
bucket amounts in the same way, and therefore the suggestion of a
blanket behavior in how they should be managed might frustrate some
users. Some need definite accounting, and some can handle an
abstraction of how they use their money.
At the risk of repeating myself, I use buckets to map out what I want
to SPEND, and not to account for every penny I have. I do have a
Savings bucket, which I quickly "spend" by transferring to my savings
account, along the old adage to "pay yourself first." For me, having a
big lump just sitting in a Savings bucket makes it too tempting to
tell myself it's alright to flow a little bit to another bucket and
spend it. "Out of sight, out of mind" really does work for me - I'm
forced to work with what I told myself I would spend, and decide where
to make sacrifices. I can use simple math if I really have to know
exactly how much I have saved, just like you can use simple math (or a
few mouse clicks) to make sure buckets = accounts.
I think it's great that we all can use the same tool in different
ways. Please don't force a concrete link that would impose a different
way of thinking on me. I don't want to see red flags that my buckets
are out of balance, when to me they are perfectly balanced.
Lance
> For me, having a
> big lump just sitting in a Savings bucket makes it too tempting to
> tell myself it's alright to flow a little bit to another bucket and
> spend it. "Out of sight, out of mind" really does work for me - I'm
> forced to work with what I told myself I would spend, and decide where
> to make sacrifices. I can use simple math if I really have to know
> exactly how much I have saved, just like you can use simple math (or a
> few mouse clicks) to make sure buckets = accounts.
keep it out of sight, or as Blair suggested, MoneyWell could figure
out what this surplus amount is when you first set up so you would
still get the goodness of the checking.
> I think it's great that we all can use the same tool in different
> ways. Please don't force a concrete link that would impose a different
> way of thinking on me. I don't want to see red flags that my buckets
> are out of balance, when to me they are perfectly balanced.
>
checking in the preferences if you truly did not want it. My argument
is that this type of checking should be enabled by DEFAULT, as this
seems to be a common stumbling block for new users.
If you really want to let your balances diverge, fine, but this should
be a conscience decision and you should be aware of the pitfalls in
doing so. Judging from the many posts to this group, most users are
unintentionally creating divergences between their balances and
getting confused.
-Lance
Dave
find it. So... I went back and added the amount to my starting cash
and it they match now. I'm not totally convinced that this is still
the best thing to do but I did use an external spreadsheet to figure
my reconciled up to date dollar amount and my top left balance was
correct so I felt that it couludn't hurt me too much to adjust it.
Thanks for your discussion! It would be nice if there was a way to
ensure a check.
And just to weigh in on the debate, I have a Savings bucket where I
put an "extra," but personally, I never have any. : [
Dave
Druzyne
> That's fine and could be achieved by putting an option to disable the
> checking in the preferences if you truly did not want it. My argument
> is that this type of checking should be enabled by DEFAULT, as this
> seems to be a common stumbling block for new users.
buckets represent different things to different people. They were
cleverly designed to be very flexible, and thus allow users to ascribe
their own meaning to them. I don't believe anything should be done to
make them more rigid, and certainly not as a default. It's exactly
your argument that I disagree with, as I believe users should not be
forced into a particular perspective. Whatever your goals are, it's up
to you to manage your buckets in whatever way helps you achieve these
goals.
I see buckets as representing only money I want to spend, and you see
them as representing all of your money – BOTH are valid. I'm sure
there are dozens of other interpretations. Even if a majority of users
agree with your interpretation, there's no reason it should be imposed
as the default use of buckets for all users. It might cause someone to
miss a use case that would be more meaningful to them, especially if
they don't realize the behavior is something controlled as a
preference.
//Drew
Lance
> Lance, man, give it up. I don't know how I can put this more plainly:
> buckets represent different things to different people. They were
> cleverly designed to be very flexible, and thus allow users to ascribe
> their own meaning to them. I don't believe anything should be done to
> make them more rigid, and certainly not as a default. It's exactly
> your argument that I disagree with, as I believe users should not be
> forced into a particular perspective. Whatever your goals are, it's up
> to you to manage your buckets in whatever way helps you achieve these
> goals.
>
you've been following the posts to this forum the past few months,
it's obvious that this has been a recurring problem for new users and
needs to be addressed. Enforcing a balance check is one way to solve
it.
