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How to track a savings goal with the Budget feature when using internal transfer?

Asked by Demetris Karayiannis

I have set up a savings goal using the budget feature. The savings account is also tracked in HomeBank.

When doing an internal transfer (Account A -X EUR, Account B +X EUR), the net amount is, predictably, zero, so the budget goal is not tracked.

How can one enforce a savings goal in HomeBank in this case?

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Robert Smoot
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Best Robert Smoot (rsmoot) said (last edit ): 		#1

You may exclude one of the accounts from budgeting in the Account/ Behavior dialog - then the budget will be properly tracked. For example: I have a Checking account that transfers to a Loan account every month - if I exclude the loan account from budgeting then the payment is properly tracked in the budget.

Similarly you can exclude one of the savings accounts and adjust the budget appropriately. You may have to trick the tracking with an intermediate virtual account if you want the positive/negative to show up in the budget the way you want. For example: If you transfer from a Savings account to another Savings account then exclude the second account and track the savings goal as negative. So Savings goal = -50 /mo OR transfer 50 to an unbudgeted account with category "transfer" then transfer again from that account to a tracked account with category "savings goal" and you will get a positive number in your budget view.

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Demetris Karayiannis (dkarayiannis) said (last edit ): 		#2

Thanks Robert, that solved my question. Specifically, I followed the simple approach of excluding the savings account from being tracked and set the savings goal as a negative value, as conceptualising the savings as an expense works for me.