Balance Forecast

The Balance Forecast report.

A line chart of the balance of the selected accounts over time that includes the transactions your scheduled transactions will make. Use it to see whether an account will run low before the next pay day. It can draw a reserve line and a target line above it (Display/Show reserve line, Display/Reserve amount, Display/Target amount above reserve) and the lowest balance still to come (Display/Show future minimum). In GnuCash: Reports ▸ Assets & Liabilities ▸ Balance Forecast.

The options that matter are Accounts/Accounts (at least one is needed, or the report says No accounts selected), General/Start Date, End Date and General/Interval. Scheduled transactions are not entered by the report; they come from scheduledTransaction.create.

Examples

Example: with a copy of the reports/test-data example book open as book.gnucash, at 2024-03-15T12:00:00Z.

JSON-RPC

Request:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"report.run","params":{"report":"Balance Forecast","options":{"Accounts":{"Accounts":["a0000000000000000000000000000003"]},"General":{"Start Date":{"absolute":"1978-01-01"},"End Date":{"absolute":"1978-12-31"},"Interval":"MonthDelta"}}}}

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "result": {
    "title": "",
    "sections": [
      {
        "blocks": [
          {
            "kind": "chart",
            "type": "line",
            "title": [
              "Balance Forecast",
              "01/01/78 to 12/31/78"
            ],
            "…": "…"
          },
          "…"
        ],
        "…": "…"
      },
      "…"
    ],
    "…": "…"
  }
}

Command line

red-ale exec --book book.gnucash report.run '{"report":"Balance Forecast","options":{"Accounts":{"Accounts":["a0000000000000000000000000000003"]},"General":{"Start Date":{"absolute":"1978-01-01"},"End Date":{"absolute":"1978-12-31"},"Interval":"MonthDelta"}}}'

It prints:

{
  "title": "",
  "sections": [
    {
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "chart",
          "type": "line",
          "title": [
            "Balance Forecast",
            "01/01/78 to 12/31/78"
          ],
          "…": "…"
        },
        "…"
      ],
      "…": "…"
    },
    "…"
  ],
  "…": "…"
}

MCP tool call

Tool call:

{"name":"report.run","arguments":{"report":"Balance Forecast","options":{"Accounts":{"Accounts":["a0000000000000000000000000000003"]},"General":{"Start Date":{"absolute":"1978-01-01"},"End Date":{"absolute":"1978-12-31"},"Interval":"MonthDelta"}}}}

Result:

{
  "structuredContent": {
    "title": "",
    "sections": [
      {
        "blocks": [
          {
            "kind": "chart",
            "type": "line",
            "title": [
              "Balance Forecast",
              "01/01/78 to 12/31/78"
            ],
            "…": "…"
          },
          "…"
        ],
        "…": "…"
      },
      "…"
    ],
    "…": "…"
  }
}

Template GUID: 321d940d487d4ccbb4bd0467ffbadbf2 · Script: standard/balance-forecast.rhai

Options

Accounts

Accounts (accountList, default []): Report on these accounts.

Display

Plot Width (plotSize, default {"percent":100}): Width of plot, 10 - 100 in percent, above in pixels.
Plot Height (plotSize, default {"percent":100}): Height of plot, 10 - 100 in percent, above in pixels.
Data markers? (boolean, default false): Display a mark for each data point.
Show reserve line (boolean, default false): Show reserve line
Reserve amount (numberRange, default 0): The reserve amount is set to a minimum balance desired
Show target line (boolean, default false): Show target line
Target amount above reserve (numberRange, default 0): The target is used to plan for a future large purchase, which will be added as a line above the reserve amount.
Show future minimum (boolean, default false): The future minimum will add, for each date point, a projected minimum balance including scheduled transactions.

General

Report name (string, default "Balance Forecast"): Enter a descriptive name for this report.
Stylesheet (multichoice, default "Default"): Select a stylesheet for the report.
Add options summary (multichoice, default "never"): Add summary of options.
Start Date (date, default {"relative":"start-accounting-period"}): Start of reporting period.
End Date (date, default {"relative":"end-accounting-period"}): End of reporting period.
Interval (multichoice, default "DayDelta"): The amount of time between data points.
Report's currency (currency, default "CURRENCY::USD"): Select the currency to display the values of this report in.
Price Source (multichoice, default "pricedb-nearest"): The source of price information.