App image Version 5.1.3-eef04f1
I was looking at the cashflow reports, and I noticed that there is a Grand Total at the very bottom. I am not able to understand where that number comes from and what it indicates. Can anyone help understand that report?
Thanks!
The grand total is just what it says. It is the sum of the totals of each of the four types of accounts: Asset, Expense, Income, Liability. The first and last are your “regular” accounts, such as checking, savings, loans, and credit cards. The middle two are how KMyMoney deals with Categories.
As for how useful the report is, I don’t really have an opinion, as I would have to think very carefully whether all the included transactions actually represent cash flow for me. I wonder if it would be worth creating subtotals for Income and Assets and for Expenses and Liabilities, although I’m not really sure that provides any more useful information.
I guess I do not see how that helps.
What does not make sense to me is that the Assets section includes payments made to the liabilities(Credit Cards for example).
That means that we cannot add Assets + income + Expenses (negative value) + Liabilities (negative value), because then we are double counting the Credit cards expenses. In the Assets calculation, it already took into account the money sent to the CC but then we are subtracting it again.
This leads to inaccurate number as the grand total. Or at least, to a number that I am not sure how to use. What does it mean? It is the sum of Assets, income, expenses and liability but what is that final value?
Cashflow should be…
Money in - Money out= cashflow, for a specific set of accounts, for a specific period, chosen by the user.
I didn’t say it made any sense or was useful 
However, a transfer of funds is likely to be positive on one side and negative on the other, so it’s not necessarily doubled. Expanding on my musing in my previous post, I’m wondering if there might be more us in making a 2 x 2 box with assets and income on top, and liability and liabilities and expenses on the side, with each box being the total of the items above and to the left.
Again - no promises it would actually be useful, but worth exploring. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Grand Total got put in the report just because it was easy to do. It’s also probably been there long enough that it might be before the history in git, so it might not be possible to find any notes from when it was originally added to that report.
Well, if we look at the total for the Assets group, that total is actuall what I would expect to be the Total for the statement of Cash Flows.
It already takes into account money into the Assets accounts choosen by the user, and it takes into account any expenses and transfers to liabilities.
Really, if we kept only the Assets section, the report would make more sense. We may need to reorganize the way the data is displayed but from what I can see, the total of the assets group is the right number. Seeing the other sections/groups there and that weird grand total throws me off.
What are your thoughts about reorganizing the report and keeping the Asset section/group as that has the correct total expected?
I usually create my own “cash flow” report, using an income/expense report. I modify it to show transfers. Then I only select asset accounts.
This shows me the correct cash flow and I am able to see it across multiple months, side by side. Cash flow is important to me, even in my personal finances, as it is the number that takes into account my payments towards my liabilities(home mortgage, my vehicle loan, etc) and my expenses. Gives me a true picture of what is left over at the end of the month for discretionary spending/saving. Although I have a method to produce the cashflow number, I’d like to get the cash flow report working the way it should.
That is unless I am just not understanding how to use it as it is. But it sounds like I am not the only one.