Budget functionality

[Daedalus]

I would be interested to know if there are any plans to introduce budget functionality.  By that, I mean that users can set budgets against categories for a calendar or fiscal year which they can distribute for planned expenditure throughout the year.  At the end of each month, Bank Genie would compare planned expenditure against actual expenditure to allow the user to make such adjustments as may be necessary.  If such functionality is being developed, when it is expected to be available as part the Bank Genie product?

Edited by George (ideasguy) to globally broadcast this topic.
Please visit the forum and read my posting to support this posting by Steven.

[ideasguy]

Hi Steven and welcome to the forum.

We've been communicating by email on this subject. Thank you for raising it on the forum as its the perfect platform to gauge interest from other Bank Genie customers and to gather ideas and decide on a specification for this feature.

Before I developed Bank Genie I used a simple grid on an A4 page for my own personal finance planning.
The grid had 12 months along the top and categories down the side.
In the upgrade to Bank Genie 6 I included a "rough-cut" screen to replicate that method.
Its in both Bank Genie 6 and Bank Genie Pro 6

If you have the latest version, Under Bank Genie Transactions (tab) use Direct Debits/Standing Orders - BS423.
Set up your regular transactions (doesn't have to be a DD or SO - can be Bills, Salary, Pensions etc).
Once set up, click the Planner button in the initial screen BS423S01.
Screen BS423S09 will appear with a replication of my method.

It's a good starting point, but it needs more work.
e.g. I'm thinking about "Months".
Salaries are calendar monthly. State Pensions are every 4 weeks.
Right-clicking on the <P and P> buttons in Transaction Analyser program allows the user to define "Pay Days".
Thus a 3rd option for "months" is Pay day to Pay day.
Some users may need to plan their budget weekly or bi-weekly.
An all singing all dancing program needs a lot of flexibility

Over to you folk!
Lets have your show of interest in this feature by posting a reply in this topic.

After you have done that, if you have suggestions, proposals and specification, please send them to me by email to avoid a complex chain of disjointed postings.

[Daedalus]

I can see how planned transactions is intended to work but some expenditure is more fluid by nature, so to keep with income, including income supplemented by drawing down on savings and investments, it is perhaps good to be able to see that spending money on something 'A' means not being able to spend on something else, 'B'. 

As you know,  I'm looking to move away from MS Money where I'm used to month as the smallest time unit and hadn't considered budgeting over shorter periods of time.  But then all my regular income is received by the calendar month.  With regard to state pensions (and any other income consisting of 52 weekly payments) perhaps it would be necessary to input in each month as (52 x weekly payments /12), thus spreading the additional income of what is effectively month 13 across the year.  I'm not sure that I've grasped the difference between a salary being paid calendar monthly and having a monthly pay day.

I will continue to monitor this topic but I am also quite aware of its place in the general hierarchy of the Ideas Genie Community Forum.  As such, I fear that my request will not gather much support.

[LeeStoddart]

although this thread is a bit old, I'll throw in my thoughts (assuming George hasn't finished with this subject)
I don't think the DD SO Planner is the right place for a budget review. (That'll get your attention)

I have a lot of DDs and SOs but realistically they are not the areas where I need actual vs budget monitoring.  Our grocery shopping isn't on SO or DD, Petrol purchases, car servicing, theatre trips, coffee shops, meals out the list goes on.

What's missing from the current reporting capability is the spreadsheet (like the SO/DD Planner) view of actual spending.  I'd like to see a breakdown with time periods across the page and categories (summary) or subcategories (summary) down the page.  Time period columns could be months or quarters or years, or tax years, or weeks, or 4 weeks, or pay periods.

If we get to that sort of report then a similar granularity of budget, by subcategory, by date could be built - for me I'd probably want category by month.  Then if you've got this data the resulting report COULD be showing the Actual spend, OR the Budget, OR the difference (Budget - Actual)  I would suggest the forward looking parts of SO's and DDs could be included as an optional addition to the Actual figures.