I have a german and UK bank accounts. I work in the UK with monthly payroll going into my UK bank account. I transfer a fixed amount monthly to my german account. I move between the two countries on a regular basis. I have set up two and labelled the two accounts in GoodBudget as GPS and Euro. However, it does not look possible to integrate the two separate currencies. Any advice on how best to handle this? Thank you. Scott
I’m in a similar situation with USD and GBP. Because Goodbudget is currency-agnostic, it can be a little complex to manage different currencies with different values but there are workarounds.
I handle mine by using my primary income ($) as my “regular” budget account and envelopes (although I now have GBP envelopes too), with a single “account” envelope that mirrors my GBP account. When I transfer funds, I just adjust the balance of the two accounts (not transfer funds because the amounts are different) then adjust the envelope for the secondary currency.
To fill £ envelopes I do envelope transfers from the £ “account envelope” to the others, and that keeps everything aligned. (You will need to have separate envelopes for each currency)
Hope that helps—I can post examples if I wasn’t clear!
Thank you Tiffany. It looks like I am doing what you are suggesting. I have different envelopes for each currency and separate account envelopes for both. Thanks very much for confirming this. Best Scott
Glad it helped—I also should have pointed out that Accounts aren’t directly linked to specific Envelopes, i.e. you can’t “tie” a £ account to a £ envelope—that has to be done via a workaround. Sounds like you may already know this, but it’s a point of confusion for lots of folks.
I’m not sure I have figured out the work around. It is so easy to just select the proper accounts when you enter the amount I do that without thinking about it, and it occasionally seems to “remember” from the previous entry.
The work around is really only necessary because the absolute value of each currency is different. If you’re using the program more for tracking your spending than for actual budgeting, it may not be an issue for you, and you’ll still select the correct account whenever you spend from it regardless. The workaround is only there to keep your envelope budgets accurate to your available fund values.
For example, if I have $1000 in one account and £1000 in another, Goodbudget will show a total balance of 2000 (no currency indicator). But that’s really worth $2200 or £1833, so my unallocated envelope doesn’t reflect my true spending power. If with those same accounts I also create a £ envelope with a balance of 1000, then I can keep the values separate in my head, and my Unallocated will only reflect the primary currency.
I don’t “transfer” funds from one account to the other because transferring $100 to my GBP account only results in an increase of £83, so instead I edit the $ account down by 100 and edit the £ account up by 83, then change the names of those line items to reflect that it was a transfer of funds.
I feel like it sounds confusing but it works out pretty simply in actuality.
yes I see what you mean Tiffany. I am using it only to track spending in the moment so should be fine. Thanks again.
Hi Scott, it sounds like you (and Tiffany) have found a way to make this work in a single household, but I did want to offer another solution just in case it makes more sense for your situation.
In short, the easiest way to get the currencies not mixed up is to have two separate households, one for each household. This of course necessitates switching back and forth, but if you have more significant budgeting to carry out in each currency, this helps to prevent from numbers getting mixed up in weird ways. This doesn’t make a lot of sense for situations where you spend most of your time (and money) in a single country/currency, but if it’s a significant split, this is something to consider, and there are a reasonable number of people who prefer this method.
(if you’re on the Plus plan, we’d also be happy to give the extra household a complimentary upgrade to Plus that matches your main subscription so the second one isn’t limited either)
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Hello Alex. Thanks very much for the offer of the complimentary upgrade. It will take me some time to assess this option, in part due to a lot of work right now. So I may come back to you. Again thanks. Scott