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Add start date to budgets

Budget Flow✨ Small Improvements

I would like to change the value of a budget starting at defined point in time. Example this month and all month before I have to pay 60€ for something, starting next month I have to 40€ for the same. If I change the budget value it will change for all months So how can I handle this

Posted by Jens ·
Status: Planned10 comments

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Comments10

  • skillet

    •

    Jul 27

    I completely agree that budgets should have both a start date and an end date. Transactions that fall within that date range should count toward the budget, while transactions outside that range should not.


    As the app works now, transactions assigned to the correct category still appear in a budget even when they occurred after the budget's end date. That is extremely confusing and does not make sense to me.


    Could you please explain the current logic? What benefit would adding a start date provide if the app does not reliably use the full date range to determine which transactions belong to a budget?


    For example, when I create a budget for a vacation, I want only the transactions from that trip's dates to count toward that vacation budget. I do not want to create new payees or duplicate categories every time I take a trip just to prevent transactions from appearing in multiple budgets.

    Ideally, a transaction should belong to a budget only when both of these conditions are met:

    1. The transaction uses a category included in the budget.

    2. The transaction date falls between the budget's start and end dates.

    Is that how the app is intended to work, or is there another way I should be setting up date-specific budgets?

  • nickhammer

    •

    Aug 31

    Budgets are the only feature in the app I don’t use because the current way they’re set up doesn’t reflect reality - some budgets are different every month, some are one time only, etc.

    On top of that, I like to define budgets for the next month in the last days of the current month, which is impossible to do (I’m not aware of a way to define a budget for a future month).

    Being able to set arbitrary start and end dates for a budget would solve all these problems and essentially “unlock” the budgets feature allowing me to keep better track of my finances.

    Keep up the great work!

  • Fabian

    Team•

    Nov 23, 2024

    Hi @Jens,

    Unfortunately, it is currently not possible to enter a start date for budgets. However, I have already included it in this feature request (see https://budgetflow.featurebase.app/de/p/allow-redistribution-and-flexible-adjustment-of-budgets).

    • abda

      •

      Feb 15

      Hi Fabian, this is such an important feature, pretty much every single budgeting app has this. Could you please look into implementing this soon?

      • Fabian

        Team•

        Feb 16

        Hi @abda,

        yes, I completely agree. It’s an important feature. That’s exactly why I just started working on implementing it. The last update already laid the technical foundation for it, so it should be included in one of the upcoming updates 😊

        Best regards,
        Fabian

        • Ernie Dazzling

          •

          Feb 16

          It is no longer possible to create a budget that repeats monthly. It shows the total expenses instead of the remaining balance, which distorts the total available balance.

        • skillet

          •

          Aug 7

          I am so excited to see a start and end date for the budget and will be the whole reason I am using Budget Flow for budgets instead of Quicken after decades of using Quicken on both Mac and Windows. I am excited and look forward to seeing these updates.

          This kind of feedback to users is insanely helpful as well. Quicken used to give that kind of feedback and now they don't. I've been waiting for years and tired of waiting for them.

  • skillet

    •

    Aug 22

    Any updates on this or expected release dates? I am about to just try with other apps, and Quicken just started updating budget features again, thankfully, so maybe I will not depend on this app in the future.

  • skillet

    •

    Sep 30

    Any updates on this for start and end dates on budgets?

    • Fabian

      Team•

      Oct 3

      Not yet, unfortunately. Start and end dates for budgets are still planned, but I haven’t implemented the new budgeting system yet.

      Right now, I’m focused on finishing the big refactoring for version 4.0.0 first. After that, budgets are one of the areas I definitely want to revisit and expand significantly.