Get Started with Accounts: Step-by-Step

Update

EEBA is now Goodbudget! Goodbudget has all the great features of EEBA (and more!) in a new and updated interface. Check out our updated article on this topic, and check out the Goodbudget Help Center for the most recent help content.

Q: Could you tell me, step-by-step, how to set up Accounts in EEBA?

  1. Add your Accounts
    On the Accounts page, enter all the Accounts you want to track in EEBA. Put in your checking and savings accounts and any credit card accounts that you have. It’s a good idea to have a Cash account as well to track ATM withdrawals and other cash transactions. Leave off stock / investment accounts (with the exception of Money Market accounts, which you can treat as a checking account).

    • Find your current balance. Log into each bank’s website and get today’s current balance, not the available balance.
    • Adjust for transactions not yet posted. Add/subtract any transactions that haven’t shown up on your bank’s website that you don’t want to also enter in EEBA.
    • Name the account and put the result of the above in as the Current Balance for that account.
    • Repeat these steps for each account.
  2. Distribute your money into your budgeting envelopes
    Use the Distribute from Unallocated page to fund your Envelopes.

    • Type “Starting Balances” for the description for this distribution.
    • Type in the amount you want to take from your Unallocated Money.
    • Choose a particular action for each of your budgeting envelopes.
    • Choose an envelope to sweep the remaining amount into, for example, a Savings envelope.

This will distribute the money from your Accounts into your Envelopes. Congratulations, you’ve finished setting up your Accounts! Going forward, whenever you receive income or record an expense, be sure to include which Account was associated with that transaction.

(Updated 10/30/2012)

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