Reconciling Available Balance

1

I deleted an account that I don’t need to watch in Goodbudget, and that in any case had an incorrect balance showing in Goodbudget. That apparently skewed something between the total amounts in the envelopes and the Available balance, which is now showing in the red by the amount the account I deleted had in it. However, I had reset all the amounts in the envelopes prior to doing that, and the envelope totals matched the Account balance with my available balance at my bank in my main checking account. The change also reduced the total being reported in the envelopes by the same amount. However, the amounts showing envelope by envelope still also match what’s available in my bank. So, there’s a $426.25 discrepancy between the gray area at the top of the home page where the total shows an amount equal to the actual amount in the envelopes less the negative balance of the same amount in the Available row.

I have spent several hours trying to reconcile envelope amounts to bank balance because the Available Balance seems to be off now and then. I want it to now show as 0, which it should be, rather than in the red. This error in the program is going to bug me as I go forward if not corrected. I’m a bit OCD. :wink:

What can I do to fix that besides starting all the envelopes at 0 again and resetting them to the proper amounts? The envelopes only reflect the amount in the checking account and should never have included the deleted account amounts…

2

Thanks for posting!

When you delete an account it does affect the available balance. As Goodbudgeter @kschedler shared on this forum thread, a great way to think about available is the equation: Available = Sum(Accounts) - Sum(Envelopes).

For example, if you have created an account with $50 (even if that is the incorrect balance), when you delete the account, the Available balance will automatically deduct $50. From here, there are two ways you can increase your available balance. You can either add new income or you can remove money from an envelope. If you decide to remove money from envelopes, then you will need to deduct amounts from various filled envelopes until your Available Balance reflects 0.

If you would like to do this, follow these steps:

  1. Click Fill Envelopes
  2. On Step 1 “Fill From” select “Available” tab
  3. On Step 2 deduct amounts from various envelopes by adding a “-” or minus sign with the amount you would like to deduct
  4. Look at Step 3 “Review and Save” to see the updated Available amount
  5. When the Available amount reflects 0, make sure to click the “Save” button

Hope this helps! And when it comes to budgeting it’s okay to be a little OCD :wink: