I had a quick search through the forum but I couldn’t find the answer I was looking for.
I would like to do a weekly fill for an envelope called “Water”. In this example, the budget was behind by $100. We split these bills 50/50 with a family member.
I added the $50 we were short.
I continued to do weekly fills.
It says we only need to add $3 this week when it should be closer to $20.
I assume this was because I topped this envelope up and the system believes that this was part of the budgeted amount. What is best practice to resolve these issues?
Another example of this would be the following:
We budget for our share of power $200 per month.
We pay the water, internet and other bills in full on our end.
At the end of the month, we reconcile this against the power bill.
We transfer from the power envelope the other family member’s share to the envelopes (which have gone negative by the amount owed).
This throws out the weekly fills in the same way as it assumes that we added an amount towards the budget.
Am I doing something wrong or is there another way to do this?
Thanks for posting! It’s not clear to me if these are Weekly Envelopes or Annual/Goals, but it sounds like you might be using Due Dates on these particular Envelopes. If so, Goodbudget will try to get you to save only your target amount for your ‘year,’ and nothing more. Fills and Transfers into the Envelope count toward your target amount.
In your first scenario, it sounds like you’re using an Annual Envelope, and Goodbudget is only suggesting you fill with $3 because you’re likely already very close to reaching your target amount of 100 by your Due Date, and only $3/week is needed to reach your goal.
You can confirm that by looking at how much you’ve filled into the Envelope within your year. If you want Goodbudget to suggest you save more, then you can try upping your budget, or removing your Due Date.
In your second scenario, I think the issue you’re describing is that Goodbudget is asking you to re-save the portion that you transferred out of the power Envelope. Is that right? If so, that’s likely happening because of a Due Date. If you don’t want GB to make you re-save that amount, you can remove the Due Date so GB will always suggest your Annual Amount divided by your budget period, instead of making these smart Due Date calculations.