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How to enter monthly costs like cable bill

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2015-03-14
2015-03-14
  • zipster1967

    zipster1967 - 2015-03-14

    I just started setting up my budget system and am unsure on how to set up monthly expenses like my cable bill which is normally $67.13/month. I usually make the full payment but some months I use more bandwidth and must pay more. How do I handle this situation? I am not really familiar with accounting terms in general so an explanation would be helpful for account types and transactions involved. I have many other monthly expenses that I have to enter such as mortgage, trash bill, LP gas use, electricity, etc. Thanks in advance for your help.

     
  • Wyatt

    Wyatt - 2015-03-14

    Basically you would set the budget to be the estimated amount which you can use for planning, and when you know the actual amount you enter it as a transaction. The budget is meant for planning purposes, and lets you enter your planned expenses / income, whereas the actual transactions are recorded separately.

    Whether you set the budget to $67.13, or whether you set the budgeted amount a but higher to allow for a bit of extra bandwidth usage depends on what makes sense for you.

    If you have not already seen it, it may be useful to look at the quickstart tutorial, starting at http://buddi.digitalcave.ca/quickstart/accounts.jsp and going for 3 or 4 pages.

    Hope this helps!

    Cheers

     
  • zipster1967

    zipster1967 - 2015-03-14

    Okay I have already read through the tutorials but I am still not sure how I set up a re-occurring bill that occurs every month as the amounts they bill me are added every month.

     

    Last edit: zipster1967 2015-03-14
  • Wyatt

    Wyatt - 2015-03-14

    Personally I prefer to manually enter things like this every month. I only use scheduled transactions for things like savings, allowances to prepaid accounts, etc, where it is always exactly the same.

    Another option would be to do a scheduled transaction for the base amount, and then manually change it for the months where you spend more.

    Buddi does not tend to automate everything; instead if gives you a simple interface to record your actual transactions and compare to your budgeted plan. You still need to record transactions as they happen (or at least on a regular basis; I like to go over my bank statement every week or two and enter the transactions from that period.)

    Cheers

     

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