Questions about finances...

[Qeltar]

Sorry, more newbie questions. Thanks for bearing with me. If it matters, I answer lots of newbie questions in areas I am more familiar with.

The finance model in this game is very complex (which is great) and confusing (not so great, but I will adjust, and much better than too simple). I've read up on what I can, but a few things still don't make sense, or aren't the type of thing that would be in the manual (that I can find).

1. Under the financial summary I see money for free agents and money for extensions. I was confused because I thought the extensions would be not for this year but were next to the info for the current year. As I was writing this I looked again and I *think* this is the number just for next year, so if I signed a multi-year extension it wouldn't all come out of here. Is that correct?

2. It appears that my efforts to increase attendance are all going in the owner's pocket because my budget seems to be unchanged and the forecast for next year is unchanged. Is there some hidden effect here other than keeping the guy happy?

3. a. On what day does the budget year "roll over"?
3. b. What is there to spend money on, other than the (generally poor) midseason FAs, before the "rollover"?

These are related questions. Basically, I am on a very tight budget, but I have managed to maintain $20m and change in available budget through the end of July. The amateur and international drafts are over.

My understanding is that the current year's budget is basically "use it or lose it" but I don't have a good handle on what events in the second half of the year I need to save funds for. I don't want to waste the money but I also don't want to spend it all and then find myself out of cash for something important.

Can anyone hit me with the clue-by-four?

Thanks for reading this and maybe responding to it.

[Leo_The_Lip]

Do you have a background in Accounting or Finance? If so, you will never get OOTP finances straight because they don't follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principals. So don't relate them to the real world.

Essentially make your contract extensions while viewing the team salary page. That is the best view of what the future holds. Look at the bottom where the salary commitments are totaled. This where you see your renewal limits for each year. By checking this out, you can see where you might not want to extend players because key guys come up for renewal and you know you will have to pay up. So check here often.

As to the budget, yes it does not change during the year. However that is how the real world works, so yes it is correct. There is idiocy involving cash and the owner taking out money at the end of the year that I find infuriatingly unrealistic, however that is STILL a discussion for another day. I won't confuse you with that yet.

So if you keep an eye on the team contract screen and understand that your next year's FA abilities will be determined by your contract commitments, you will have a good understanding of how this works.

[Matt Arnold]

1. Money for FA = money available now, this year
Money for extensions = money available for next year
They slightly change in meaning depending on the time of year. In the off-season, when FA starts, then they line up well. During the season, money for FA gets kind of adjusted, since if you have 10M available but are halfway through the season, you can potentially add a player who makes 20M to your roster (since you'll only add 10M to your salary commitments). And best not to try to understand things in that time between the off-season starting and when FA file

2. Budget will be more or less based on how much revenue you pull in. So if you draw more revenue, your budget is likely to rise. Pull in less, it might fall.

3a. The budget is for the year, so when the league rolls over to the off-season, that's when the new budget comes into play.
b. Mid-season, the main new budget items would be draft bonuses and international FA bonuses. You can obviously also use budget room to bring in more expensive players in trade, too.

So basically, once the draft and international amateurs are done, there's not really any other use for budget space, so if you can, you may as well use it. However do note that in a limited fashion, depending on your owner and settings, some cash can be carried over to next year, so you might not want to use it. But certainly if you have room, it might be worth it to find an overpaid player and improve your talent that way.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Qeltar

1. Under the financial summary I see money for free agents and money for extensions. I was confused because I thought the extensions would be not for this year but were next to the info for the current year. As I was writing this I looked again and I *think* this is the number just for next year, so if I signed a multi-year extension it wouldn't all come out of here. Is that correct?

This is essentially the available budget for the next year after the current one. It is an annual number so, if you signed a three-year contract at $20M per year, $20M would come out of the current budget and $20M would come out of the extensions budget.

Originally Posted by Qeltar

2. It appears that my efforts to increase attendance are all going in the owner's pocket because my budget seems to be unchanged and the forecast for next year is unchanged. Is there some hidden effect here other than keeping the guy happy?

Look at the financial settings for your league. If "team owner controls budget" is YES, then he is probably taking the excess. If it says "NO, entire revenue available", then you will benefit from this for next season. You should see that reflected in the projected budget for next season. It will be somewhere around the projected revenue with the "no" setting.

Originally Posted by Qeltar

3. a. On what day does the budget year "roll over"?
3. b. What is there to spend money on, other than the (generally poor) midseason FAs, before the "rollover"?

The budget rolls over on the first day of the offseason. The just completed figures will still show in the salaries chart and other spots until free agents file, but your actions will be charged to the new budget beginning on the first day of the offseason. The answer to "b" is nothing except that available budget will affect your ability to make trades.

Originally Posted by Qeltar

My understanding is that the current year's budget is basically "use it or lose it" but I don't have a good handle on what events in the second half of the year I need to save funds for. I don't want to waste the money but I also don't want to spend it all and then find myself out of cash for something important.

The most important reason to keep excess budget room is trades. Otherwise, it doesn't matter unless your owner's priority is profit. He might be happier with leftover money to pocket.

Edit: Matt types faster than I do.

