New Year, New Budget

While we generally recommend keeping multiple years of financial data within a single Budget due to its benefits for budgeting and financial forecasting, we acknowledge that some users prefer separate yearly Budgets. This article provides steps to achieve this, although it's important to note that in the current versions MoneyWell (from versions 2023.01 onwards), due to changes in the data structure, the process is not as straightforward as in previous versions of MoneyWell (versions from 1 to 3.1.2).

The fundamental procedure involves duplicating your current Budget, eliminating transaction history while preserving Account and Bucket balances, along with the spending plan. It's crucial to thoroughly review all instructions and ensure you have sufficient backups before proceeding with any steps. You can find more information on backing up your MoneyWell data in our article, Backing Up MoneyWell.

Duplicating a MoneyWell Budget:

1. Open MoneyWell
2. Open the Budget you wish to duplicate (this article will refer to this existing Budget as "Budget_2023")
3. Head to File > Export > Export as Archive
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to save "Budget_2023" as a ".mwarchive" file (if prompted, DO NOT rename the file, we will rename this file in a later step)
5. Open a Finder window and head to the location that you saved the newly created "Budget_2023.mwarchive" file
6. Double click on the "Budget_2023.mwarchive" file in the Finder window and then follow the onscreen instructions, this will import the file and create a new Budget in MoneyWell 2023 named "Budget_2023 (Imported)"
7. Now open "Budget_2023 (Imported)"
8. Head to File > Rename Budget
9. Rename the Budget named "Budget_2023 (Imported)" (in this example we will rename this Budget to "Budget_2024")
10. If you now open the Budgets Window by heading to Window > Show Budgets Window you should now see the original Budget (Budget_2023) and the new Budget (Budget_2024)
11. Open "Budget_2024", if not already open
12. Select the Cash Flow view
13. Select an Account in the Source List
14. Select all the transactions from the day prior to the date you want history, back to the Initial Balance Transaction, but don't select the Initial Balance Transaction (i.e. if you want to remove all data for 2023, select all transactions from 31/12/2023 back to the Initial Balance Transaction, but DO NOT select the Initial Balance Transaction itself)
15. Press Delete and confirm, if asked
16. Open the Initial Balance Transaction in the Details panel by double clicking on the Initial Balance Transaction
17. Unlock the Initial Balance Transaction by clicking the lock icon beside the Status field
18. Change the date of the Initial Balance Transaction to the day prior to your new first transaction (i.e. if you are removing all data for 2023 and starting this Budget for 2024, set this date to 31/12/2023)
19. Update the amount of the Initial Balance Transaction to the end of date balance for your account on that date (check your bank statement or website)
20. Lock the Initial Balance Transaction again, by clicking the lock icon besides the Status field
21. You will now need to repeat steps 13 - 20 for all Accounts within MoneyWell