oldhouse
Member
I just wanted to explain here something about budget and subcategories.
In budget screen ibearmoney ask you to specify a subcategory to add to budget. You can't add generic main category cause budget has been designed to work like that.
Maybe Akhat can add his own 2 lines to this topic, I hope to have explained like it should have been.
Yes, I am going to add my lines to help everyone who has the same question.
We have designed Budget and Transactions in such a way that every transaction affects the Budget (obviously it does in the real life). For those of you who want to specify categories in the Budget, it is possible to make subcategories for each general category. For example, your general category is Entertainment, but you want to see how much exactly you spend on movies, on concerts, etc. - that's when you assign each transaction to a specific subcategory, and it shows up in the Budget.
However, in some cases you may not want to specify it in such a detailed manner, and want to use only the main category without subcategories. In this case you need to create one more subcategory, call it General and assign all your transactions to this subcategory.
Hopefully my explanation is easy to understand :)
Locher
Member
OK. But here comes another question.
Let's say I plan to spend some fixed amount of money for entertainment every month. But when I am planning a budget I don't know which exact types of entertainment will I use on this particular month. So, I will just plan a general budget category, without subcategories.
And when I do actual expenses, I will specify subcategories for them: cinema, concert etc.
Let's say I plan to spend $500 for entertainment, and actually spend $200 for cinema and $300 for concerts.
So, I would expect seeing something like this in the budget:
Entertainment: plan - $500, fact - $500
|-> Cinema: fact - $200
|-> Concert: fact - $300
But in current version of iBear I am getting different picture, something like this:
Entertainment: plan - $500, fact - $500
|-> Cinema: plan - $0, fact - $200
|-> Concert: plan - $0, fact - $300
|-> General: plan - $500, fact - $0
This is a little bit inconvenient: I am getting unplanned expenses for two subcategories, and planned but not done for the third one, which is actually "synthetic".
Right, and here is the thing: if you really want to see how much you have spent on Cinema and Concerts, you just need to specify a transaction each time, which is very easy because the Subcategories already exist as you have created them in the Budget.
So, if you are ready to set up the Budget in such a detailed manner, you need to add Transactions in the detailed manner as well. Otherwise you do not need to set up the Budget so closely, and either delete all the Subcategories (in this case it will be possible to select only the main Category), or (if you want to keep the Subcategories for the future) create one more Subcategory named General, and use it when setting up the Budget.
Nootherids
Member
I have a comment/question on this topic. I was wanting to do the same thing: selecting the parent category altogether rather than having to focus on the sub-categories.
I just linked my Car Asset to my Auto Expenses. I was able to select the parent category "Auto" by holding finger on the Auto category until the menu popped up and I chose "Select". It successfully linked the entire parent category. I do not have any data in yet to confirm how successful it will be.
Should this process of using the menu and clicking "Select" also work in the Budgets section? Like the other posters above I would also like to aggregate my budget for Entertainment.
David C
When I do the same thing, then when a parent category does not have subcategories, "Select" works. But if it has subcategories, "Select" is not active, only "Open" and "Edit". I'd assume that your "Auto" category does not have any subcategories, does it? Could you check it please?
Nootherids
Member
Ok I tried with live data. My AUTO cat has many sub-categories. In Budget it Did Not let me use Select in the parent cat (Auto), I had to choose a sub-cat.
But using the Link feature it IS possible. So could a request be put in to transfer to ability in the "Links" feature to also work in the "Budgets" section. I just tried the Asset Cash Flow Report with live data and it works PERFECT. Aggregation is obviously possible. I don't see why it would be activated in one section and not another. Soung like a good project for the next release???? ;D
Ok, here is my update. Yes it is currently possible to Select a parent category from the "Links", but this is actually contradicting to the overall performance, and we were going to close this feature in the Links section as well.
You see, the reason why we've closed all the upper categories was because they are linked with the Reports, and if you use Categories AND Subcategories, it can lead to some confusion in the Reports, while we want Reports to be clearly understood and unified.
Respectively, please do not use the yet available ability to choose Categories in the Links. It is going to add confusion to your Reports, and besides, in the next release we are closing this feature.
Nootherids
Member
Akhat, I have to strongly suggest that this is enabled in the app. I wish there was a better way to take a poll of current users to get their collective opinion on this.
Please allow selecting the parent company in both the Links and Budget features.
I understand the performance drawbacks but this will only affect the performance of building reports. Performance and ease of use should be focused on the daily operations of the app which is transactions. Reports are used seldomly not daily, and therefore should focus on flexibility and ease of configuration above performance. Please understand that, without the parent category selection, to make the same link between my Car Account and my Car Expenses I would have to set up 7 separate links. Then another 7 for my Motorcycle Account. Then another 7 for your Home Account. So in setting up I would have to make 21 links independently rather than 3. But the flexible part is that I could chose to use parent selection for Car and Motrocycle but choose individual categories from different parent categories for Home. Making it 9 links total. I would at least have the choice. And in reporting, that is what's most important. The same exact concept for budgeting, but there it's even more important there for simplicity and flexibility.
The only thing needed to clarify this for non-technical users is a detailed Help system with screen shots and such. I'd even help you write the walk-throughs ;p
David C
Replying to @Nootherids's post:
Thank you for a very good point about selecting many categories. I agree that many users may find it crucial and simplicity in this sense is essential. We just had a big discussion with developers and the project manager, and agreed that we need to keep that possibility to select categories in the links like it is now. Currently it can cause some inconsistency in the reports, but we are going to check what exactly it can affect, and will make it work the right way. Regarding selection of parent categories in the Budget - we want to keep the way it is without the possibility to select a parent category because it can cause a lot of confusion with users. Many users reported confusion when it was that way, and that was the reason why we've changed it. But regarding links you are absolutely right, and we are going to keep it. Thank you again the good points.
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