If you have a better way to solve it, by all means, please suggest
one. If not, I don't see how you can argue that letting the majority
of new users repeatedly run into the same problem again and again is
better than catering to the small fraction of users who don't want
this checking. If you understand the program well enough to decide
that you don't want this checking, I don't see why checking a box in
the preferences is that big of a deal for you. On the other hand,
asking new users who don't yet understand the program to have to
configure things a certain way to avoid common pitfalls just doesn't
make sense.
-Lance
Druzyne
I've not missed your point, and I understand that you want new users
to not experience the same frustration you obviously did. I'm saying I
think you're extending your experience into assumptions about
everyone's experiences and expectations, and the forums have perhaps
fueled this confirmation bias. I don't think you can presume to know
the extent to which this is a problem for others, nor presume to
demand that MoneyWell should compensate for it when doing such pushes
a specific paradigm. The solution doesn't HAVE to be a new MoneyWell
feature!
In my opinion, the ultimate solution is not the super-convenient one
you or some others might want: PATIENCE. MoneyWell already has the
tools to easily check that that buckets and accounts are equal, as you
discovered with a little time (for those that didn't see Lance's
explanation before, see his post here:
http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software/browse_thread/thread/b7c787fbad98aec6/74874dbce17d156d).
I'm not too lazy to uncheck a box, I just think new users should have
the freedom to think buckets represent something besides exact account
balances, and first impressions are important. I think most trial
users of MoneyWell seem to intuitively know that this is something
that can work for them, and are willing to give it time to figure it
out. It does require some time and effort, but everyone seems to
eventually make sense of the bucket system, and love how it works to
their advantage!
//D
Lance
> I'm not too lazy to uncheck a box, I just think new users should have
> the freedom to think buckets represent something besides exact account
> balances, and first impressions are important. I think most trial
> users of MoneyWell seem to intuitively know that this is something
> that can work for them, and are willing to give it time to figure it
> out. It does require some time and effort, but everyone seems to
> eventually make sense of the bucket system, and love how it works to
> their advantage!
>
strictly MoneyWell imposes any particular usage model, the more likely
it is to frustrate some people.
However, I think one of the weaknesses of MoneyWell is giving new
users too many choices. There are several key decisions you need to
make when using MoneyWell and these are not clearly enumerated and
most users don't realize the pitfalls in some of the choices they end
up making.
Perhaps the solution is simply to have a "Getting Started" guide that
walks you through this process or some kind of wizard-type interface
when you open MoneyWell for the first time. Sure, most people can
eventually figure things out by trial & error or reading through these
posts, but that's an incredibly inefficient way to learn how to use a
program. How many users have simply given up without ever posting to
this email list?
And in the end, whether or not MoneyWell enforces any kind of checking
by default is totally up to Kevin based on his view of what most users
want. For me, I'd just like to see the checking capability built in
somewhere, and I honestly don't care if it's on by default or not. I'm
fine checking a box in Preferences or hell, even using Terminal to
hack some file to enable it. While I still have not heard a compelling
reason why someone would really need to disable this checking, I have
no problem if that's what some people want to do because they find the
checking annoying.
-Lance
Dave
If you put this discussion into the socio-political genre. Lance, you
are a Democrat and Druzyne you are a Republican.
Seriously though, you guys both raise great points. Seeing that Kevin
does not like preferences very much in his programs. I am guessing
that you won't see that wish anytime soon. How about something maybe
not so obtuse and intrusive. Perhaps a flag that shows up at the
bottom or it changes color or something.
Great discussion. This is what the forums are all about.
: ]
Dave
Kevin Hoctor
> Seriously though, you guys both raise great points. Seeing that Kevin
> does not like preferences very much in his programs. I am guessing
> that you won't see that wish anytime soon. How about something maybe
> not so obtuse and intrusive. Perhaps a flag that shows up at the
> bottom or it changes color or something.
>
What I'm reviewing is a way to give people feedback on the bucket
total without stressing everyone out with a big red alert. The account
reconcile process is very tried and true but reconciling money flows
is a bit new. I do like the idea of having MoneyWell help with this
process (part of the reason I put the total at the window bottom) but
I want to make sure I can automate this enough so the learning curve
is shallow.
The bottom line is that MoneyWell has survived for a couple of years
without this and will be very useful a bit longer while I work out the
final logistics and user interface. Version 1.5 has some very nice
improvements planned and the iPhone version is starting to work like
MoneyWell. Lots of good stuff in the works. ;)
> Great discussion. This is what the forums are all about.
I agree. Nice to see a healthy exchange of ideas!
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
ke...@nothirst.com
Jaysen
ANY savings money showing up in ANY bucket as buckets are what I am
filling up to SPEND. If I see it in green it is mine to spend. Call me
weak all you want. I won't argue, but please don't make me work in a
way that will put me back into the dark days.
