Transferring Money between Accounts and then Entering and Expense

So I have my regular checking and another account called Gift Giving. I transferred money from my Gift Giving Account to my Checking Account. Now I need to enter the expense in. How do I add that money to an envelope so I can enter the expense in? It will not let me enter the expense without marking an envelope.

Try not to think about Accounts and Envelopes together—they’re separate ways of seeing the same money.
First, do you track your “Gift Giving” account in Goodbudget? If so, you’ll just do an account transfer from it to your primary checking account. This won’t change your Unallocated money at all, and you would just do a Fill from Unallocated transaction to put money into the envelope you want to use. It’s not an expense because you’ve just moved the money into another pile, but haven’t used it yet.
If you DON’T track that “Gift” account in Goodbudget, you’ll do a Fill from New Income transaction instead. Mark the primary checking account as the one receiving money, then put that much into the envelope of your choice. Hope that helps!

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So here is the scenario.

I bought a Christmas Gift on April 29 for $13.06. The money was taken out of my checking account.

I have a savings account called Gift Giving. I transferred $13.06 out of my Gift Giving account, to cover the amount taken out of my checking account.

If I transfer the money from the Gift Giving account to my checking account in GB, how do I allocate that “income” to the folder so I can enter the expense in?

I think the easy answer is to do a one-off “Fill” OR an envelope transfer from Unallocated to the envelope you used for the gift, but that may be oversimplified.
The folders/envelopes would have had your Gift Giving money already accounted for, probably in the Unallocated envelope. I assume you’ve already entered the transaction for the gift in an envelope (if not, you’ll need to do that now.)
Now that you’ve moved it, all you have to do is make the bank transfer from Gift Giving to checking to cover the actual expense, and then “Fill from Unallocated” the envelope from which you took the purchase.
Here’s an example that I think describes what you’re doing:

  1. I bought a large gift for my husband (in this case it was that Traeger smoker he’s been on about! :wink:) I have to enter the purchase somewhere, so I take it from my “Gifts and Holidays” envelope, and assign it to my Checking account since I used my debit card. That leaves the envelope with a negative balance, and I also need to move money in real life to cover the cost.
  2. I do a “real life” transfer from my Savings to Checking accounts.
  3. Enter an “Account Transfer” transaction in Goodbudget for that amount. This will square your accounts but it does not change the amount of money you have available in your envelopes.
  4. Go to the Envelopes tab and add that much money into, in my case, the “Gifts and Holidays” envelope from Unallocated. You can either do an Envelope Transfer or a “Fill from Unallocated” to accomplish the same thing.
    Now your Savings/Gifts account shows the lower balance, your Checking account shows the higher balance (after transfer), and your Accounts are correct.
    The envelope from which you took your purchase is now refilled and your Unallocated balance is lower, so your Envelopes are correct.
    One last thing–if you track savings accounts that are NOT figured into your money available for budgeting, be sure to make an envelope to show that the money is assigned somewhere. Otherwise, it will appear that your savings/gifts/retirement/what have you is money you are free to spend anywhere, when in fact it isn’t.
    Sorry this is so long–the process is really simple, but I didn’t want to leave out any steps!
    PPS–If you don’t have any money in “Unallocated”, you’ll need to move some money around in your existing envelopes to refill the one from which you took the gift purchase!
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