In/Out/What's Left-type report?

Question

I like the In/Out/What's Left widget because it simply breaks down how much of our take-home is left at the end of each month after bills, mortgage, etc. are paid. Is there a report I can run to get the equivalent of this but over multiple months? Cash Flow isn't exactly the same because, for example, it doesn't show loan principal paid as an "out" since that is just a transfer from a banking account's positive balance to a loan account's negative balance. From an accounting perspective that's more accurate, but I want to have an easy way to see how much our "liquid cash flow" is over a multiple-month period.

ameat · Answer

Thanks. I’ll try playing around with that one.

Jim_Harman · Answer

OK, for historical income and expenses, you might look at the Spending > Income & Expense by Category report. You can set the interval to Month, Quarter, etc.

For me this does not quite match the numbers in the In/Out/What's left Dashboard panel. I have not taken the time to figure out why.

Generally you will want to customize the report to include the accounts you consider "Spending" accounts, and on the Advanced customization tab, set the Transfers setting to Exclude internal.

ameat · Answer

I'm more interested in looking at historical than projected balances, to see how much of our take-home we have saving vs. putting towards bills, loan payments, etc.