One of the key points supporting this is the "ability to start over".
MoneyWell let's you try things until you prove them. Then you can wipe
the slate and start over (change the starting date). If you are going
to enforce balance == bucket balance then some of us are up creek with
no paddle. Especialy those of us who are still trying to figure things
out.
So if you do "enforce integrity" please give some of us the ability to
ignore integrity to some extent.
Jaysen
Terry Norton
So if you do "enforce integrity" please give some of us the ability to
ignore integrity to some extent.
Druzyne
Ouch. ;) Glad to have some other voices jump in, though!
> What I'm reviewing is a way to give people feedback on the bucket
> total without stressing everyone out with a big red alert. The account
> reconcile process is very tried and true but reconciling money flows
> is a bit new. I do like the idea of having MoneyWell help with this
> process (part of the reason I put the total at the window bottom) but
> I want to make sure I can automate this enough so the learning curve
> is shallow.
Also, I think the idea of reconciling money flows has merit, as users
should have confidence in their bucket amounts, however I obviously
don't think matching balances is the best way to accomplish this. I
can't exactly figure out what reconciling would reveal, other than
transfers that were double-assigned. A smart bucket could target that.
What else is tripping people up?
> Version 1.5 has some very nice
> improvements planned and the iPhone version is starting to work like
> MoneyWell. Lots of good stuff in the works. ;)
The Watkinson Family
I suppose it could be a variety of things. I, for instance, want to
use only one financial application. While MoneyWell is intended to
control cash flow, I also want to track non-cash flow accounts, such
as loans, debts, and investments. I'll use the term "cash-flow
account" throughout to refer to an account, that if I were to use
actual buckets, I would liquidate it to put cash in my buckets. They
include accounts like checking, savings, credit cards (which reduces
the amount of money that I have to put in a bucket), and cash.
Transfers can be a big challenge to figure out how to interact with
buckets. When transferring money between cash-flow accounts, no bucket
should be assigned. When transferring money from a cash-flow account
to another account, the withdrawal should be assigned to a bucket.
Conversely, when transferring money from a non-cash flow account to a
cash-flow account, the deposit should be assigned to a bucket. This
is non-intuitive without giving the whole process some thought and is
easily confused during execution. Getting it wrong however, can
easily mislead you into thinking you have more money than you actually
have for expenses. That's at least one of several ways to get tripped
up.
Another way would be if you started using MoneyWell sometime in a
given month, say,Mar, and started tracking your cash flow on 1 April,
using the cash you had at the time by adding up all your cash-flow
accounts, and then realizing later that you forgotten a transaction
back in Mar. When you go to add the transaction, you might forget to
apply the correction to your starting cash flow amount. This
transaction, being before the cash flow date, will not affect bucket
totals, but it will change cash available and account balances,
effectively reducing the amount you should have put in the buckets.
You could inadvertently overspend this way without realizing it.
I implemented a tool using Excel several years ago that basically used
a bucket/envelope method and tracked all my accounts. I found two
calculations extraordinarily useful after using the system for nearly
two years.
The first was the total of all my cash flow accounts minus the total
of all buckets with positive balances (this could be calculated using
a smart bucket if the appropriate logic were in place). This amount
told me how much money I had overdrawn my buckets/envelopes. While it
is ideal to never have to overdraw a bucket, sometimes a person might
make an intentional choice to spend next month's money now, or it is
near the end of the month and you buy groceries on the 31st instead of
the 1st. Also, folks who travel for business might have a negative
bucket until they are reimbursed. As long as a recovery plan is in
place, it is not critical when a person overdraws a bucket, and a
money flow may not be desirable. However, the deficit has to be
covered by other buckets or by a hidden buffer not accounted for in
the bucket/envelope system. If you were to overdraw a bucket, and
then spend all the money from the other buckets, you won't have enough
money to cover your expenses (or you'll dip into the hidden buffer).
This number told me that I needed to reserve a certain amount of money
to cover the expenses. If the number was smaller than my Savings
bucket/envelope (or another one used for reserve), no immediate
problem. I just needed a plan to get fixed, whether it was the next
paycheck or the reimbursement, or whatever. I occasionally received
extra money that I would choose not allocate, this sometimes this
calculation was positive. Meaning I had more money in accounts than I
had planned to spend. Consequently, I called this calculation my
Buffer.
