I use goodbudget across multiple accounts as we have joint and personal and savings, etc. I have an account called “grocery budget” that is our joint bank account, and I have 3 envelopes that I budget into for that account. My balance on the accounts tab matches my bank, but the individual envelopes do not add up to the real world amount, and I don’t know how to fix it since changing the envelopes changes the account balance. I have searched for the discrepancy and can’t find it, so I need a way to balance it out.
I’m not sure I understand quite what you’re saying; envelope and account balances are independent (but related). Changing an envelope balance doesn’t change an account balance, and the envelopes aren’t tied to a specific account at all. They represent the aggregate money available across all accounts, so I suspect (if I understand correctly) that you’ve filled Grocery envelopes from Unallocated and used (or not) money from “other accounts” to make that work.
The fix would be to transfer money to/from other envelopes until your Grocery budget matches your Grocery account, but there’s no way to automatically limit those funds to the account in question.
Another way to keep this “clean” would be to create an additional envelope that mirrors the account itself, and only fill Grocery envelopes by transferring out of that “holding envelope” instead of from Unallocated. That’s basically how I manage my Savings; putting the money from one Account into an envelope allows me to track it without it appearing as available funds, but I can move it around when I want to spend from that account.
Does that make sense?
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