[NoOne]

carry-over cash affects extensions, and not FA money. this is also where there's some deviation... other than that you can see other deviaitons due to 'next' years salary comittments.

you can roughly estimate what you need for IAFA and draft needs -- as in always err on the side of having more than enough...

if you project well, you can spend this extra budget space in more productive ways -- specifically your scouting and development budgets. dump as much into these as you can.

i don't do trade deadline deals, but you can project for this too... make sure never to hamstring yourself, and dump as much as you can into scouting and development when your payroll is low. player spending correlates to winning more than scouting/dev of course. as you win, don't sacrifice good players for scouting/dev beyond ~baseline-ish levels.

i shoot for a 10M profit, because that's the default carry-over cash limit... i use that for a little wiggle room when salary starts to ramp up as a team ages. i try to save it for the context of staving off a salary dump for ~1 more year etc while you have a WS-caliber team.

i'm religious about getting rid of players from 29-32+. it keeps a steady pipeline of prospects coming into system even with low draft picks, plus keeps team payroll lower due to large portion of arbitration eligible players providing significant contributions. it's the only way for easy, predictible and perpetual success. all financial problems are avoidable if oyu look ahead 2-3-5years as needed.

you can't control much revenue, so put effort into what little you have control over... Gate revenue is where you can add ~10, 20 or even 30M more revenue if you put in the work and learning to maximize it. there will be a 1-year lag between being able to spend it in your budget, but it's worth it once you get it going.

don't let the 'predicted' gate revenue bother you... sometimes it underpredicts if you are constantly pushing boundaries of what you can charge... e.g. it is typically severely under-reported the way i do things because my season tickets are a premium price and it somehow causes a poor prediction for gate revenue until ~mid season or later. i think it's due to how i maximize revenue with season tickets. it's using an average of that price and gate price to predict attendance, but that's not accurate to how attendance actually fills out.

[Qeltar]

That's all good info thanks.

Dang, I was really hoping it wouldn't roll over at the end of the current season. I'm in rebuilding mode and wanted to use that on off-season signings if I could.

Maybe I've been too good about economizing! This team really isn't good enough for the playoffs but we're currently in first place in a weak division so maybe I should find some good guys about to become free agents and blow it for two months and maybe a surprise playoff run?

Doesn't sound like there's anything else to do.

NoOne, are you saying if I end with at least $10m in unspent budget that will become cash for next year? Because if so that's what I want to do. I am spending a LOT on staff.

How do I know what, if anything will roll over? And what exactly rolls over to what (which bucket of the current year goes into what bucket of the following year)?

BTW I am planning on the same "hippie approach to GMing." It just seems to make sense, especially for a rebuilding team in a small market.

Thanks very much for all your fantastic replies! Great community and devs!

PS Leo, good tip about the salary page, been using that already. And Orcin, I have the league settings on default, so the owner controls the budget. This seems most realistic so I am going to leave it.

[NoOne]

yeah, default settings allow $10mill to add to next years budget -- assuming owner isn't a cheap b$#tard, of course. it's factored into however budgets are calculated based on last years revenue + the profit carried over.

League SEttings -> Finances .. you'll see it in the options there. as far as how much can carry over.

what carries over? well if your revenues exceed epenses, that's what *can carry over... the owner pockets anything above your cash limit from settings

you can see this in action on Accounting screen in Front Office.

i suggest leavign it at $10M. i've used unlimited before and it causes oddities in league finances.. as well as a potential for an 'overflow' if anyone's budget or math involving the budget seen/unseen reachest (2^32)/2. (~2billion)

you can avoid that problem with the coefficient factor they have introduced to the game.

however, you still get oddities. cash on hand affects extensions but doens't help you with FA signing money. unlimited cash supplies will reverse the typical FA vs Extension dynamic... more times than not it will be cheaper to let them to to FA than extend them because the pool of money for extensions can become neaerly boundless. they will demand more because there is a larger money supply there. (will depend on that team's success over time of course -- large markets will inevitably pile up HUGE amounts of cash - their extension contracts will be larger than FA contracts in all but extreme cases.)

you can see this affect by the difference in money avialable for each type listed on Front Office screen. (other factors like next year's salaries or time of year could influence this too -- when they are different you can use what you see to determin what causes the difference at that time)

accounting page will help you figure what's beingn spent where and why it says what it says in fornt office.. .but that's just for your own sanity...

the Salary page is the bee's knees! that's going to help you with long-term decisions on contracts and terms. when to dump salary, how many more players you can extend or FA you can sign etc.. etc..

[Qeltar]

I see the $10m limit on cash now.

I am actually sitting on $5m in cash. I have never spent any because in trade negotiations the other side seems to put almost no value on cash. Even teams that have big minus signs next to their current budgets. Odd.

How does cash on hand affect extensions? Thanks.

[NoOne]

first day of offseason, go to front office screen and take a peak at the

money available for FA
money available for extensions

estimates... one will be +cash on hand higher, typically. if 'unlimited' taht value can sky-rocket... i actually hit an overflow and my budget was broken lol. game doesn't handle calculations involving #'s much greater greater than ~+/-2billion.. (signed). i had simmed out a long while and my team had 30-100m profits each year etc... wasn't really playing th egame at that time.. was first year i owned it etc and dinking around. if it can't do the math it won't function and cause major problems. nowadays you can apply that coefficent and avoid the problem with a bit of forethought.

i say firs tday of arb just in case other factors are mucking it up.. but i think it remains consistent throughout year? that's when i look at it the most and familiar enough that i know it will show what i am speaking of.


you can zero out cash on hand... no biggie... shouldn't be much different thatn ~10M or ~5M etc. the only tangible side effect is if it's increased significantly or unlimited. and, not a problem if that is the intent (each to their own opinion).