I made another change on my copy to the period Net Budgets formula in J13 so unapplied changes in the Adjust column G for budget adjustments are previewed in Offset, <period>.
=sumproduct(if(AD7:AD="Income",1,-1),AK7:AK)+if($BC$6="Budget",sumproduct(if(AD7:AD="Income",1,-1),AJ7:AJ),0)
It probably isnāt very useful to say this, but āme toā on the odd results from the per-month calculations in column J2 and J16. @cculber2 and @aronos are way ahead of me on this so I wonāt bother investigating further until a fix is out.
I was able to use the new stuff to find a few months where my budget didnāt net to zero.
Great feedback, everyone, and formula edits, @cculber2. I should have recognized that the Actuals calculation is signed differently in the two Integrated Categories section, as you noticed @cculber2.
(I turn them positive for the current period because that is how they are rendered in the dashboard section, but I didnāt do the same in the all-periods calculation because that content is not shown in the visible areaā it is just a datapoint for the budget health calculation. Probably would make sense to make this consistent in the Integrated Categories section but Iāll save that for another dayā¦)
Hope weāre getting closer. Let me know if you find anything else.
P.S. Iām not sure on the appropriate offset behavior for hidden categoriesā¦
Good point about the prior period, @aronos. The prior period formula needs to change since the new template master has new columns in the hidden area that have pushed over the selected period cell.
I updated the formulas in the original prior period column post to reflect the new cell locations.
Soooā¦it might be helpful for dummies like me if you explained exactly what all these numbers mean? Iām not really sure what Iām looking at when I look at the ābudget healthā scoreboard, with all of these nets and actuals and offsets and whatnot, and donāt know if I should be concerned or not. I thought my savings budget was set up pretty well and now Iām not sure!
@kevinwholland I was somewhat confused at first as well, but I think I have a good handle now after spending some time fixing the formulas. Here is my understanding of each value.
Rollover value previously behaved.Transactions sheet for the specified period, including income, expense, and transfer types. This is similar to Cash Flow on the Monthly Budget sheet.Savings in the Track column of the Categories sheet are summed.Rollover. As @randy explains it:There are basically 3 categories of transactions that need to be handled differently to keep a budget true:
- Budgeted transactions with rollovers turned on
- Budgeted transactions with rollovers turned off
- Unbudgeted transactions (e.g. transfers, uncategorized or no-longer-used categories)
The Offset formula is Net Budgets - Net Actuals, Savings + Net Actuals, All. $0 means you have no errors in your budget. A positive value represents unallocated, but available savings. All spending from non āsavingsā categories removes from this bucket. All income adds to this bucket. Phantom savings show as a negative [Offset] and is always an error. I.e. youāve āsavedā more than you actually have (Thank you, @matta, for the excellent phrasing).
I hope that helps!
Ok, so Iām a bit late to the party but I wanted to throw in my two cents, as well as ask some questions.
First, I do find rollover adjustment useful, although I agree with previous commenters that āuncategorized transactionsā and ātotal transfers that donāt net to 0ā are data errors, rather than something that needs adjusting with a rollover adjustment. And ācategories that are not set as savings categoriesā doesnāt really affect me since I have everything roll over, but I get that itās an important issue for you to tackle. Also, it did take my a while to understand how it works so Iām glad you guys are spending time rethinking it. Iām really looking forward to being able to use the Foundation template, but rollover is a requirement for me.
Ok, so now on to my weird use case. My problem started when my wife left her job. While she was looking for a new one our budget exceeded our income, but that was ok since we have the savings to cover it. The question was how to account for that in Tiller (Iām open for other suggestions, this is just what I came up with). First, I have an expense account called āSavingsā that carries a large rollover amount and a budget of 0. Basically, this just represents all the cash we have in the bank. Then at the start of each month I look at the rollover adjustment and transfer the appropriate amount from āSavingsā rollover to rollover adjustment. That lets me see how the cash in our account is decreasing while still allowing for me to budget more than our income. And have all of the numbers make sense. The biggest downside is that this transfer isnāt particularly visible, and thus could be confusing to look back at.
And now my question, how do you think I should handle this type of situation in the new Savings Budget? I know itās a specific case, but I think it would help me understand the new system. Also, maybe Iāve missed it but with the Savings Budget āBudget Healthā that you added, is there a way to adjust it at all or is it just an indicator? I definitely like it though, and while itās a bit tough to wrap my head around it all I appreciate all of the thought and streamlining youāve done.
@matt Your workflow of moving rollover savings from your Savings category to supplement your budgeted expenses is spot on. I use the same workflow when it comes to tracking savings goals and finally making the purchase. You will be happy to hear that the Savings Budget actually logs your transfer of rollover savings from one category to another on the Budget Journal sheet. Take the simple example below of me moving $21.08 from my grocery savings to cover an excess of my restaurant spending.
To answer your question, the Budget Health section is indeed an indicator that doesnāt have any configuration. I went into some detail behind what it represents in my previous post above yours.
The one thing Budget Health doesnāt take into consideration is savings, as it only deals with budgeted and actual dollars, and savings is largely a derived value. Savings health can currently be tracked for individual categories using the Savings & Debt (Prototype) sheet. By tying the savings category to a specific account, you can get at-a-glance feedback on whether or not your savings categories are sufficiently funded by their associated accounts.
@cculber2 thanks for the explanation. Glad to hear that the Savings Budget logs the transfer, thatās pretty straightforward. I know in the envelope budget that was tracked in the Budget History, but this seems more clear.
