Enthusiastic new MoneyWell user confused about cash flow start date!
Here's the scenario, I took a lot of cash out of the bank account, middle of this month, and have been using that for expenses. Paid my cell bill and credit card electronically earlier this week, and will use only cash the rest of the month. By July 1st all my accounts will have settled, perfect time to start Moneywell cash flow tracking. I set my cash flow start date to 7/1/09, and all my empty expense buckets stood up! I thought they were suppose to wait for me to put money in them. What am I missing here?
Is there a way to 'hide' the scheduled transactions and not have them effect totals, when in the current transaction window?
OK, currently, one of my two income buckets has $2500 in it. All other buckets, income and expense, are empty, but standing up! Should I flow money to expense account now? Or is it best to use the spending plan window, define things there, then use the allocate window. My current spending plan shows negative for the first draw versus income coming in for the 1st of the month, but I just want to be able to 'draw' on the $2500 already in an income bucket. My second gig is software consulting, and MoneyWell is going to manage that money now. My last project ended few months ago, so money drawn from that account is more than coming in. But my next project starts next month, so money will start to flow back into that account. Am I starting MoneyWell in a good fashion for this scenario?
Thanks for any help? mike
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2 Posted by Mike McKenna on 26 Jun, 2009 11:33 AM
To show/hide future scheduled transactions hit [CMD] + [=].
3 Posted by Drew on 26 Jun, 2009 12:54 PM
I believe all your buckets are standing up, despite being empty, because your cash flow start date is set to the future. When July 1 rolls around, you should see the proper behavior.
Support Staff 4 Posted by Kevin Hoctor on 26 Jun, 2009 03:43 PM
Mike,
I agree with Druzyne. MoneyWell will not start your cash flow tracking until July 1 so your buckets will always show as available and the amounts gray to show that they are simply transaction totals and not cash flow balances.
On July 1, 2009, make sure you have the correct total of all your spending accounts and any cash available to spend as your cash flow start amount and you should be set.
5 Posted by MikeRandle on 28 Jun, 2009 12:52 PM
@mikemc: thanks. right there in the view menu! Future pending, now turned off.
@Druzyne&Kevin: So, just out of curiousity, what happens if the cash flow start amount is less than the total spending amount? I was thinking I could 'hide' some money by entering a lesser amount.
I created a manual flow by dragging. It showed in the list of Money Flows for that expense bucket, but no amount assigned to the bucket. I assume will show after the 1st.
If I understand correctly, the spending plan window is where I define my expenses and when I need to pay them. I assume that the negative balances in the Monthly Cash Flow section won't stop allocation, since there is plenty money in the income buckets for now?
I think I'm getting the hang of this really nice app. I love to single wondow approach! Great job Kevin!
mike
Support Staff 6 Posted by Kevin Hoctor on 28 Jun, 2009 02:47 PM
You can start your cash flow with an amount less than what's in your spending accounts but you won't be able to match up the bucket total with your account total in the future. You might want to just transfer some money to your savings account as a way to hide that money instead.