The second was a balance checker similar to what has been exhaustively
discussed. This could also be implemented by users if the appropriate
logic were added to smart buckets (in particular being able to exclude
certain transaction types).
I don't remember if smart buckets were being added in 1.5, but in any
case, it seems that increased smart bucket functionality has great
potential to allow folks to double check their bucket integrity
whenever they do arrive. This could provide a non-intrusive solution
for everyone. Lance, Dave, et al, what do you think?
Lance
> A smart bucket could target that.
> What else is tripping people up?
>
screw up your bucket balances:
1) Incorrect starting cash flow balance: instead of automating this
based on starting balances, MoneyWell presents you with a single text
entry. Other than the obvious potential for math errors, the new user
may not fully comprehend what this text box is asking for and fill it
in incorrectly. If you have a single checking account, this might not
be a problem, but if you have 2-3 credit cards, some savings accounts
and maybe some other non-cash flow accounts as Blair mentions, it's
not hard to screw this up.
2) Deleted transactions: as covered in another recent thread, it's
fairly easy to accidentally delete a transaction (even reconciled
ones) and not notice it.
3) Duplicate transactions: If you manually enter a fair amount of
transactions or use the scheduled transaction feature, you'll quickly
learn that MoneyWell's merge feature is not 100%. Unless you catch
these every time, you can easily have duplicate transactions.
4) Incorrect amounts: Sort of a combination of #2 and #3. If you have
to manually merge duplicate transactions with slightly different
amounts, you might delete the wrong one.
5) Incorrect transaction status: If you have a "pending" transaction
that is actually in the past (meaning it should really be Cleared/
Reconciled) it won't count against your bucket balances.
6) Split transaction issues: for some reason, each child of a split
transaction can have a different transaction status. If you've
manually changed any of these in an attempt to fix some other problem,
you can really screw things up, not that this has ever happened to
me :)
7) Unbucketed transactions: Obviously if you don't assign a bucket to
every transaction you can get in trouble but this is fairly clear from
the "Unassigned" smart bucket. However, this can get complicated with
non-cash flow accounts as Blair describes or if you get in the habit
of using the "bucket optional" feature.
8) Credit card payments: if you pay your credit cards in full every
month, your payment should NOT have a bucket assignment. However, if
this payment is for transactions that occurred prior to your cash
flash start date, it should have a bucket. If the payment is a
combination of the two, good luck figuring out what you should do.
I'm sure there are others as well. While routinely reconciling your
account can catch a lot of these, this is not a guarantee. In
addition, tracking down mistakes weeks after you've made them is very
painful. Perhaps I am just more mistake prone than others on this
thread, but I'm a bit surprised those who are opposed to any kind of
enforced checking have not been bit by at least one of these problems
before.
One thing I've seen discussed above that seems contradictory to me is
this notion that if you screw up, you can simply start over by
changing your cash flow start date and looking at your balance that
day. If this were actually true, then it implies that you have a fixed
relation between your account balances and bucket balances. But if you
are opposed to enforcing a check on this relationship, then you're
obviously doing something that invalidates this assumption and you are
NOT safe to start over when you need to!
I think this topic has probably been beaten to death at this point. In
my experience with developing software I've learned that giving users
what they want is actually more important than giving them what they
really need. Since several users are opposed to any sort of enforced
checking, that is the way Kevin should go. Please just give the rest
of us an option to easily do this checking and find some way to help
new users avoid these pitfalls.
-Lance
Lance
> It's kind of interesting to me actually.
>
> If you put this discussion into the socio-political genre. Lance, you
> are a Democrat and Druzyne you are a Republican.
>
agreement with each other on the core issues but focusing on our
superficial differences to divert people from questioning the real
issues. That and we'd have corporate sponsors paying us lots of
money :)
Lance
wrote:
>
> case, it seems that increased smart bucket functionality has great
> potential to allow folks to double check their bucket integrity
> whenever they do arrive. This could provide a non-intrusive solution
> for everyone. Lance, Dave, et al, what do you think?
>
I had similar checks built into my Excel spreadsheets as well. Most of
my checking was the direct result of mistakes I had made in my 7+
years of using and tweaking that system. Unfortunately, you don't
realize you need checking until you've been bit by the lack of it.
I really like your idea of using smart buckets for several reasons:
1) It could solve the problems discussed in this thread.
2) It gives advanced MoneyWell users a way to easily customize the
program and add functionality. This can also be easily shared by
posting your "smart bucket query" on this forum. Much better than the
sqlite3 hacks.
