Just curious if this is how others have dealt with this...

I have several accounts where I wish to earmark some of the money for something. For instance, I have a checking account where some of the money belongs to a team (I handle collecting fees and paying for items for my childs baseball team). Another case is earmarking savings. I want to mark $x each month as savings for a new car, and $y as savings for vacation. None of these cases really warrant opening their own physical bank accounts for though.

In KMyMoney, I have created sub accounts in the actual account and transfer money there (i.e. Savings and Savings:NewCar). That has allowed me to track the funds and, if I collapse the accounts on the account list, I can still see the actual balance of the account. It isn't perfect, but it works pretty well I guess.

I guess for the case where the money belongs to a team, I could open a liability account. Each transfer from the team would be from the liability account to checking, kind of like taking out a loan. Don't know if that would work so well for savings though, because I really do own that money.

Anyone figure they have a better idea?

You can certainly set up an Income and an Expenditure category for each of these uses and then you can create reports which only display each category by creating a new report and deselecting the categories in the category tab that you don't want.

Good point john_hudson. I had already been going down the 'custom report' idea to get totals for liquid money vs. short term savings vs. long term savings. I create reports with only short term savings accounts in it for instance instead of trying to make those accounts a sub account of some short term savings place holder account. I could apply the same type of logic to savings. Maybe set 'car savings' up as a liability and exclude it from certain reports (like netWorth) where I don't want it to effect the total, but include it in others where I want it to seem like 'hands off' money.

For the money that belongs to the team, I created a liability account because I guess that is really what it is. The money in my checking account is 'borrowed' from the team. I need to either spend it on their behalf or return it at some point.

Thanks.

So, if I want to create a virtual "envelope system" I should have an income account for each expense category? Then when my paycheck is deposited, how would I divvy it up into the income accounts, with the edit splits window?

(The ONE THING I need from accounting software every day is knowing how much is left in each envelope, so I know how close I am to the edge of the cliff, ya know?)

If you want to define a certain amount of money you can spend per expense category, why not use a budget?
That's what it's for and you have reports readily available that can compare what you have planned and your actual spending.

If you want to use it to save some money apart for special expenses (like a car, or something) then it's a different story. Perhaps I would try to create an asset account per envelope

Thanks for the speedy response! I wasn't expecting that. Appreciate it!

Budgets don't work for me, because they only tell me history: what I've SPENT (past tense). I really don't care what I've spent... the critical info I need for my decision making every day is "how much is left in the envelope?" Can I pay the rent this week or do I have to wait until the next paycheck? Can I pay the electric bill today, or do I schedule it for the day before it's due? We are so close to the edge that it matters not how many miles I've travelled to get to the cliff... what matters is how many inches are left before I go over.

If I can make KMyMoney tell me that on the front page, I will use it. If it's not possible without digging in the bowels of the program for a week or two, I'll have to stick to my OOCalc spreadsheet, which gives me the critical info... but not much else.

Y'all have created a very nice looking program... much better looking than GnuCash. I'm hoping I can make it tell me what I need to know. Thanks again.

PS: If I can make this work, I will try to write it up as a "How-to" to post on my blog and where ever else you want to post it. I know there are others out there who think like I do (envelope system)... look at all the other programs that have been created to do just that: Mvelopes, CommonCents, etc. Trouble is, they're for Windows, and they cost money, and probably cost money again when they need upgrading.

An approach I would follow if I would be in your situation - fortunately the edge of the cliff is not in sight (yet) for me - is to create schedules for all those payments. Then they will be shown on the homepage including the forecasted balance of your checking/asset account(s).

In case you want to stick with the envelope approach, you could easily setup an asset account for each envelope. When the paycheck comes in, split it up between the envelopes in a split transaction. That should work.

Setup categories for all your expenses and enter all your expenses and revenues into the application. Knowing about the history and analyzing spending habits is a first step to make that gap between you and the cliff's edge a bit larger.

If you have further questions, simply let us know.

Thanks... wrestling with it as we speak. I'll repost if successful.

The budget vs actual will tell you both how much you have spent and how much you are left. And you have a homepage component that will tell you about those cases where you have gone over the edge, and the cases where you have not received the income you had planned for.

Just my point of view, because that's what I use budget for. The schedules on the ledger might work too. And forecast, of course.

I'm giving up for now. Gotta get some sleep before 12 hour nightshift...

But here's what I've got so far:

1) Create "Shoebox" as a cash account with opening balance
2) Create "______ Envelope" as a cash sub-account of Shoebox with zero balance
3) Edit opening balance transaction of Shoebox account by clicking "edit splits" button, and splitting money into each envelope account.

Sounds just like you would do it "for real," right? Only problem is that this is what I get:

The individual sub-accounts (envelopes) have a negative balance, while the "Shoebox" account retains its (positive) opening balance. I would have expected the envelopes to have a positive balance, and the Shoebox to either reflect the positive total of all the sub-accounts (preferred outcome), or else show zero.

Good night. (Or day, for you dayshift people!)

Instead of editing the opening balance, create a transfer from the main account to its subaccounts.

And keep in mind, that those two accounts (Shoebox and ___ Envelope) are not related to each other balance wise even though one is the parent of the other.

Using a transfer transaction takes money out of the shoebox and puts it in the envelope. This way, the funds are not visible anymore in the shoebox, but KMyMoney's accounts view can sum all those envelopes up for you when collapsing the shoebox account in the view. In that case, it adds all the balances of its children (envelopes) and its own in the value column. Expanding will show the single balances of the shoebox and the envelopes again.

Next part of the saga...

I did as you said and created a transfer transaction, editing the splits to put money into each envelope. Success thus far: envelope accounts show positive balance, parent account (shoebox) shows zero. So far so good.

Now I want to deposit a paycheck. I create a deposit transaction in the shoebox account. In the "from" field, I put my employer's name. It asks me do I want to designate that name as a payee/payor, I confirm. I enter the amount of the deposit. I click the "split transaction" button. Under the "Category" column, I doubleclick a field, it gives me a dropdown box. I select the first envelope account labeled: "Shoebox:Car Insurance Envelope." In the "amount" field, I enter the amount to go into that envelope from my paycheck, and continue likewise with other envelope accounts until the paycheck has been entirely divvied up. I click OK on the splits window, and Enter on the transaction.

Problem: the ledger for shoebox shows a deposit amount equal to the size of my paycheck, meaning the money did not wind up in the envelopes, but in the shoebox. When I now bring up the accounts list, it shows that the designated amounts from my paycheck have been subtracted from the envelopes rather than being added. Additionally, in the income category, my paycheck account shows zero. It's like I wasted my time splitting up the deposit, because it's still waiting for me to transfer from shoebox to envelopes. I be confused.

Change the sign of the splits. The money going into the envelopes is a negative split from the perspective of the shoebox account.