Skip to main content

Transaction Dilemma: single or multi?

Sometimes we come to a supermarket to purchase more than one thing. In certain cases we might  buy items that belong to different categories.
We pay at POS with a credit card, and get a single record in the bank log. Say, $84.23 spent in Auchan.

Here the dilemma comes. How to make the record in your accounting tool?
Make a record per category? Like this:
    • $21.12 for foodstuff
    • $35.15 for closing
    • $27.96 for electronic devices
But you would loose the bank-transaction value of $84.23. And, if in the future you need to search for the value (checking whether all transaction have been recorded into your accounting tool), you won't find this "$84.23". It simply wouldn't exist in the expenses records.



Another option is to make a single transaction of $84.23. But what expense should it be? Food? Electronics?
Ideally would be to keep the initial value of $84.23, and have the split expenses. Something link this:

   
Then you can find your transaction by its bank-value, and your financial stats stay consistent.

This is called "Elastic Transactions" in The Finance Planner.
Once subscribed, please contact us to get a free trial of Pro features, among which you will find the Elastic Transactions as well.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to start planning

Important parts of a plan Financial plan is a flow of money. It must have 2 major items: incomes and expenses. Let's stick with these two for now.
Building a plan Plan incomes For most of the people it's the easiest part. We are employees, have a fixed salary. Probably, some income from real-e-state objects we lend, or dividends. Such things is easy to plan.
What if we run a business? Then we should have a rough estimate. Or get some vision based on previous year. Or, at least, our earning goal.
Plan expenses Pay debts This is the most important part of the expenses. Debts is the main pressure. If we don't have enough earnings - we can skip vacation, rent a cheaper apartment, sell the car. But debts must be paid in time. So plan this first.
Taxes Another important thing is taxes. Not paying taxes is a crime. And this must be avoided. Let's plan this too.
Rental payments, public services Rent an apartment? Plan the rental payments too if you don't like to live in…
Post a Comment
Read more

Check out Elastic Budgeting

It's not a secret that fiP supports elastic transactions, which is multi-source and/or has multiple funds dispositions. This key feature of fiP was available from the first days of live.
However, finance plans were non-elastic.
That had a good reason underneath.

Imagine you have planned expenses for diesel $200/month. For budgeting it's enough to have planned monthly transactions $200 each. If you refuel (say, for $35), then you just cut the planned transaction: $35 is committed, $165 is still planned.
If we happen to spend more that it was planned for the current month, fiP will take the missing part from the next month:
 - having $200 planned for diesel, we spent $210. Then, the $10 will be taken from the next period.

What if we have multiple fund dispositions? Planning public utilities as a single elastic plan:
 - electric power - $10/month
 - water - $8/month
 - gas - $2/month.
What will happen, if we commit a part of this transaction, but some sub-plans are exceeded? For…
Post a Comment
Read more

Poor or rich?

Simple question from the first sight.
U.S. Census Bureau defines poverty as a certain income level, which is $1062 a month for a single in US.
However, the life is not such easy. All people are different and have non-identical needs.
House rent, mortgage are not the same everywhere. Deceases, allergy any other special needs - all these raise the expenses.
Another definition of poverty is inability to keep expenses under incomes. And such way is hard to define: under certain circumstances even $1M of income is still poverty.
Furthermore, many people do not see themselves in poverty: the feeling of high incomes keeps them blind towards expenses until it is too late.
We take new financial liabilities, debts, burden. Buying a new house or getting a baby - all this raise expenses and we feel wrong only when our savings fall to zero.



The threshold, point where the lines of incomes and expenses cross, is often not noticeable for the majority. But even this is too late to start acting.

The wis…
Post a Comment
Read more