I posted this same request on an old thread, but never got a reply. I’m on the trial run, but if I can’t get my savings organized in a helpful way (and similar to how I’ve had it), I probably won’t be continuing with Tiller.
Could someone help me understand and fix why the total under the availability column in savings and debt sheet is different than the total in the availability column in the savings budget sheet for the exact same categories?
I would think that Column E (availability) in savings and debt sheet should show the same values for each savings category as Column H (availability) would show in the savings budget sheet.
However, what appears to be happening is the savings and debt sheet seems to be getting its savings category value in column E by adding the value of column H (available) and column E (budget) from the savings budget sheet, but it’s not factoring in the original savings value in column D and therefore shows that I have nearly $2000 unallocated.
@chris.meyers would you be open to sharing a screenshot of what you’re describing here? It’s really hard to tell what’s going wrong without some sort of visual.
@heather, I would love to share some screenshots with someone who could help, but I’m not comfortable sharing some of that info on a public forum. Is there an option to continue this over email with you or someone else? I’d be happy to share my issues. My savings are still a mess, so I would still love to get some guidance.
I’m not totally sure on your situation, but I just confirmed that, if your Savings Budget is set to the current month, then your Available amount in column H of the Savings Budget should match column E (Available) in the Savings & Debt Savings Goal column.
By using column E in the Savings Budget, the budget is accounting for this month’s budget and actuals.
Hi Randy, my apologies for the delay. Yes, I’m seeing that. But in the the Savings and Debt tab, I’m getting a -$2,316.59 unallocated amount, which tells me that that the total in my 11 savings categories is $2,316.59 more than what I actually have in my savings account. This is frustrating because I can’t rely on these amounts.
Now, one issue worth noting that could be creating problems for me (but I don’t know how) is that I’ve made all my savings categories as Transfer types (previously had them as “expenses”). I did this b/c I didn’t want any savings related stuff to show up in my monthly budget tab and transfers don’t show up there. They do however show up in Savings budget, which is ideal.
I have found that the unallocated amount above is the same as the two credit card payments that I made on June 10 from my savings account, in addition to the sum of any other expenses I have auto categorized from June that are from my savings categories.
I’m just confused what I need to change. I’m happy to send more specifics or screenshots, but I would really prefer to not do that on a public medium.
@chris.meyers I don’t have a solution to your specific issue here, but I’m curious if you’ve tried the Savings Goal Tracker (beta) sheet? Savings Goal Tracker (Beta)
It’s a little different than this one, but it’s entirely based on account balances vs transactions so you’re always tracking toward the money that’s actually available in your account.
I’m trying it out - seems interesting. But It doesn’t look like it can accommodate my need, unless I’m missing something.
So, I have 30K in my savings account. I use funds from this account to cover any expenses that fall into 11 savings categories (like new car, auto, emergency, etc.). Every category has a different amount. Prior to Tiller, if I saved $1000 one month, I would break that into 11 percentages, so that Emergency would get 10%, auto 15%, new car 5%, etc (these percentages could change every month based on priority). A category would turn to 0% once I achieved my goal and I’d reallocate that percentage to another category.
With this in mind, I don’t see how the Savings Goal Dashboard could do this, b/c it shows that 4 categories (or goal names) are 100% funded, 1 is 16% funded, and the others 0% funded, which doesn’t accurately reflect my intentional effort to save specifically for each category in varying amounts, while also reflecting the amount deducted from each category.
With the Savings Budget, I have liked being able to categorize expenses that fall under Savings categories! that allows me to track the totals in each unique category, but I’m running into other issues (mentioned in my last post).
How can I track my savings in this way with Tiller? Can the Savings Goal Tracker do this?
I see how that doesn’t quite make sense. The Savings Goal sheet is using a waterfall approach and there isn’t a way to allocate how much of the balance should be allocated to a specific goal right now. Thanks for the feedback.
I don’t have ideas for another solution at this point.