Budget creation

[Nickallington]

Hi there
I wonder if the budget creation process can be simplified and automated, for those who have a lot of categories and sub-categories (or are lazy, perhaps...)?

I agree that the proper way to budget is zero-based, whereby you justify every line item each year. But this is time consuming, and if you are not a business, probably overkill. There are other options, such as:

1. Take a 'normal' month and replicate that across the current year to go, current year, or next year. Adjust where needed, then save.
2. Take current/last year's budget, and replicate to next/current year, adjust accordingly, and save
3. Generate current/next year budget based on previous year's/current year's/previous 12 months' actual expenditure, adjust and save.

It is also possible to factor adjustments, such as last year +x%, last year -y% etc. To go further, you could be pessimistic and adjust next year's budget income down by x%, and next year's costs up by y%, and fine tune afterwards. You could also optionally include/exclude certain categories from factorising, like dividends or investment income, or interest, which are not really amenable to budget variation planning (you are not usually in control of these items).
Cheers
Nick

[Unraveler]

I've just moved to MMEX from MS Money very recently and have not touched budgeting in MMEX yet, but I have the same question about jumpstarting the process here. I've even created the forum account for the sole purpose of answering in this particular topic.

I'm pretty sure, that when you're creating a new budget, you can use another budget as a base. This should effectively cover your point number 2 (might be wrong though, have not tried this yet, as I have no previous budget in MMEX). However I agree that it would be a very helpful feature to have a more automated/simplified budget creation. Especially if you have tones of past data, so not only for the fresh start with the app, but also for all future budgeting needs. What's more, budget generation based on the income/expenses from the given date range sounds like an awesome feature (your point number 3).

[nstein]

For point #1, MMEX has tiered budgeting -- you can specify a budget at the year level and/or at the individual month levels for a blend. So to start, take your 'normal' month value and enter it in the yearly budget as a "monthly" amount. This will apply the budgeted amount to every month in that year automatically. Now if you want to adjust a specific month, create a monthly budget for just that one month and increase/decrease the budget as required. You don't need to create monthly budgets for every month if there is no deviation from the 'normal' monthly amount which you have defined for the year.