3) It is non-intrusive to other users who don't want this
functionality. New users could be presented with the option of
enabling a pre-canned list of useful smart buckets, similar to the
list of default expense buckets.
However, I think there are some problems with this approach as well:
1) What would the UI look for this? It would have to be fairly complex
to have the power we really need. I know Kevin wants to keep the
MoneyWell interface simple and this would be difficult. Perhaps there
could be a "simple" smart bucket creation window and an "advanced"
window where maybe you directly enter in SQL, although I'm sure Kevin
wants to avoid that like the plague :)
2) The existing smart buckets are simply a subset of your
transactions. If Kevin extends this to allow user-defined smart
buckets, I'm sure he'd still want to limit them to querying for a
subset of transactions. This would prevent us from implementing the
checks you mention since we would need a way to query on money flows
as well. Maybe Kevin can come up with something clever for us.
-Lance
Mr. Danno Sullivan
balance and bucket balance is the one thing that keeps me from using
MoneyWell--it boils down to simply not trusting it!
(The fact that I'm still reading this forum shows that I really would
like to have it be my One True Solution!)
ds
The Watkinson Family
I think that there is a mathematical relationship--it's just not
enforced by the software. With several steps you could verify that
your document is mathematically sound. In that sense, I think that
the software and your document should be trustworthy. I'd be happy to
enumerate the steps if you need them...
blair
The Watkinson Family
Thanks for your thoughts...
> 2) The existing smart buckets are simply a subset of your
> transactions. If Kevin extends this to allow user-defined smart
> buckets, I'm sure he'd still want to limit them to querying for a
> subset of transactions. This would prevent us from implementing the
> checks you mention since we would need a way to query on money flows
> as well. Maybe Kevin can come up with something clever for us.
I wonder why would we need to query money flows. Under the most
advisable operation money flows should be a zero-sum transaction.
When one bucket is increased, the other is decreased by the same
amount. Therefore, a bucket sum should accurately account for all
money flows. The only situation where this wouldn't be true is if a
person were keeping track of two sets of cash-flow accounts and
buckets in the same document (which I think would be really ill-
advised). If you had Husband cash-flow accounts with corresponding
husband buckets and Wife cash-flow accounts with a distinct set of
buckets, it would be possible to make a mess by creating money flows
across husband/wife bucket lines and not transferring money
correspondingly between husband/wife cash-flow accounts. However, I
think this situation is extremely rare and would be best best served
by maintaining two documents with a loan account serving as a bridge
between the two.
Was there another situation where you would want to query money flows?
Grace to you,
Blair
Druzyne
> balance and bucket balance is the one thing that keeps me from using
> MoneyWell--it boils down to simply not trusting it!
>
> (The fact that I'm still reading this forum shows that I really would
> like to have it be my One True Solution!)
Let's be honest, there's no such thing as software that can 100%
prevent or compensate for user error. You can just as easily make
mistakes in assigning categories with other programs, and not realize
it. If you're waiting on a magical program that guarantees it can
protect you from yourself, you'll be spending a lot of time visiting a
lot of forums.
Thanks to the others for talking about where you're having problems
with buckets. I can definitely see your frustration, and agree that
it's not easy to catch these problems. I do see how a computer check
to "look over your shoulder" with each entry would help you, but
again, I don't think it would be helpful to all users. Also, it
already isn't too difficult to accomplish a check manually.
As to Lance's question about why those of us with "hidden" savings are
not having problems like this, please let me try to answer, though
these are just my experiences. First of all, I think this approach
turns our savings into a "hidden buffer" like Blair was talking about.
Our savings is basically the difference between our cash-flow account
balances and our bucket balance (spending money), and therefore is
fluid. If I make an error, it adds to or subtracts from my savings. On
the other hand, if I had a rigid bucket that kept track of my savings,
then an error will either "print" new money for me, or throw my money
into a black hole. By not accounting for my savings, I am taking on
the risk of losing some of my savings without intending to, which I
realize is not for everyone. This is an automatic compensation for
errors, however, and I'm making the "risky" assumption that screw-ups
are equal-opportunity, and I'll add about as much as I take out. Yet I
set myself up to spend a bit less than I make, so this buffer is
always growing, and it would take a rather magnificent error to wipe
out my savings. I consider myself very good about measuring twice and
cutting once, though.
I think regular reconciling does a good job of catching a lot of
errors, but agree that the greatest danger lies in transfers. Applying
buckets in this context is more conceptual than regular deposits and
withdrawals. I think Kevin and Judy did a pretty good job of
explaining this, but it is not easy to grasp, and is easy prey for
errors.
