Splasm Software Discussions

I WAS a MS Money user until I went to Mac. I enjoy your program but I have a question about forecasting a future balance. in Money, you could specify dates and the register would take into account your recent debits and forecast future balance.

Does CBP have such an attribute?

You can do so if you schedule entries, then use the look ahead feature to get a projected balance at any point in the future based on your scheduled transactions. You can find the 'Look Ahead' slider at the bottom left of the schedule reminder sheet, which is accessible via the 'Scheduled' button on the schedule tab.

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Randy Knoble
Splasm Software
www.Splasm.com

Thank you - appreciate your help!

This method only seems to provide the balance at the end of the look ahead point. Is there a way to add a column to that view so you can see the balance of the account at the projected post date of each transaction? Or is there a way to set an account summary with a 'til date' in the future that will account for all the scheduled transactions based on the current balance?

You are right, the Look Ahead feature only provides the balance up to the point that you slide it to. Unfortunately, at this time, there is no way to add a column that would show the Balance at the projected post date for each individual Entry. Also, the only way to show Entries in the Summaries that are entered in with a future date would be to commit those future entries, but that would of course affect the Account Balance that you see for the present.

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Allan Woodall
Phosphorescent Phage
Splasm Software
http://www.splasm.com

Hi, I really liked the ability to generate a balance forecast in Quicken. I switched to CBP because Quicken hasn't supported Intel Macs for a long time and Apple no longer supports PPCs, and I got a new mac. I would really like to see this feature added to CBP.

In the mean time, I wrote a python program that generates the forecast for me. I am sharing it in case others might find it useful. It is a python script, so it does require some minimal amount of technical acumen to get it installed and running.

Here it is:
http://bit.ly/PAOauu

This script generates a forecast of finances for 5 weeks.

It works with an account backup file from Checkbook Pro on the Mac.
The version I have is 2.3.2 running on Mac OS X 10.8 on a Mac Book Pro.

Within Checkbook Pro, select "File/Backup accounts..." menu.
Then save the file as "Accounts.plist" in the same directory as this script.

To run, just type in a terminal:
python checkbook.py

YMMV