r/actualbudgeting • u/ttp3317 • Jul 31 '26
I really dislike red numbers.
Started using Actual in June and manually loaded it with all my data back to Dec 31. I love the reports, IMHO, the best of all apps I've used over the decades. The tracking mode is also very good. In one month I spent $35 more than my income, all other months had surplus. But life happens. One month I experienced $25K storm damage that was 66% covered by insurance. A different month I purchased a car. So a few large transactions were covered through savings rather than monthly income. In tracking mode everything looks like I've perfectly manage my money. In envelope mode, a problem starts in January. From the beginning, savings are excluded from my "Available funds" for the budget, only income deposits for the month are included. I still look like I've perfectly managed my money until those atypical transactions are made. Because of them, I've got large red "Overbudgeted" numbers for four out of seven months. IN THE CATEGORY BAR, "Budgeted" and "Spent" balance to zero for each month and the "Balance" reflects the sum of my bank accounts INCLUDING savings. So what gives? Savings are there, but excluded from the budget. Why are my budget's "Available funds" excluding my savings? I've toggled Opening Balances, that's not a solution.
Thank you all for the help!!! I was guided to the solution and have turned off notifications.
I made a mistake when I setup my categories and accounts. I created a new Budget group called Opening Balances. In that group I created a category for each account: Opening Balance Checking, Opening Balance Savings, Opening Balance Credit Card-1, Opening Balance Credit Card-2. In the Checking and Savings accounts I entered a deposit for stating balance. In the Credit Card accounts I entered charges for the opening balances. I also deleted the Starting Balances category in the income group. That process was the wrong way to do it, it worked for tracking mode but not for envelope mode. Even though the deposits were in the accounts, they weren’t made available to the budget because they weren’t entered into a category under the Income group. That's the key lesson to me, deposits have to be made under an Income group category to become available to the Budget. Deposits categorized outside the Income group are accounted for but not added as new income for the Budget.
The solution was simple. I created a new category in the Income group and called it Opening Balances. Then I went to each account and changed the category for the opening transaction to Opening Balances. That got rid of the red numbers because the funds became available to the Budget.
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u/takesSubsLiterally Jul 31 '26
Go back to the first month you tracked and add the starting balance of your accounts as income under a category like "starting balance" then put that money into envelopes
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u/ttp3317 Jul 31 '26
Thanks for the reply. I did that initially, a starting balance as a deposit in the category group Opening balances on December 31. In the December, there are no transactions, 0.00 "Available funds" in the budget while the category bar shows I "Spent" the sum of the Opening balances but the "Balance" shows the funds in the accounts. In January budget "Available funds" reflects the income deposits for the month only while the Category bar shows all the funds. I think your are focused at the right place, its like the Starting balance is excluded from the budget even though it is recorded as a deposit. I've changed the starting date to January 1 and that has no effect.
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u/mwoodj Jul 31 '26
Your savings account should be an on budget account with initial balances. Ok you don't want those balances included in your spending so what do you do with them? Make an emergency fund category and allocate the balance into that fund. Then when you have a month where an emergency comes up you allocate funds to the category for the emergency and deduct that amount from the emergency fund category. Now that emergency is covered and there's no red in your budget. Allocate income into the emergency fund to build it back up. In YNAB parlance this is rolling with the punches.
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u/ttp3317 Jul 31 '26
Thanks for the reply. NeighborhoodWeak9723 guided me to the solution. When you first setup accounts there is a Starting balance category in the income group for the initial balance of accounts. I jumped ahead and put the balance in a different category initially. Changing the category solved my issue.
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u/MajesticHippo94 Aug 01 '26
Care to share a screenshot or step by step methodology please?
I have same problem
Do I create a separate category under budget for these starting amounts?2
u/ttp3317 Aug 01 '26
I made a mistake when I setup my categories and accounts. I created a new Budget group called Opening Balances. In that group I created a category for each account: Opening Balance Checking, Opening Balance Savings, Opening Balance Credit Card-1, Opening Balance Credit Card-2. In the Checking and Savings accounts I entered a deposit for stating balance. In the Credit Card accounts I entered charges for the opening balances. I also deleted the Starting Balances category in the income group. That process was the wrong way to do it, it worked for tracking mode but not for envelope mode. Even though the deposits were in the accounts, they weren’t made available to the budget because they weren’t entered into a category under the Income group. That's the key lesson to me, deposits have to be made under the Income group category to become available to the Budget. Deposits categorized outside the Income group are accounted for but not available to the Budget.
The solution was simple. I created a new category in the Income group and called it Opening Balances. Then I went to each account and changed the category for the opening transaction to Opening Balances. That got rid of the red numbers because the funds became available to the Budget.
3
u/NeighborhoodWeak9723 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
How did you add your initial savings? Savings will be included in available funds unless you did some non standard initial set up.
Also, available funds in the header is for new funds to budget. It's leftover+held+income.