I did add them as transactions so I get what you're saying and understand my error. Does internal transfers mean transfers between Budget account only or does it include transfers to Tracking accounts as well like investments, etc?
Normal transactions are normal transactions, the app has no way of knowing if its a cashflow inflow or outflow if you add them as normal transactions. You should use the account settings to update the balance in there, which creates an adjustment and that's exluded from cashflow.
I'm making a change soon that will include internal transfers in cashflow. It will basically even out and appear +500 in one side and -500 in another. That gives more flexibility. You can then exclude the account in the filters if you dont want that to count basically.
👌 Got it! Thanks
Just have to ask...If internal (on budget to on budget) transfers are included and the only way to exclude them is to exclude the account; doesn't that present a cash flow accuracy issue? Transfers between on budget accounts should not be included in cash flow without a way to exclude them other than having to exclude the entire account. On budget accounts are very likely to have actual spending that should be in a cash flow report...yes? Income flows in / spending flows out. One more question about the starting balance issue I have due to the way I entered or edited the entry. Why does ZS care how a starting balance is entered/created as long as the Payee is Starting Balance and the Category is Ready To Budget? Not a programmer in any sense so pardon the potentially dumb question. I only ask because I run another app while I'm learning ZS and it doesn't care about the starting balance necessarily being the initial method of entry, only that it is labeled as Starting Balance. Anyway how do I fix a starting balance (created improperly) to have ZS read it as a starting balance and not a regular transaction? I already have transactions back to January in the register and clicking on the settings for the account only shows me the current balance. Do I have to start over? Hope I'm making some sense here!
I think I figured out how to fix the problem of starting balance by importing a modified csv file into a new budget. Why don't ZS account exports include the category?
For starting balances: ZS excludes system-created Starting Balance and Balance Adjustment transactions from Cash Flow. The important bit is that it is based on the transaction type internally, not just the visible text. So if a normal transaction was manually entered with a payee named “Starting Balance” or a note/category that looks like one, ZS still treated it as a normal transaction. I’ve made a change so Starting Balance is now available as a system payee in the transaction payee picker. Once that update is live, you should be able to edit those opening-balance transactions, choose the system “Starting Balance” payee, and ZS will convert them into real starting balance transactions. Those will use Ready to Budget and will not affect Cash Flow / relevant analytics. So no, you should not need to start over. On internal transfers: you’re right that excluding an entire account is too blunt. Budget-to-budget transfers net to zero when both sides are included, but they can still make charts noisier. I’ve added Transfer/Payment options to analytics payee filters. For example, you’ll be able to exclude Transfer: Savings, which removes transfer rows involving that account from both sides. Loan payments get a similar Payment: Loan Name option. On exports: account CSV exports should include Category, Memo, Tags, Cleared, and Balance where applicable. If you’re seeing an export without Category, send me the exact export path/screenshot and I’ll check that specific flow.
The changes you mentioned all sound great so thank you for getting into that! Just as a test I created a new budget making sure that my categories and accounts were identical. Then I added an new account and set the starting balance from that dialog. I then went back to my original budget and exported the same account and opened the csv file in a spreadsheet. Then I deleted the row for Starting Balance and re-saved as csv text file. I imported this into the new budget and account I created and all transactions had to be re-categorized. However, you're right that the categories were included in the csv file and perfectly readable but on import that info did not come across hence the re-categorization being necessary everything else seemed fine. Work Flow: I exported the csv into a folder on my desktop (win 11 pro)...opened it from there into spreadsheet. Saved it back to same (overwrite) and re-imported back to test budget. I didn't change file name when re-saving the edited csv just saved it as is. Not sure what you mean by "exact export Path" so I don't have a screenshot. I don't know if any of this is helpful in any way but I do appreciate your attention to my questions. Just noticing that some payees are coming back referencing the wrong transaction...For instance payee "Walmart Groceries" imported as payee for a game I bought. Payee should have been "PAYPAL *STEAM GAMES" which is how it appears in the csv exported file.
Oh I see what you mean. File import is meant to be imported using bank files, it doesn't support Zerosum exports -> Imports with categories etc so those are all ignored. It would not be doable to even make that work easily, would need to create categories when importing files etc and not what import is meant for. Import file is meant to be used with bank export files. Import files also do not detect starting balance transactions or anything like that. They're all added as normal transactions, as again it's meant for bank exports.
Ok...It did seem odd that payees were not matching up either. I will import a csv from my bank and see how that goes. What your saying is making perfect sense to me.
I checked this more closely. Zerosum already excludes system-created Starting Balance and Balance Adjustment transactions from Cash Flow, including the Overview widget. That means the balance entered when creating a manual or linked account should not count toward the “On average, saving…” figure. If a Starting Balance row is edited, it keeps its STARTING_BALANCE type, so it still stays excluded. The case that can inflate Cash Flow is when an opening balance or account migration was entered/imported as a normal transaction instead of as a Starting Balance/Balance Adjustment. Can you explain a bit better what is happening here? Did you by chance just added your initial balance as a normal transaction? As that will not be excluded from cashflow and will just count as a normal transaction. Only initial balabces, adjustment balances and internal transfers are excluded.