[moneydance] Budget manager questions

[Don]

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate your insight.  You gave me some great 
answers, unfortunately, my questions might not have been so good!  On 
the budget intent question, maybe I should just state the problem I have:

I would like to create a personal family budget.  I think I need to 
determine my income and expense patterns on a periodic basis, probably 
monthly.  I would like to figure out how much I will owe, who to pay, 
when to pay them, how much to pay them, and divert as much as I can to 
expensive loans or savings accounts; all in September, then October, 
etc.  By the way, is this how a budget is normally done, or ...?

The budget manager does a good job of calculating income and expenses 
(calculate button), but where does it go from there?  Are the start and 
end dates used for anything other than notes?  Should I spread the dates 
over the entire year, or ...?  Thanks again for the help,

Don


Yehudit Winiarz wrote:
> Don,
>
> To answer your questions:
>
> 1. a budget can be created either for comparative purposes or to track
> different income and expenses. Take for example, your budget for heating
> your home in the winter is much different than it is in the summer (unless
> you live in sub zero areas).
>
> 2. I don't find that putting a different past or present date in the
> "effective date" changes the bottom right calculations in that it will
> calculate how much income and expenses will be used from this month, year,
> past 30 or 365 days, by following this particular budget. If you put a
> future date, you are not yet using this budget, thereby giving you a $0.00
> output for the current month or any previous dates.
>
> 3. From what I gather, yes. But if you are making a Winter budget and a
> summer budget you'll probably want them to start and end at different times.
>
> 4. It's a good idea to have some budget goals in mind, written down on
> paper, before using the budget manager. If you are starting without any
> prior records, you'll have to use your own estimates. If you already have a
> few months' worth of data entered, you can print a copy of the Cash Flow
> Report for those months and use them to estimate your budget. I saved up and
> entered all my data over a few months and then used the manager to calculate
> estimates, and then tweaked them when necessary.
>
> 5. That's how I understand it.
>
> 6. See #3
>
> 7. See #3
>
> 8. That is what I have found. However, this is where I have questions -
> which I will post separately. BTW,you can use the + and - in the lower left
> corner to remove or add budget lines. Also, usually everything is editable -
> just double click the field.
>
> Take care,
> Yehudit
>
>
>
> On 9/3/07, Don <dlbrett at zoominternet.net> wrote:
>   
>> I'm trying to figure out how to best use the budget manager.  I read the
>> online instructions, but it's still not obvious to me, so I have some
>> questions: (Note - Starting path is: Tools -> Budget Manager -> New)
>>
>> 1. What is the intent of a given budget plan?  The manager supports up
>> to ten plans, so it must not be a monthly thing.  Is it a plan for the
>> entire account or ......?
>>
>> 2. Pressing the "Calculate" button offers some options.  If I enter a
>> date from a future month, the totals at the bottom right are zero.  A
>> future date from this month gives low numbers, a past date from any past
>> month gives a high number.  What is the purpose of the "Effective On"
>> entry?
>>
>> 3. When calculating, the "Effective On" date ends up in the "Start Date"
>> column.  Does "Effective On" equal "Start Date"?
>>
>> 4. What should be the "Effective On" date for the budget plan?  Should
>> this be a future date, or match the first date of the selected "Date"
>> field, or today, or the first date of some month, or ....?
>>
>> 5. Pressing the "Calculate" button results in the amount field being
>> populated.  It looks like the amount values are based upon past
>> payments, averaged over the selected "Date" period, for a period
>> (monthly, yearly, etc).  Is this correct?
>>
>> 6. What is the intended purpose of the "End Date" column.  Is it a
>> monthly payment, or approximate payment time, or ....?
>>
>> 7. Is the "End Date" field meant for one-time or recurring payments?.
>> If recurring, what time span should it cover?
>>
>> 8. The calculate function results in values populated in the "Amount"
>> column.  It seems to search every account for every transactions, in
>> every category, for the specified time period.  Is this correct?
>>
>> Well, that's probably enough for today.  Thanks for the help!
>>
>> Don
>>
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