I’m new here and have been enjoying how to use Tiller. The Savings Budget may have almost exactly what I need to accomplish my goal of knowing what my vast wealth in the bank is to be spent on. Well, maybe it’s not so vast!
Has anyone explored a way to match/reconcile the Available column in the Savings Budget with the latest balances from the Balance History tab? For example, if one had a balance of $125 in their checking account at the end of the month then the total of all the available budget amounts for the expenses should also total $125. This assumes three things:
All income for the month has been received. Therefore, the Available column for income in the Savings Budget tab is zero.
Budget Expenses = Budgeted Income
All transactions have been categorized in the Transactions tab
If the total of available budget for those expense were different than $125, an adjustment to Savings would be necessary.
Reconciling in this manner could be done after the monthly reconciliation of the bank account.
Welcome to Tiller and the Savings Budget, @thomasnjefferson! That’s a great question. One of the riddles of the Savings Budget is connecting the “virtual” savings you accrue in categories to real world money in an account— either discrete accounts or with one account containing savings from multiple categories.
I have this same question. The only solution I have been able to come up with, and I’m not 100% it is correct, is after the last day of the month (I’ll use September 1), all your transactions for the month (August) should have come through. The balances page shows the actual amount in accounts after all those transactions. You can then balance the savings budget and it should match up to the balances in the accounts, and if not you can adjust the savings budget. Other than that, I can’t figure out how to reconcile the two. But I think that will work. Which limits you to one chance a month to make sure they match.
I do something similar to what cliff.lusk does. At the start of each month I need to make sure my checking balance equals the sum of “available” (savings + budget) plus my credit card balances.
This is based on a couple assumptions:
• Only one spending (deposit) account, checking in my case
• Prefunding for the month – I came to Tiller from YNAB and have stayed in the habit of funding the coming month using last month’s income.
Most of my spending is done using credit cards and then I pay the statements in full. As such, I may spend and record transactions in one month but the money to pay for them won’t come out of my checking account until the following month.
I added a few simple formulas to the top of the Savings Budget to show these values and calculate whether or not the balance in checking is sufficient.
I inserted a couple columns to the left of Column I on the Savings Budget tab and then entered the following at the top:
Total Needed =D23+E23+Balances!H9
Checking Balance =Balances!D9
Over/Under is Checking Balance less Total Needed
If the difference is positive, then I have “extra” money in my checking account that I can transfer to savings. If I do transfer the overage then I have to remember to adjust the savings amounts on the Saving Budget by the same amount.
That makes sense. My credit card transactions are done day to day, when they happen. So they are categorized the same month. The payment from checking is just a transfer that disappears and is already accounted for.
I think for me it’s - at the end of the month:
Income “Available” + Expense Savings Envelope “Available” (carry over) = Balances - Credit Card.
I think that’s right…maybe?? Is that right? I don’t know why this is so difficult for me to wrap my brain around.
I am not sure I follow your calculations (which certainly doesn’t mean they aren’t correct!). The goal, I think, is to match the savings budget to the actual balance of your cash spending account (probably checking). Since I still follow the YNAB approach of using last month income for this month’s budget, my budgeted amounts should all be available money in my checking at the start of the month - so I don’t worry about the “available” for income, since the current month’s income is earmarked for next month. Under that scenario, all my budget savings plus available budgeted amounts plus my current credit card balances should be equal to (or less) than my checking balance.
For credit cards, I also categorize them as they occur, but the money doesn’t come out of my checking account until the bill gets paid. That’s why I add those balances into what I need to have in checking at any given time.
I do the same as far as funding. I get what you are saying. I think I just do an extra step and do the math to subtract my credit card balance. But now that I think about it, your way is easier!
We are experimenting with a new Savings Goals dashboard in beta that is essentially a cleanup of the Savings Goal & Debt template . It doesn’t integrate specifically with budgeting or end-of-month workflows but does allow you to prioritize savings goals, assign a real-world “savings” account, and track the funding of the goals against the balance.
If this is of interest, tag @heather and let us know. (If the Savings Goal & Debt template is not integrated enough from a workflow perspective though, the new tool probably won’t meet your needs either.)
