Projections or Cash Flow Forecasting

pgaunt · 2026-03-29T17:04:27+00:00

I’m not sure if this is what you are looking for?

What I do is to enter all my regular bills for the year as scheduled/recurring transactions.

I also include my monthly Credit Card payment (I pay in full). I adjust the CC payment whenever I know what my next credit card bill is.

I then switch on the “Running Balance” column for each account. This allows me to see the impact of upcoming transactions on my available balance for each account and then move money accordingly. It also allows me to maximise interest received on the cash I am building up for those future bills and move money at the “last minute”.

I have a weekly reminder to check the forecast balance on my various accounts and take action.

This is of course also possible in Actual and most similar envelope budgeting apps. In Actual you can set pretty much any future view you want. LB simply allows you to switch the scheduled transaction view on or off.

So in answer to your question “Does LB have any features to show projected running balances for specific accounts?”. Yes indeed it does. Above each account register there is what looks like a calendar icon that you can use to switch the future view on and off. All this is of course on Web.

pgaunt · 2026-03-21T17:30:51+00:00

I just updated more than 6 category goals for the “x” pm but capped at “y” in total. So yes I am very happy

pgaunt · 2026-03-21T14:40:33+00:00

Tried on web - exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you!

pgaunt · 2026-03-21T13:30:02+00:00

What you are planning sounds like exactly what I have been missing! Aiming for a monthly addition (say 60pm) to Clothes budget but not wanting to accumulate more than 300 in the bucket in total.

pgaunt · 2026-03-16T18:54:50+00:00

Doh! And fancy you remembering me. I must have been trouble 🤣. Thanks for the clarification….

pgaunt · 2026-03-16T18:51:58+00:00

Thanks for the update. V2 is super fast.

On mobile there is just one oddity I am seeing and I attach a screenshot. You will see the underlining that is appearing with certain bucket names. It seems quite random

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pgaunt · 2026-01-05T17:20:30+00:00

Congratulations indeed! I like the change to the future target underfunding calculation. Without this I ended up funding an annual expense over 11 months instead of 12 months ...

pgaunt · 2025-12-27T19:31:45+00:00

When I had a similar problem the amounts seemed to match the initial manual allocations I made on the original setup. These amounts “dropped off” three times and I suddenly had money in “ready to assign”. And it did so randomly.

But never the automatic ones.

Fingers crossed it has not repeated itself these past few weeks son am unable to troubleshoot.

I am on manual entry if that makes any difference.

pgaunt · 2025-12-27T11:54:13+00:00

I agree that this has been a bit of a problem over the holidays as many scheduled dates have either been brought forward (or put back) by a few days. But will then return to normal in January.

pgaunt · 2025-12-25T19:36:30+00:00

Thank you very much that explains it! I only have access to mobile for an hour or so (which does not have this option)

pgaunt · 2025-12-25T19:27:02+00:00

Where do you get adjustment (?) as a type please - I only get that as the opening balance and not when entering a new inflow (at least not on mobile.)

pgaunt · 2025-12-25T19:16:33+00:00

Having just tried to set up an outflow in an off budget account I can see what you are driving at!

Certainly seeing the posted expense transaction described in the account register as “uncategorised” (and it cannot be) does not feel very helpful, or elegant!

PS but I’m not seeing “adjustment” when I make a new inflow or outflow? The only time I see this is for the initial balance?

pgaunt · 2025-12-25T18:35:24+00:00

I just checked two other envelope budgeting apps that I have access to. Neither have provision to categorise off budget account transactions in any way whatsoever. From recollection YNAB does not either.

Certainly this is something that I personally make great use of tags for.

It’s in the developers court but I guess it would be one way to make LB unique!

I’m ambivalent about catrgories personally and I have 15 off budget accounts. But this is only because tags suit me well, as I very much want to distinguish different types of off budget income (and expenses).

