# Cash Flow Sankey Diagram



## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Since I discovered the sankeyMATIC diagram builder I've been using it to visualize cash flow from my financial spreadsheets

I just found there's an option to display without the numbers and thought it would be useful for money diaries here










I've been playing around with the categories in the middle and balancing out the inflows vs outflows also highlighted some gaps in my spreadsheets

I decided to remove things like car depreciation and unrealized gains as I found this more useful to visualize actual cash flow


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

Skanky indeed.

Ohh, not skanky - sankey.
I see how it shows relationships, but I don't see how you would actually compare/reconcile income with expenses.
Spreadsheets and tables work.

Does the thickness of lines mean anything - it looks like provincial taxes are 'thicker' than federal taxes?


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Spreadsheets are still where I crunch the numbers, this is just a nicer way to visualize them

The sankey builder tells you when there are imbalances between inflows and outflows. I guess that's more to balance the categories in the middle or add categories you forgot. Balancing this made me think about categories differently and improved my spreadsheet. I'm still chewing on the disposable income categories

The thickness of the lines are relative to the numbers but my numbers are tracked to the dollar so I didn't really want to display everything. I suppose it would be more meaningful with the outflow numbers like in most money diaries. Yes Quebec has really high income taxes

When I leave Quebec the savings in tax will be like 2 x food thickness added to savings. House/utility/insurance expenses will likely be higher but we get a cost of living allowance based on those, not taxes.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

Reminds me of some of the pretty sophisicated pictures that the bank uses to market their mutual funds, or what have them.

I didn't know that credit card rewards can be categorized as passive income? That's alot of spending to do to get that kind of income. But then, it's just me.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Financial advis*o*r salespersons use sankey diagrams now? I think the last time I saw the mutual fund glossy brochures was before CMF existed.

Yea I'm gonna move credit card rewards down into a refund category with tax and work refunds. I agree it shouldn't be considered passive income when it requires spending.

Reminds me of some things I maybe forgot, like medical/insurance claims, kijiji sales. The bottom is kind of work in progress, I need to add discretionary or misc spending.


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## redsgomarching (Mar 6, 2016)

adding complication to something that needs simple tables and graphing using excel lol. you want to know how much of xxx. add a label sort and filter.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

This reminds me a bit of how Trefis shows their models of company valuation. It has its place.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

redsgomarching said:


> adding complication to something that needs simple tables and graphing using excel lol. you want to know how much of xxx. add a label sort and filter.


Yea tables of data are a lot more powerful for pulling out whatever numbers you want. I'm pulling the numbers from tables and just plugging into the sankeyMATIC website

People like pie charts and graphs to visualize data but this seems more appropriate for cash flow. There's no reason excel or quicken couldn't spit out sankey diagrams but I don't believe they do?

I was thinking it could be another way to share money diaries besides lists of numbers. Graphs are common for net worth growth. Pie charts for asset allocation etc


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