MoneyPie for Moneydance ® 

NOTICE: Development of MoneyPie has been suspended.

MoneyPie is "good enough" for our use. Being a free product, the bills just don't get paid putting more time and effort into this project. We will continue to repsond to support issues and help users as needed but no new features are scheduled for the foreseeable future.

We'll of course re-evalute this decision if donations resume. Lifetime donations to this project to-date total LESS then $100.

If your a current user and have never contributed, consider what you are getting and what your alternatives are, would you like to see development resume? Then please donate!

Alot of hard work goes into developing MoneyPie, If you use it, please support it! Thanks!! 

MoneyPie Overview

Personal finance manager Moneydance ® offers a feature to manage a budget but the default interface is only suitable for basic entry and value editing. Maintaining more complex budgets can become difficult without seeing the effects of adjustments. The MoneyPie interface stores everything in the default Moneydance ® data model so you can switch back to the default interface anytime you need to. The spreadsheet interface is more intuitive and allows you to perform your own "Envelope Budgeting".

Moneydance ® offers the flexibility to generate your own preferred reports to track expenses. Our extension highlights how your actual spending compares to your budget so you can dynamically adjust and balance your budget without flipping back and forth between interfaces.

For additional convenience, we've baked in an improved balance forecaster that integrates with your budget. Add zero value reminders to Moneydance ® and the appropriate month's budget value will be used in the prediction.

Step 1: Configure MoneyPie

  1. Extensions - > MoneyPie
  2. MoneyPie -> Preferences

2.1 Designate which account is your primary checking account

2.2 Pick a default budget that MoneyPie should use. Otherwise MoneyPie will attempt to find a relevant budget for the current year

2.3 Indicate if you want Tax categories grouped with Income or Expenses

2.4 Determine a value the balance predictor should use to separate large account balances from small balances. Particularly useful when charting investment accounts and checking accounts together.

Step 2: Create a budget

  1. Tools -> Budget Manager
  2. New
  3. Give your budget a name
  4. Define the date range from 1/1/ to 12/31 for the desired year
  5. OK (to save the budget)
  6. Done (to close the budget manager dialog>

Step 3: Setup recurring bills and payments

Even with weekly recurring budget values, Moneydance ® and MoneyPie only maintain monthly budget totals. Therefore, if you would like to accurately predict account balances, you should setup "Transaction Reminders" in Moneydance ®.

. For budget values that vary by month, leave the payment rate "empty" or enter a 0 value. The reminder is then mapped to your budget value and the date will be used to predict the account balance.

. For budget values that are constant month to month you can also use a zero value in the reminder but there is no harm in entering the actual value.

Note If there is a difference between the reminder value and the budget value, the difference will be reflected in the account balance prediction so make sure to keep them in sync if you make adjusments!

Add MoneyPie as a HomePage view

For convenience, a home page view has been created for MoneyPie to present a budget summary for the current month.

To add MoneyPie to the home page: 1. Moneydance -> Preferences -> Home Page tab 2. Add and move "MoneyPie" to the left or right column as desired

Note: The homepage view is still in very early in development. THere are known issues with data not refreshing after transactions or budgets have been edited.

Quick launch icons are also available to

  1. Refresh the home page view
  2. Open the MoneyPie Interface
  3. Open the account balance prediction
  4. Open our pre-defined budget report

Using MoneyPie

The main interface is divided into two sections. The top table is an overall summary of you budget by month, breaking down Income vs Expenses.

The bottom table is tabbed to show Income, Expense and Account Transfers in detail.

Even with no budgets values defined, the table will be pre-populated with all categories that have transactions recorded against them. Remember, MoneyPie is a BUDGET interface, so all cells for theses budget less categories will display "$0.00". These cells will also be highlighted red to indicate your spending has exceeded the budget value.

If you single-click on a cell, a ballon pops up with summary information for the month including the number of transitions recorded during the month. Clicking on the number of transitions will present a table within the ballon with brief details for each transaciton. Click the red X button to close the balloon.

To Edit the budget

just double-click on a cell and enter a value, Its that simple!

To delete a budget value

  1. Edit the budget value
  2. Use the backspace key to delete the value, entering 0 does not delete there value, it records a 0 value!

Exclude a category from your budget

  1. First make sure you have deleted all budget values for the category
  2. Right click on the category name
  3. From the pop-up menu, select "Ignore Category"

To re-add and excluded category

  1. Right click anywhere in the bottom table
  2. Select "Add Category" from the pop-up menu
  3. A Dialog with a list of all categories will present, find and select the category you would like to re-add to your budget

Repeating budget values

The cell that contains the "origin" of a repeating value will have a blue border around it. Edit the Origin cell to adjust a repeating budget value.

Any edits to following months will be treated as exceptions to the repeated value, not additions.

Ceate a repeating value

  1. Right click on the month to designate as the "origin"
  2. Select "Interval" on the pop-up menu
  3. Select the desired interval from the sub-menu

Edit a repeating values interval

  1. Right click on an "origin" cell
  2. Select "Interval" on the pop-up menu
  3. Select the desired interval from the sub-menu

Using the Balance Forecast

  1. Right click on any table in the MoneyPie interface
  2. Select "Forecast"

The Forecast will chart from the current month forward in time. If any accounts qualify as having "Large" account balances, two charts will be presented. All accounts that have not been excluded from MoneyPie will be charted.

Below the combined charts is a table of transaction details for a single selected account. Use the drop-down menu to see details for other accounts. You can also adjust how far forward in time to forecast.

Note The forecast is not accurate when transitioning from December of the current month to January of the next month, even if two budgets for the two years are defined.

Each transaction also has a code in the first column to indicate why or how its value was determined:

  • S = Starting balance
  • R = Reminder
  • B = Budget Value
  • BT = Difference between budgeted value and recorded transaction
  • F = Future transaction recorded in account

Using the default report

Moneydance ® provided a very flexible reporting model, use it! But we've added what we think is an obvious default report that will be useful to everyone.

  1. Right click on any table in the MoneyPie interface
  2. Select "Expense Report"
  3. You can change which month to report with the drop-down menu
  4. You can also choose between Expense, Income and Account transfers

The "Publish" button is used to export the report to an XML format. By default this feature is disabled. Contact Support for details.