Athikalaka Feedback (2016-12-01)

[athikalaka]

Adjusting Joel's thread - pretty much agreeing with him for 90% of the features

Major improvements needed before switching from YNAB4:
-          Mobile app compatible with iPhone Android w/ GPS-enabled payees.
-          Search capabilities.
-          Scheduled transactions.

Improvements that would help complete my transition:
-          Dashboard! (https://discuss.financier.io/index.php?topic=174.0)
-          Ability to bulk 'Categorize As'. (https://discuss.financier.io/index.php?topic=169)
-          Ability to save a profile for viewing set filtered accounts (https://www.reddit.com/r/financier/comments/5f52zt/i_wrote_an_article_on_how_financierio_or_ynab_can/dajsvze/)
-          Escape Hotkey for both transaction/budget page (https://www.reddit.com/r/financier/comments/5exoso/escape_hotkey_for_both_transactionbudget_page/)
-          Ability to mass move transactions between accounts.
-          Payee settings.
-          Ability to hide reconciled transactions.
-          Date formats are too picky. If I type “8/31”, it should default to 8/31/2016. Similarly, typing 8/31/2016 is not recognized either, as it has to be MM/DD/YY format. You are unable to save a transaction if the date is in the wrong format, without an alert as to why. Ability to choose date format other than locale. Although we use dd/mm/(yy)yy, I personally prefer ISO format yyyy-mm-dd

Minor improvements needed:
-          Removing categories with existing budget/transactions (Budget Page) (https://www.reddit.com/r/financier/comments/5f1od5/removing_categories_with_existing/)
-          Ability to save a profile for viewing set filtered reports (https://www.reddit.com/r/financier/comments/5eq8id/custom_profiles_for_reports/)
-          Quick Budget - Use average of last # months (https://discuss.financier.io/index.php?topic=166.msg1098#msg1098)
-          Improvement of multiple sort (secondary/tertiary arrows) (https://discuss.financier.io/index.php?topic=160.msg1034#msg1034)
-          Running balance column (with ability to hide the column on a per account basis)
-          Ability to hide categories (and unhide them).
-          Tabbing over when a category or payee is selected in the account register does not select the highlighted category or payee as expected.
-          Typing “.” in the date field should default to today’s date.
-          Selecting a transaction and pressing delete, should delete a transaction.
-          Edit menu should pop up when you right-click on transactions or categories in the budget.
-          New categories are added at the bottom of a master category, whereas new master categories are added at the top. I would expect this to be consistent. This is purely polish though.
-          Red arrow popups on the furthest right side of the screen don’t always show up on the screen.
-          Make the year a drop-down in the header on the budget page.
-          I would like to see offline use have a different color scheme than the online synced budget.
 
Features - Neutral/Undecided Opinion
-          Grouping of Master Categories. (https://discuss.financier.io/index.php?topic=77)
-          Grouping of Accounts.
-          YNAB4 multiple convert & merge  - I know this could be problematic with matching different categories/accounts (https://discuss.financier.io/index.php?topic=134.msg1046#msg1046)
-          Goals Since I do everything manually, I always forecast all my bills pretty accurately for every month/quarter/year without the need for the goals which was introduced in nYNAB
-          Ability to edit the flag descriptions and create your own flags (possibly with emoticons?) I've never used flags but perhaps I really should start after all these years
-          Income for months beyond next month. Unless I'm misunderstanding this, are you talking about budgeting beyond a month in advance? ie: Forecasting? Or allocating income in the register beyond the 'Income for This Month' & 'Income for Next Month'? If it's the latter, I've never need to have that option, it would affect Rule 4 and possibly make reporting for actual income/expense for a particular month confusing.

[RPNnerd]

Just a note @athikalaka :

You wrote:
-          Income for months beyond next month. Unless I'm misunderstanding this, are you talking about budgeting beyond a month in advance? ie: Forecasting? Or allocating income in the register beyond the 'Income for This Month' & 'Income for Next Month'? If it's the latter, I've never need to have that option, it would affect Rule 4 and possibly make reporting for actual income/expense for a particular month confusing.

It would not impact actual income/expense for a particular month.  The income/expense reporting is based on the date in the account-- when the money comes in and when the money goes out.  The budget side of the world doesn't have any dates attached to it-- just walled months so there is a start/end to figuring out jobs for the money.

