<title>Change how Money forecasts cash flow</title>
<category>accounts</category>
<klink type="prcdr">How do I change how Money forecasts cash flow?</klink>
</index>
<content>
<extend>
<tease>Why?</tease>
<reveal>
<p>You can choose how you want Money to forecast your cash flow, including how often you have unscheduled expenses and what kinds of items should be in your cash flow.</p>
</reveal>
</extend>
<ol>
<li>On the <emph>Accounts & Bills</emph> menu, click <emph>Cash Flow Review</emph>.</li>
<li>In the left pane, click <emph>Customize cash flow</emph>.</li>
<li>Choose how you want Money to forecast your cash flow, based on the following options:</li>
<ul>
<li>To change when unscheduled expenses occur in your forecast, select one of the following options in the <emph>Unscheduled expenses occur</emph> box:</li>
<ul>
<li><emph>Early in the forecasted period (pessimistic)</emph></li>
<li><emph>Throughout the forecasted period (averaged)</emph></li>
<li><emph>Late in the forecasted period (optimistic)</emph></li>
</ul>
<li>If you chose <emph>Throughout the forecasted period</emph>, select whether you want the expenses averaged by days, weeks, or months.</li>
<li>If you have created a budget, click <emph>Amounts from my current budget</emph> if you want to use your budget amounts. Otherwise, click <emph>Amount calculated from past trends</emph> to use the amounts Money calculates by looking at your past income and spending trends.</li>
<li>Select the check boxes for <emph>Include necessary categories</emph>, <emph>Include discretionary categories</emph>, or both. Categories that you must pay, such as rent, are necessary; categories that you can spend more or less on, such as dining out, clothing, or recreation, are discretionary. </li>
<li>Select the method you want Money to use to determine which account a budgeted item should be associated with.</li>
<ul>
<li><emph>The account last used for each category</emph>. If you use a different account for a category, Money assumes you are now using that account for all future instances of that category.</li>
<li><emph>The account used most often for each category</emph>. If you usually use one account for a category, Money associates the category with that account.</li>
<li><emph>The account I select for each category</emph>. You can tell Money which account you want to use for each budget category.</li>
</ul>
<li>Select the <emph>Display scheduled bills and deposits</emph> check box if you want to your cash flow forecast to include the bills and deposits you have set up in Money.</li>
<li>Select the <emph>Display amounts from budget or past trends</emph> check box if you want amounts from the budget or Autobudget to be included.</li>
<li>Select the<emph>Include budget items that occur less than once a month</emph> check box if you want items such as property taxes or Christmas expenses that you pay less than once a month to be included in the cash flow forecast.</li>
<li>If your account bears interest and you want the interest income factored into cash flow, select the <emph>Include estimated interest income for my day-to-day accounts in the cash flow forecast</emph> check box.</li>
<li>Select the <emph>Show information about infrequent transactions on the cash flow chart</emph> check box if you want descriptions about items that occur less than once a month to show on the chart.</li>
