Approaches to Organizing Balances
You are free to model your assets and debts in a way that matches your mental model of your finances.
Let's take a look at some example approaches to give you some ideas.
💡Organizing by Ownership Structure
This method may appeal to individuals managing assets across multiple entities such as holding companies, businesses, and trusts.
Personal: Include personal bank accounts, your home (if personally held), collectibles, and personal liabilities like credit card debt.
Business: Separate business-related items such as business bank accounts, business credit cards, equipment, accounts receivable, and business loans.
Trust: Include assets held in trusts such as real estate or investment accounts designated for beneficiaries.
Note: Use "Entities" in Olomon to track your businesses ands trusts. You can apply an entity to an asset from within the Balances page by clicking on the Cog icon and then selecting the Entity.
Here's an example of a real estate investor who organized their assets into Business and Personal:
💡Organizing by Liquidity Type
Organizing by liquidity can aid in understanding (roughly) how quickly each portion of your finances can be converted cash.
Liquid Assets: Cash, checking accounts, savings accounts, and marketable securities.
Semi-Liquid Assets: Accounts receivable and short-term investments.
Illiquid Assets: Real estate, collectibles, long-term investments like retirement accounts or private equity.
This approach is particularly useful for individuals who may need quick visibility into funds for investing opportunities, upcoming capital calls, or emergencies.
Here's an example of someone who organized their Balances by Liquidity Type:
💡Organizing by Asset Type / Risk
Grouping by asset type provides clarity on the composition of one's portfolio.
Cash & Equivalents: Bank accounts and Treasury bills.
Marketable Investments: Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, REITs.
Real Estate: Primary residence, rental properties, commercial real estate, land.
Private Investments: venture funds, angel investments, private equity, and crowdfunding.
Alternative Investments: Commodities (gold), cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin), collectibles (art), hedge funds.
Intangible Assets: Patents and copyrights.
Retirement Accounts: Traditional and Roth IRAs, 401(k) or similar employer-sponsored plans, SEP IRAs or Solo 401(k)s for self-employed individuals.
This method is especially useful for investors who may have diverse portfolios spanning traditional and alternative investments.
Here's an example of an investor's Balances page who prefers to see things organized by Asset Type. Note: they didn't choose to use Sections. However, if you'd like another layer of organization, you have that option.
💡Organizing by Income Stream / Risk
For retirees or individuals not relying on earned income, organizing by income generation, contingency needs and legacy planning may be preferable.
Income-Generating Assets: Group pensions, Social Security benefits, annuities, and dividend-paying investments under a distinct category to track guaranteed or semi-guaranteed income sources.
Liquidity Buckets: Use a "bucket approach" to segment assets:
Short-Term Bucket: Cash and liquid assets for immediate needs (e.g., 1–3 years of expenses).
Medium-Term Bucket: Conservative investments like bonds for expenses over 3–10 years.
Long-Term Bucket: Growth-oriented investments such as equities to outpace inflation over time.
Healthcare and Contingency Reserves: Create separate groups for accounts held aside to cover healthcare costs such as HSAs or other emergency accounts (e.g., Medicare premiums, long-term care insurance) and unexpected expenses.
Legacy Planning: legacy-focused assets such as trusts or life insurance policies intended for heirs or charitable giving.
Retirees might also find it helpful to group assets into "Pre-Tax" and "Post-Tax" groups of accounts.
Applying Structure: Sections and Groups
Olomon offers 2 levels of organizing your assets and debts: Groups and Sections.
Don't worry if you change your mind. Reordering assets and debts within a Group and between Groups is easy with our drag-and-drop interface. Similarly, Groups can be reordered and moved into different Sections.
What are Sections and Groups?
Sections: Optional top-level categories that hold related groups of assets and debts (e.g., "Personal Assets" vs. "Business Assets"). A Section has one or more Groups.
Groups: Mandatory subcategories that organize assets and debts. If you're using Sections, then every Group belongs to one Section.
Items: Another name for an asset or debt. Every item belongs to one Group. (e.g., "Rental Property," "401(k)", "Primary Checking").
Two Modes
There are 2 options for structuring your Balances page:
Using Groups
Using Sections and Groups
By default, your Balances page is configured to "Use Groups".
Or, if you feel like you want another layer of organization, click on the "Add Section" control at the bottom of the Balances page.
Now you are using Sections and Groups. Once you're in this mode, there is no way to revert back to only using Groups.
Helpful Tips and Tricks
Balances page getting pretty long?
Collapse your view to see more on the page at one time.
Use the Table of Contents to go directly to a Group or a Section.
Change your mind?
Don't worry if you change your mind. Reordering assets and debts within a Group and between Groups is easy with our drag-and-drop interface. Similarly, Groups can be reordered and moved into different Sections.
Use drag and drop to reorder or change the grouping.
We hope this gives you some ideas about how you can best model your assets and debts in the Balances page.