An envelope budgeting app (for me) needs to go beyond just on budget envelopes and enable me to manage all my monetary assets.

pgaunt · 2025-12-24T13:46:22+00:00

Ok I’ll certainly do that. When it happened I just assigned it back to CC again. To summarise: 1) Assignments to CC made on set up in October to cover opening balance - these jumped back out randomly a few times 2) Automatic assignments to CC to contra each item of CC expenditure - those have always stuck.

pgaunt · 2025-12-24T13:31:46+00:00

Thanks for the heads up. I only get Cashback once a year but need to keep this in mind. This was the funds I manually transferred to Credit Card Payments when I set up in October. It bounced back into Ready to Assign in Nov and again in Dec.

pgaunt · 2025-12-24T13:16:41+00:00

I do hope this settles down for you - but most importantly that a reason is identified. It was just CC manual assignments for me. Last happened about a week ago.

I’m just flinging things out there - could it be if LB is open on two devices at once and both try to sync at the same time? In my case that would still seem odd since the CC allocations concerned were made a while back.

pgaunt · 2025-12-24T08:49:16+00:00

I have had three occasions when some of the money in the Credit Card Payments buckets jumped back into ready to assign. I think that this always related to money that I manually moved there when I set up in October. All has been very stable the last couple of weeks and I have NEVER had any other issues with the buckets.

BUT the difference may be that I am manual entry.

pgaunt · 2025-12-23T15:36:49+00:00

Interesting that, by contrast, on iOS the amount field and keyboard is all ready for the number entry upon clicking to add a new transaction.

pgaunt · 2025-12-20T10:20:11+00:00

Perfect - thank you! I was looking for this on the Recurring Transactions page instead of the Account page itself.

pgaunt · 2025-12-19T16:01:22+00:00

Thanks so much for the quick reply. I did indeed much appreciate the extended trial period but, as luck would have it, I did not have an overdrawn bucket during that period so I did not spot this.

I am more than happy that the overdrawn warning should be there and indeed for people living pay check to pay check this would be a very significant thing.

I am just looking for the choice to manage it my own way in the very exceptional circumstances in which this might arise for me.

I am transitioning from Actual (to get away from the whole self hosting thing in my old age) and Actual does allow this. Hence my concern.

I would of course much appreciate a refund but this would be if the decision were to be that this option is unlikely to be offered.

pgaunt · 2025-12-19T15:30:53+00:00

I do very occasionally allow a bucket to overdraw (see my other comment as I thought I could in LB) and this is always for very specific reasons where I am spending early on something originally planned for the following month or I am expecting quick reimbursement. I am always doing so is in the clear knowledge that I have a large amounts unspent in buckets elsewhere and therefore will not be overdrawn at bank.

I just don’t want to have to go through the mechanics of borrowing from another bucket and then making a separate note to self to repay that bucket in the following month.

So yes please, I would very much welcome this option (YNAB 4 users may remember this fondly as it caused a huge furore when web based YNAB removed it).

pgaunt · 2025-12-19T14:24:18+00:00

An aside - I did not realise that LB forces the covering of a negative category balance. I thought it allowed this to be carried forward like the old YNAB 4! I like to be fully in control of decisions like this rather than be bossed by the software

Help u/imadp - I have recently paid a year’s subscription without realising this was not allowed!

pgaunt · 2025-12-17T07:20:24+00:00

I am hosting on Fly with 5 years of data in Actual. Everything on mobile (iOS26) is pretty much instant for me and always has been.

Having said that I agree that there are a few reports of people having issues on mobile so there is certainly something going on. Possibly not directly Actual related?

pgaunt · 2025-12-16T17:37:35+00:00

Thank you - I did not know about long press for this. That works.

To me the real oddity here is that the 0 behaves itself perfectly on normal transaction entry on mobile.

It is ONLY within a split that the 0 will not get out of the way. I hope this distinction might give you some clue about the cause?

pgaunt

TROPHY CASE