Walled months rock!     

This wouldn't be forecasting-- just pushing money for jobs into a particular month with following zero sum budget rules in the budget.

[athikalaka]

I think because I always balance my 'Available to Budget' to $0.00, I don't think I really come across this issue but I am aware of the carrying over available budgets then setting the budget for the next month green/red problem. I find that when I budget a category, it's not really 'variable' as household bills, transport, insurances etc. are fairly accurate estimates and should not be adjusted as they are averaged over the year. This leaves me with adjusting discretionary spending such as alcohol, dining out etc. Then final squeezes come from the emergency fund & stuff I forgot to budget for, category. In most cases, I rarely overspend in a committed category such as bills but if I overspend in discretionary funds, I almost always Red Arrow Right and 'punish' myself in the next month which is fine because I feel the pinch and I'm conscious to curb my spending in that category, or wait for my reimbursement which is another case for RaR. Having nYNAB take it from my pool of income doesn't really teach my to watch out in that category.
However if i overbudget (not overspend), I tend to take funds out of my savings (WAM) such as investment for house and reallocate funds accordingly so when I find I get a surplus of cash next month, it will fill up the house savings again. I get paid fortnightly so this is why some months I may get paid 2x and other months it's 3x. Budgets I just average out over the whole year but ironically income I do not because I don't like seeing the 'Available to Budget' all over the place. Perhaps I'm doing it very differently to you all? Do you average out all your expenses and set a good estimate and keep it that way? Do you average your income by giving a yearly total then div/12 to average it out (assuming you don't get paid monthly)?

I honestly never thought about how walled months work, probably when I migrated to nYNAB for a short while it did my head in? Is it related to the Future Budgeting section of this page? (https://www.youneedabudget.com/learn/guide/transition-guide) & the explanation of To Be Budgeted in (https://ericheavilin.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/whats-going-on-with-nynab-compared-to-ynab-4/) ?
I'd like clarification on this as I strictly put every paycheck as Next Month and every other income as This Month and then budget everything for that month until it's $0.00, I don't come across the issue by leaving residual funds to roll over. Any residual will go straight to savings (only to be 'borrowed' if I overbudget on rare occasions).
I can see the TBB making sense ?

[RPNnerd]

It sounds like you're doing well with the budget of spending this month and planning "next month" so that the walled months are working for you.  You're buffered between this month and next month.

I like to be 1.5 months buffered. That is, my 15th of the month paycheck finishes out the budget for next month.  For me right now in the system I have to "pretend" my paycheck for the 30th came in on the 1st (of December) and then do "income for next month (January)" because if I apply it on the 30th and do "income for next month (December)" it won't go to where I'd want it. This is in YNAB4.

Thus, I start my January budget at the end of November and have it "polished" mid December and refined when the actual bills come in about the 20th to 25th of November (as an example).

This keeps me looking forward to see what types of irregular expenses may be expected -- which birthdays?  Which long term bills may be coming up and have I appropriately met the 1/12 monthly set aside or did inflation kick in and give me a "minor surprise"?

Cash flow can let you keep pushing the income further out in the months-- more than 1.5 months buffered (vs. emergency fund for accumulating).

If things are pretty structured, I'll put approximate expenses into each month for the walled months--- it'll show negative in those months (budgeted but no income).  If I'm doing that to see what things look like in certain time frames (irregular expense cash flow assignment) then that would be called forecasting (to me).  I did that in 2016 because I had a major event planned in 2016 and was tracking how it was looking in that category with expected/anticipated dollar job assignment.  If I was too far ahead though and a monthly expected bill changed I had a lot of minor adjustments to do each month.

I do like to look ahead down the months with each month being walled and make sure I'm savings and building up the categories that are supposed to be grown-- and that I'm not "over assigning" anticipated income.  I have put in a "conservative estimate" in a "faux income" category with a negative value in those far future months to be sure I'm approximate in my expected handling.  All those things are dependent upon regular income.... which is why it is forecasting.   Reality is in this month and next month (with the following month always being shaped).