Again, though, I think my systems helps me a little bit with catching
some errors in transfers. Some of my paycheck is allocated to a
Savings bucket, which is quickly "spent" by transferring to my savings
account. If I applied the bucket to the wrong end of the transfer,
rather than a $0, tipped-over bucket, I would see an upright bucket
with twice as much money in it as I normally allocate. Or, if I double-
assigned buckets, then the bucket balance wouldn't have budged. That's
convenient visual feedback to me that I botched something, which is
already built into MoneyWell. If I instead kept track of my savings in
a Savings bucket, then I might very well miss this change, as it would
be a small percentage of my savings, and have no bucket visual
feedback.
I have a lot of confidence in this system, and my ability to catch
errors, but I realize there is some risk that would stress people out.
Personally, however, trying to make sure every single part of
MoneyWell balances all the time would stress me out a lot more. It's
nice that we have a choice, though. :)
//D
The Watkinson Family
> the risk of losing some of my savings without intending to, which I
> realize is not for everyone. This is an automatic compensation for
> errors, however, and I'm making the "risky" assumption that screw-ups
> are equal-opportunity, and I'll add about as much as I take out. Yet I
> set myself up to spend a bit less than I make, so this buffer is
> always growing, and it would take a rather magnificent error to wipe
> out my savings. I consider myself very good about measuring twice and
> cutting once, though.
Drew,
Thanks for your continued discussion. I did have a question.... How
does your buffer keep growing? Is it because you create some deposits
and don't assign them to buckets? It seems like the buffer should
remain relatively static, assuming errors are "equal opportunity," or
not made at all, unless somehow you intentionally bring money in to
your cash-flow accounts that you don't make available to a bucket.
Even if you leave some of the money in an income bucket, it's still
accounted for--in fact this is how I ensure I have a buffer--I just
allocate to my expense buckets less than I bring in each month. How
do you ensure that your buffer grows?
Thanks!
blair
Druzyne
> 5) Incorrect transaction status: If you have a "pending" transaction
> that is actually in the past (meaning it should really be Cleared/
> Reconciled) it won't count against your bucket balances.
Transactions always affect bucket balances, regardless of status,
unless you have "Hide Future Pending Transactions" enabled. In this
case, "pending" transactions would not be deducted from bucket
balances. This basically meant that I had to choose between taking
advantage of repeating scheduled transactions, or forecasting bucket
amounts. The latter was far more important to me, and entering new
transactions isn't so time-consuming anyways thanks to memorized
transactions.
On a different note, pending transactions never affect your ACCOUNT
balances, so if you have a pending transaction with a date in the
past, that should be Cleared/Reconciled, it won't be reflected in your
account balance.
Druzyne
> Even if you leave some of the money in an income bucket, it's still
> accounted for--in fact this is how I ensure I have a buffer--I just
> allocate to my expense buckets less than I bring in each month. How
> do you ensure that your buffer grows?
I think I might have switched the meaning of "buffer" on you, sorry. I
was basically describing savings as a buffer for any data entry
errors. If a mistake made me think I had more money to spend than I
intended, then this would be absorbed by savings. Since I save some
every month (the Savings bucket is part of my paycheck's Spending
Plan), my savings is always growing, thus a more fantastic error can
be absorbed (not that I expect this to happen).
I actually don't allocate every penny of income, much like you
describe, and leave that for discretionary manual allocating. It's
nice to have this little bit in case I need to do some cleanup at the
end of the month. And if I don't use it, that just means more for the
next month. It's only a few dollars, though. There are a lot of neat
ways to "trick" yourself into saving more, or into feeling like you
have more to spend. :)
Lance
wrote:
>
>
Maybe I misunderstood what you were suggesting in an earlier post. How
do you propose we could use smart buckets to display the difference
between account balances and bucket balances if we don't have the
ability to query money flows?
-Lance
Lance
> As to Lance's question about why those of us with "hidden" savings are
> not having problems like this, please let me try to answer, though
> these are just my experiences.
>
Thanks for explaining your system a little more. It's definitely not
for me (although I used to do something similar several years ago),
but I see why some people would prefer it. It can be nice to be a
little more "loose" with your finances if you're willing to risk a
little savings to cover yourself. For me, I've been bit too many times
so I prefer having every cent tracked. But this is not for everyone.
It's great that MoneyWell allows you to choose either method, but I
still think there could be some better guidance for new users. Present
both of these methods (plus any others that are popular) along with
the pros/cons and let users make a conscience decision rather than
ending up in a place they didn't necessarily intend.
