I have a scheduled fill every month. I occasionally change the fill amounts for individual envelopes, which means that the total is different (ie more or sometimes less is unallocated out of my income)
However the box at the top of the page (Web interface) marked <Amt: > never alters. If I delete that box it says there is an error, but I can put any amount in even just £1 and it just accepts it. What is the purpose of the <Amt: > box?
It sounds like your fill is from “new income”, so Goodbudget assumes the income is fixed. When you change the amounts, all you’re doing is redistributing the incoming funds, but not the amount you’re being paid. You’ll notice the instruction on the side to sweep any remaining into Available (unless you’ve specified another envelope) so the total stays the same and the rest is pulled or pushed from/to the envelope you specified.
When you put £1 in that box, it assumes you’re being paid just a pound, and the remainder of your fills will need to come out of your Available funds. If the amount coming in changes, you’ll need to change that amount first and then (re)distribute the funds as you see fit.
A “Fill from New Income” is both an income transaction and an envelope distribution in one, so the amount needs to reflect the amount coming in to be sure your bank accounts stay accurate.
Does that help?
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Thanks Tiffany,
I still find it a little confusing. I use both the Web interface and also my android phone, the phone has allowed me to enter all my income which is regular amounts split up between different intervals (some monthly, some 2 weekly). It helpfully calculates how much that works out per month and how much is swept into ‘unallocated’, but that information doesn’t seem to be avaliable on the Web. Do I need to enter it manually in that box, and which figure should I put in, my total income or my total monthly expenses?
Many thanks, John
You can have as many Fill instructions as you’d like. It sounds like it might be helpful to have one Fill for each income, and that way you can allocate them individually. Your reports will still show the total in aggregate, but the Fills will likely be simpler if they occur on the days when the income is received. The amount should be the income so that the account will balance.
I don’t have any experience with Android so I can’t really offer much there, sorry!
OK, one more question if I may. On the Web page ‘Fill Envelopes’ on each line at the right hand side there is the figure that I want to add to each category, then underneath is two dashes ‘–’. Is there supposed to be an amount there? The same is true in the ‘Review and Save’ box, both ‘Income Amount’ and ‘Amount Filled’ both show just dashes. Should there be figures there?
Thanks again, John
@john_parsons Sounds like you’re looking at a Scheduled Fill. In that case, yes, you’ll just see those dashes both beside the Envelopes and in the ‘Review and Save’ box on the right.
Apart from your income amount (which you can see by looking at the ‘Amt’ section of the Scheduled Fill), Goodbudget won’t know what those figures will end up being until the Scheduled Fill actually posts, so it just fills those fields with dashes while it’s in the scheduled state.