[athikalaka]

I think I follow. Because my pay comes in on a fortnightly basis, there will be times I will get 2 paychecks or 3 paychecks. I 'could' roll over the 3rd paycheck to a month further down the track (eg: 3 paychecks in November - Budget 2 of the paychecks for December and 1x in January) but once I receive the 2x paychecks for December, they'll both go to January as clockwork. Won't having 3x paychecks in January be no different if I had allocated the 3x for December budget? I think it's my mindset of buffering. Rather than buffering budgets down the track, I immediately buffer a savings category because my money is immediately being put to work (sitting in an offset account paying off interest but 'marked' for a particular budget, say investment for house). If I need extra funds next month I can sacrifice other categories before dipping in to the savings. If I had a report to show a timeline of most of my BUDGET (not outgoings or Balance) categories, 80-90% of the categories wouldn't vary so much as I've averaged them out over the year. It's the savings categories that usually fluctuate because I'm dipping in and out, you'll see the budget average as 350 but then you might see -200 to reallocate and then 800 then back to 350. Not sure if this is an 'accepted' way but it's been this way ever since I used YNAB3. If there was a manual / how-to that I didn't read properly, I'm curious on how others do it.
Does your method only work because you have set paycheck dates?

[Joel]

When I'm talking about being able to allocate paychecks beyond next month, here's the options I mean:

- Income for this month (December)
- Income for next month (January)
- Income for month after next (February)
...

Basically allowing the user to choose month + X to determine when the money becomes available to budget.

For users who are paid more frequently than monthly, all you really need is income for next month (your situation).

For users who are paid monthly towards the end of the month, many of these users would like to designate income for month after next. For example, if the user was paid on 11/30, they may not want the money available to budget until 1/1 (as opposed to 12/1).

For users who are paid quarterly, they may want to split the transaction such that they allocate 33% to become available to budget next month, another 33% to the month after next, and the final 33% the month after that.

Personally, Income for this month / next month is sufficient for me. However, if the user could determine X in (income for current month + X), that would be ideal. I would imagine users would setup their scheduled transactions to be income for whatever month they feel is appropriate. Hope that makes sense.

By the way, it cracks me up that you used my feedback as your baseline! very cool!

[athikalaka]

For users who are paid more frequently than monthly, all you really need is income for next month (your situation).
For users who are paid monthly towards the end of the month, many of these users would like to designate income for month after next. For example, if the user was paid on 11/30, they may not want the money available to budget until 1/1 (as opposed to 12/1).
For users who are paid quarterly, they may want to split the transaction such that they allocate 33% to become available to budget next month, another 33% to the month after next, and the final 33% the month after that.

Yep, I follow. I was thinking that I'm missing something critical all this time but we tend to only get paid fortnightly or monthly. I get if you get paid at the end of the month then having access to it the day after doesn't really give you a 1 month buffer but rather living from paycheck to paycheck (a la hand to mouth). *phew* I'll just keep living in ignorance to what the rest of the world is doing.

By the way, it cracks me up that you used my feedback as your baseline! very cool!

When I read your feedback it reflected my thoughts on what I've been searching for through other programs and the shortcomings (read: annoyances) or nYNAB. My feelings of the major 'rule changes' compounded with the refusal to reintroduce RaR for the old members. You can't teach old dogs like us the new tricks of nYNAB when it made perfect sense to use for years... not to mention trying to rebalance our mindset and budgets. There are many who can migrate over to nYNAB because they have simple accounts and simple transactions (assumption). Jesse wrote to keep accounts as simple as you can. Unfortunately when I have 65+ categories and 25+ accounts, I customised it in a way that's not flexible to the average user because I added an investment portfolio with personal assets. It actually works very well and should YNAB4 break, I have tested a number of programs which cannot perform the same way, even if I changed to 'their approach'. nYNAB took away the functionality/flexibility but added a higher price. I didn't mind so much about the price as I understand SaaS to be costly but watching the slow updates for very little functionality (I mean, come on... Alexa?!). Their lack of transparency and communication with YNAB4 left a sour taste. There is one camp that's fully on board and will crucify you if you don't join them. Not all are like this but people who genuinely ask for help, some comments come off as rude and tell them to find another program; and the other camp, just disillusioned with nYNAB's philosophy and requests to Jesse falling on deaf ears.

If you ever played MechWarrior Online (MWOMercs), just google what happened when the publisher went back on the very founding members who donated money for a great game only to give features that they didn't want and ruined the immersive gameplay which then became the 1st person vs 3rd person battle. (https://www.themittani.com/features/mwo-failure-communicate).