Good conversion though! I'm just afraid this will disappear into the
sea of Google Groups posts and won't help the new users who come
around in a few months.
-Lance
Lance
> Lance,
>
> Transactions always affect bucket balances, regardless of status,
> unless you have "Hide Future Pending Transactions" enabled.
>
the displayed bucket balances will take those into account up to some
point (I think it's the end of the month). But when you're not
displaying those (I frequently switch back and forth) they don't,
which can lead to confusion and it's not very easy to track down.
-Lance
The Watkinson Family
My hope is that smart buckets would allow you to display either bucket
balance or the number of transactions (only the latter is displayed
now).
A smart bucket which included all reconciled, cleared, open, and
pending transactions from my selected cash-flow accounts will reflect
the total projected balance of all my accounts at the end of the month
(based on future pending transaction entered). If my document is
balanced, this bucket should also reflect the same value that is
depicted at the bottom of the screen "buckets balance."
Would it need to be anything more complicated than this? Or is there
something I'm missing?
Alternatively, if the smart bucket were to include all transactions
from cash-flow accounts that weren't assigned to buckets as well as
non-cash flow account transactions that are assigned to a bucket, a
balanced document would have a $0 smart bucket total -- this method
won't detect errors in initial setup, but it should detect accrued
errors since the initial cash flow was established. At least, I think
i should.
Blair
Lance
wrote:
> Lance,
> Would it need to be anything more complicated than this? Or is there
> something I'm missing?
>
improvement over what we currently have. I'd like a smart bucket that
shows the difference between the sum of my cash flow accounts and my
bucket balances (which will always be $0 for me) so I can immediately
see if I have any errors without having to visually compare two
numbers or click anywhere.
Since real buckets have both a list of associated transactions and a
list of associated money flows, perhaps each smart bucket could have
two separate queries and would sum the amounts together. Then you
could still easily create simple transaction only based queries, but
if you wanted, you could also flip to a Money Flow query tab as well.
I see smart buckets as being really useful to "combine" multiple
physical buckets you already have. For example, I could create a smart
bucket that combines my bills into a single smart bucket, or even
create "discretionary" and "non-discretionary" buckets. Maybe even
"first half" and "second half" of the month expense buckets. Lots of
possibilities here.
All of these would require the ability to query on money flows to make
them useful and work similar to existing buckets. If I were limited to
transaction only queries, there are one or two I might use (sum of
open transactions), but overall I wouldn't find the feature very
useful. But perhaps others see usages I don't.
-Lance
The Watkinson Family
You raise some good points, and I started to realize that simple Smart
Buckets wouldn't be the ideal solution as I was typing it out;
however...
Rather than querying money flows, which would probably be rather
complex, I think that the same thing could be achieved if Smart
Buckets allowed you to add or subtract selected bucket totals (buckets
could be selected by name or by dollar amount) to the displayed Smart
Bucket total. This should capture the desired money flows, and would
likely be easier to use.
So, the Smart Bucket would allow you to select which transactions you
want displayed, and if you want to adjust the total of those
transactions by a specified amount or specified bucket balances, or
both. This would allow a person to check their document (accounts
balances = bucket balances) as well as check for how much you have
overspent. You could verify that this is less than a Buffer or
savings bucket, or a preplanned buffer that you included when first
setting up the initial cash flow.
In any case, I think you're right, even Smart Buckets (without
displaying totals that can be adjusted by bucket balances or
moneyflows) wouldn't completely automate the process of ensuring the
document is in balance, but it would eliminate several steps.
Blair
Lance
wrote:
>
> complex, I think that the same thing could be achieved if Smart
> Buckets allowed you to add or subtract selected bucket totals (buckets
> could be selected by name or by dollar amount) to the displayed Smart
> Bucket total. This should capture the desired money flows, and would
> likely be easier to use.
>
Good suggestion. Having the ability to query money flows directly
would enable some creative smart buckets, but I can't think of any
useful ones off the top of my head. Your proposal should be sufficient
and simpler to use.
Another point to consider is whether the "bucket totals" could include
totals from other smart buckets or if it would be limited to only
"real" buckets. Allowing smart bucket totals would enable you to
create "cascading" smart buckets, but perhaps it isn't worth the extra
complexity and potential for circular references :)
Finally, whenever "tags" come online they'll need to integrate with
this smart bucket idea. I don't see any problems though as "tags"
should just end up being another criteria on the transaction query.
