Re-allocation of unallocated funds in savings budget sheet

I just started using the TCS Savings budget as well as the Savings & Debt add ons. I am attempting to sort out all of my savings accounts and need some help.
My main problem is I have several accounts that have a larger balance than what is being shown for my current goal. For example, my safety net savings account has a balance of 10k and that is being shown as the overall balance but the available balance is being shown as like 4k. It might be due to the fact it is only counting the deposits made in 2022 or maybe the transactions are allocated differently on other platforms as I recently migrated all my data from Mint. My question is how do I go about re-allocating the unallocated 6k on that account. The same thing occurred with my other savings account which I recently deposited my tax returns. How do I allocate the unallocated funds to the funds allocated to whatever goal? I understand that if I were using the same account for several types of goals then each goal would have an allocated portion for it but in this case, the entire account should be for the same thing.

Also, is it possible to use 2 separate accounts for the same goal? For example, if I had 2 separate savings accounts and the total sum in both accounts would equal my total safety net funds.

And finally, I would like to know how I should handle transfer transactions? I have the funds leaving my checking accounts and being deposited into my savings account categorized as Transfer: Safety Net for example, while the funds entering that savings account are categorized as safety net account. Should I recategorize both types of transactions as the same so it’s an expense as well as an income but going into the same category or should I keep both of the transaction types separately? If I do the latter then how should I categorize the transfer? Transfers are normally hidden automatically but they are shown under transfers within the savings budget sheet. I am still trying to figure out the correct way to categorize everything and any advice would be very much appreciated.

Also, how do I add more categories as 200 is not going to be enough long-term? I am already close to the limit.

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Hi @MidnightPrzm,

how do I go about re-allocating the unallocated 6k on that account

To capture any savings in your account prior to your transaction history, you can seed your savings goal category on the Savings Budget sheet.

  1. In the header set Adjust ± Modifies to Savings.

  2. Add the required amount to true up your Available column to match your account balance.

  3. In the Tiller Community Solutions sidebar under Tools → Savings Budget un the Update Savings Budget routine.
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  4. Your account will now be seeded with the missing savings, with the action logged in the Budget Journal sheet. You can optionally add a note to the journal entry.

Also, is it possible to use 2 separate accounts for the same goal? For example, if I had 2 separate savings accounts and the total sum in both accounts would equal my total safety net funds.

In general you can do this with the Savings Budget as Savings is metadata tied to categories and not specific accounts. Unfortunately the way the Savings & Debt sheet is designed doesn’t allow you to specify that a single category is tied to multiple account balances.

I would like to know how I should handle transfer transactions?

In my optionion, transfers should almost always net to 0 because money is not being earned or spent; it is only moving from one bucket to another and is still considered an asset. For this reason I would recommend using the same transfer category for the transfer out and transfer in transactions. This has the added benefit of alerting you that a transfer is unbalanced and may require additional attention. I have a few different transfer categories, but the main ones I use are Account Transfer for moving from one back account to another and Credit Card Payment when moving from a bank account to my credit card balance. Remember, credit card payments are not expenses if you aren’t adding interest payments. The expense transaction is separate. You can use as many or as few distinct transfer categories as you like, but again I recommend categorizing the in and out the same unless it is supporting a specific workflow (rare).

how do I add more categories as 200 is not going to be enough long-term? I am already close to the limit.

You can simply add more rows to the bottom of the Categories sheet. Formatting and data validation should extend to the new rows, but the formulas that copy the first month’s budget to future months will need to be manually extended.

I hope this all helps!

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Thank you as that definitely allowed me to allocate the unallocated funds and now the balance for my safety net account is accurate. Now I did attempt this with a few other accounts such as my vacation funds account and while it is showing as the balance and goals match up, the savings and available balances are not exactly lining up. The savings & budget sheet show that the available balance is $845.89 and the same amount is allocated to goals. Now when I go into the savings budget sheet the $1,185.89 is shown as available while $705.89 is shown under savings. 240 is my monthly budget for this account/goal, and the deposits have already been made to said account. 24O is shown as budgeted as well as -240 under actual. How do I go about fixing this issue? I am encountering this issue with all of my savings goals.

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How exactly would I do this? Not really a big issue as I can just utilize the second account as another savings long-term anyways but would like to hear any ideas.

I actually think I have been utilizing one account for outgoing as well as incoming. I suppose that I should categorize transfers that I make to other people as expenses and if and when they reimburse me then it will net out. It does become a bit confusing when dealing with different types of transfers. I am just getting started so trying to figure out the best method is quite daunting. It confused me because I watched several of the webinars and for example, in the savings budget webinar credit card and other debt accounts were categorized as expenses. I guess it really only affects where they are listed on the budget sheet if I use the same account for both incoming and outgoing.

I am confused about how I should handle savings account transfers. You have the actual transfers going out of the checking account into the savings account. Then the transactions are entering the savings account. What about the transactions when you pull the money out of these accounts in the future? Plus take into account that these are funds that are being set aside to be used at a later date so therefore are expenses. Maybe I am overthinking it all but currently I have all my transfers to various savings accounts from my checking accounts categorized as Transfer: Savings. Then I have the transactions leaving and entering each individual account separately categorized as Safety Net, Vacation Fund, etc. Those are all counted as expenses similarly to how all my debt accounts are categorized individually. Is there a better more efficient way to handle this long-term? I haven’t even figured out how I plan on handling my investment accounts yet which I know will take some research and trial and error.

What’s the best way to handle cash? I watched a webinar where the inflow the cash account was used and have been using this method. Anything more efficient recommended?

I don’t know exactly why but in the past when I was first starting out with tiller money I did run into the issue where I went over the 200 limits. This was before I fine-tuned my categories and I still have more fine tuning to do. But several of my categories disappeared from the sheets. They were all marked as invalid within any of the sheets whether that was the transactions or Autocat. Anything using those categories would flag as invalid and when I clicked the drop-down menu to choose a category none of these categories were showing up. It was only the last dozen or so categories that had this issue. I attempted to recreate the categories and yet nothing I did was working so I ended up just creating a whole new google sheet. I am sure that some formula somewhere got bugged out or something but I assumed it had to do with the 200 limits being reached. I looked all over for a resolution on how to add more rows but found nothing. So now I am fearful of ever going over the 200 limits unless there is a formula I can edit that increases the max limit because I have seen it mentioned quite a few times by the devs and others that 200 is the limit but no follow-up to if you need more.

This was very helpful to me. Thank you!

Karen