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Envelope

A budgeting method where money is allocated to categories (envelopes) before it’s spent. When you buy groceries, the money comes from the Groceries envelope.

In Surebeans, envelopes are represented as Budget: Account Type accounts. Money is allocated via Virtual Postings:

2026-03-01 Budget allocation
    [Budget:Home:Groceries]    $500.00
    [Income:Ready to Assign]  -$500.00

This moves $500 from the shared pool (Income:Ready to Assign) into the Groceries envelope. The YNAB import flows generate these allocations automatically.