My use case is slightly different than the one you described though, since I have been transferring from an expense category rollover directly to Rollover Adjustment, rather than another category. This has been helpful since I donāt really have any one specific category that needs the extra rollover. Instead, I know that my expense budget exceeds my income budget (and actuals) so I donāt really pay attention to which categories are getting the extra rollover, it all just gets lumped together in Rollover Adjustment. In other words, my spending is within my expense budget, but I need to reconcile the fact that my expenses are higher than my income. I see how I could do that by decreasing my budget until itās under my income and then transferring rollover to the categories that need it, but Iād rather have realistic numbers in my budget. I hope that makes sense. I guess I could make a separate Income category called something like āSpent Savingsā and transfer rollover from my āSavingsā category rollover to āSpent Savingsā rollover, thus balancing everything without messing up my budget. What do you think? Am I overcomplicating things? Of course this is a temporary situation (expenses exceeding income), but itās something I do have to deal with.
I think I understand the Budget health (definitely with the help of your comments, thanks!), I was just asking to make sure I hadnāt missed any other adjustment feature. I used that regularly in the envelope budget, but honestly it might be better not to have it since visibility on what was actually happening behind the scenes was not great. Iāll just have to get used to doing things a different way.
I havenāt yet looked into the Savings & Debt sheet, but that definitely sounds interesting!
Hi @matt,
I think the key is that the Savings Budgetās āBudget Healthā checks expect a zero-sum budget (Income == Expenses). Account for this by using a negative budgeted amount for your āSavingsā expense category. Your budget will then be zero-sum, and all the math works out fine. This is what I did when playing with the Savings Budget for my 2020 data and had to account for a series of months of planned over-spending.
I donāt fully understand how the Tiller Envelope Budget treats Rollover Adjustment, but I suspect that what I describe above amounts to the same math.
If I understand what youāre doing correctly, I often handle this sort of situation by returning that allocation to an income category. Since I have extremely variable income I allow āexcessā income in fat months build up rather than assigning it to an expense category. Basically thatās how I account for unallocated short term savings amounts. That way my expense budget accurately reflects what I spent (even if that spending is actually saving to spend later, like an annual insurance payment).
@matta I hadnāt thought of budgeting a negative amount, but that makes perfect sense. Thatās definitely simpler than what I was thinking, I think Iāll switch to your way. Thanks!
That makes sense, I can see how it would effectively do the same thing Iām trying to do. Personally Iām not sure I like leaving excess income in Income categories, but thatās just personal preference. Thanks for the suggestion!
Understandable. I did it the other way for almost a year but it kept resulting in odd problems. Eventually, I went back through my entire budget history and changed it to accumulate in income. The way I see it until I allocate it to a real expense (vs a generic āsavingsā category, like I had before) itās like I havenāt earned it yet and it doesnāt throw off my Expense amounts.
The way I like to look at it, money that is being saved towards a goal is already as good as spent. By assigning that income to an expense category you are taking it out of circulation. If the goal is abandoned or overfunded, the money can be transferred to another categoryās savings. The running tally doesnāt throw off my bookkeeping because at the end of the day itās the actuals that will speak for themselves. My budget and savings are just the guardrails to keep my actual spending in check.
Of course, my view all falls back on the assumption of a zero-sum budget. To that end, I have two income groups: Primary Income and Passive Income. Primary Income is our monthly household salaries, and Passive Income is irregular earnings like savings account interest, statement credits, or private sales. I add irregular income to the overall income budget as it is earned, and then assign it to a category. I feel it gives me a better picture of my goals and their progress. If zero-sum isnāt something youāre worried about, I see no problem with letting unspent income accumulate in its respective income categories.
Rightā¦ I look at it the exact same way. The only difference is until I have a specific goal to spend it towards, I donāt anymore.
Where this really got me when I held savings in an expense category was moving money to investment accounts. Iād have actuals that greatly exceeded my budget. Itās ultimately not a big deal but I felt like it skewed the reality of what was happening.
My budget is zero-sum in the sense that what I budget for and āspendā into categories always balances out. The only difference is that instead of spending into categories that donāt have a specific purpose to hold āexcessā income, I donāt budget it yet. Ultimately this started out of my practice of spending ālast monthāsā incomeā¦ Novemberās budget is based on Octoberās income. But in practice with a highly variable income, some sort of ābufferā is required. I used an expense category for almost a year before changing it to keeping it in income.
The logical extension of using an expense in that way ultimately gets into a problem with what you consider income. One of the problems I was facing originally is that I would keep an āinvestment savingsā expense category. If I bought a stock or something, it would deduct from that. But if I sold something, how do you think about it? I think a lot of people (if they donāt just hide those transactions) would categorize it as a negative expense, a credit to that category. Heck, if you think about it you donāt really need an income category at all. You could categorize all income as a negative expense. But really if buying a stock is an expense, selling it is income. Buying a house is an expense, selling it is income. So considering those as negative expenses runs into other problems down the line if youāre trying to keep a very comprehensive financial picture.
Ultimately both methods can work depending on your needs and purposes. Iāve often thought that some third, neutral type of category is needed but I havenāt been able to work it out in my head yet. 
Yeah, investments are the one area that is gray for me. Currently, Iām logging the transfers from my bank to the brokerage account as a Bank Transfer, but any other transactions internal to the brokerage account are an often-unbalanced Investments transfer category. I hide this category from reports. I havenāt really put much thought into selling yet, but as long as it stays under Investments, I donāt think I need to worry too much. Basically, Iām treating my brokerage accounts as black box accounts with a balance. What goes in and out of the account is balanced, but what happens inside is magic (though still logged). Iām still holding out for more robust investment tracking features in the future.
Iām doing a sort of hybrid right now, categorizing dividend income and reinvestments, and everything else goes into a hidden category. But Iāll probably soon start categorizing all purchases as expenses and all sales as income in order to get a better picture within Tiller of my income and tax situation. Right now Iām still doing a lot of calculating in outside spreadsheets for that.