Hopefully Kevin is on board with this idea as I really like it and can
see it being incredibly useful. Of course many features on the list
are "incredibly useful" and they are probably higher up than this one :
(
-Lance
Kevin Hoctor
I am following this thread and it's a good discussion but buckets are
meant to contain transactions and that's what user-defined smart
buckets will display.
Having better ways to review money flows is important but a lower
priority than some of the features that have been discussed for the
past two years.
Thanks again and keep the ideas flowing. I don't ignore any of them.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
Sent from my iPhone
Lance
> Lance & Blair,
>
> I am following this thread and it's a good discussion but buckets are
> meant to contain transactions and that's what user-defined smart
> buckets will display.
>
Thanks for the update. Since "real" buckets in MoneyWell contain both
transactions and money flows, I thought it would be a natural
extension for smart buckets to look at both, although I guess the
current "smart" buckets (i.e. "All Transactions") are pretty
simplistic and only look at transactions.
What types of smart buckets are you envisioning with this capability?
Other than maybe a bucket of all my open transactions (which I can
actually get now by sorting by transaction status in the register),
I'm not seeing why this would be real useful, at least not until we
have tagging.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
Nice! Running an alpha version of MoneyWell mobile I assume ... :)
-Lance
Kevin Hoctor
> On Apr 20, 4:14 am, Kevin Hoctor <ke...@nothirst.com> wrote:
>> Lance & Blair,
>>
>> I am following this thread and it's a good discussion but buckets are
>> meant to contain transactions and that's what user-defined smart
>> buckets will display.
>>
>
> Hey Kevin,
>
> Thanks for the update. Since "real" buckets in MoneyWell contain both
> transactions and money flows, I thought it would be a natural
> extension for smart buckets to look at both, although I guess the
> current "smart" buckets (i.e. "All Transactions") are pretty
> simplistic and only look at transactions.
>
> What types of smart buckets are you envisioning with this capability?
> Other than maybe a bucket of all my open transactions (which I can
> actually get now by sorting by transaction status in the register),
> I'm not seeing why this would be real useful, at least not until we
> have tagging.
>
Lance,
The user-defined smart buckets will simply give you the ability to set
your own predicate for a search. This predicate builder will be
transaction centric though.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>
> Nice! Running an alpha version of MoneyWell mobile I assume ... :)
It's even too early to call it an alpha. ;)
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
ke...@nothirst.com
No Thirst Software LLC
http://nothirst.com
Lance
>
> Lance,
>
> The user-defined smart buckets will simply give you the ability to set
> your own predicate for a search. This predicate builder will be
> transaction centric though.
>
I'm sure many users will find this helpful (especially for tax or
business-related transactions) but for me, it probably won't be worth
sacrificing the screen real estate in the bucket list when I can
recreate any smart bucket on the fly with a quick search. I guess I'll
have to wait and see how it works.
One question though: what (if any) number will be displayed next to
these smart buckets? Will it be the total number of transactions
meeting that criteria (similar to how the built-in smart buckets work)
or will it be the total amount of the transactions (similar to how the
account "buckets" work)? I can see both being useful depending on the
bucket.
Thanks,
Lance
Kevin Hoctor
> One question though: what (if any) number will be displayed next to
> these smart buckets? Will it be the total number of transactions
> meeting that criteria (similar to how the built-in smart buckets work)
> or will it be the total amount of the transactions (similar to how the
> account "buckets" work)? I can see both being useful depending on the
> bucket.
Lance,
That's not finalized but I think it'll be an option per smart bucket.
Dave
I was thinking that my bucket balance should not be more than my
(main) account balance. That is simply not true. After much haranguing
and time machining, I figured out that because I use my credit cards
occasionally (plus finance charges that are downloaded and assigned
buckets) my balance in my main account will rarely if ever match the
bucket balance.
Man, I feel stupid. I was getting the two off when I downloaded my
credit accounts and did not notice the why of it.
Okay. For those out there that need to know this. It works great if
you don't put buckets in your credit accounts. The two will always
match. But if you do, then they will not match.
I hope this helps someone.
Or, at the very least, I feel better.
On Apr 15, 6:46 am, Dave <oneblessed...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Again!
>
> I was wondering exactly what would cause your Bucket Balance to be
> different than you Balance (at the bottom of MW) and then also versus
> the balance listed for that account in the top left account list.
>
> This is probably very simple and I should know it but I cannot find a
> 53 cent difference between them and I don't know why.
>
> Thank you!