Available Cash

[The_Niddler]

Can someone help me understand what happened to the Available Cash from OOTP23?

I have teams that had money available.
We would allow them to add seats or such to their stadiums and they had to use the Cash they had available to pay for those things.

In OOTP24, that Cash line has been removed.

2 questions:
1. What happened to that cash? How do we now see it in their budget information?

2. Why still have a Cash Maximum field in the League Settings - Financials tab if there is no more Cash Available?

Thank you to anyone that can help me understand this.

[edapes]

In the Budget Information section the "Starting Balance" is the Cash the team has coming into the year,

[RonCo]

I think it's highly confusing to remove the line "cash" from the game. But if I'm reading this right "Available money" is Cash+Unspent Budget. If I'm right "cash" is still in the game, but you have to do math to figure out how much you have.

[Matt Arnold]

It never really added up properly, since some items went directly into cash, but other items, like media contracts or player expense, were all tracked separately.

The closest parallels to the former cash value is basically the "misc expenses" pieces of the accounting page. Basically everything that used to be in the cash value is now tracked on separate line items in that section.

[The_Niddler]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

It never really added up properly, since some items went directly into cash, but other items, like media contracts or player expense, were all tracked separately.

The closest parallels to the former cash value is basically the "misc expenses" pieces of the accounting page. Basically everything that used to be in the cash value is now tracked on separate line items in that section.

Matt,
So if there is no more Available Cash, why does the Maximum Cash setting still exist?

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by The_Niddler

Matt,
So if there is no more Available Cash, why does the Maximum Cash setting still exist?

That's still the maximum that can be carried over to the next season. That's the same as how it worked previously.

[RonCo]

It's always been strange, but the best way I found to think about it was to view it as if no money ever changed hands until the season ended. Everything until that point (including fans buying tickets and all the merchandising) was done on the basis of an IOU. The the season ends and all the money flows. Strange, I know.

That said, there does not now seem to be a way to set an "opening balance" (which is what the thing we knew as "Cash" is). You can put money into the "Cash" bucket in the commissioner's view, but that just goes to "miscellaneous." Which is fine, but confusing as hell. It's still "cash." And after the season ends it will be rolled into next year's "Starting balance."

In that sense "maximum cash" will cut off the "starting balance" of next year. Meaning, I assume, that owners will take the extra in profits.

[RonCo]

If it were called "starting cash" rather than "starting balance," that might be better. But it would still be confusing. Just as confusing as putting money in "cash" on the commissioner's screen and having it show up as "miscellaneous" is confusing. I mean, it's not miscellaneous. It's cash we just give a team.

Is there any chance we can just get an actual line item for every single possible expense and income item so that we can actually see it all? I see no reason for any "miscellaneous" category. The game controls it all. It has to know what it is.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by RonCo

If it were called "starting cash" rather than "starting balance," that might be better. But it would still be confusing. Just as confusing as putting money in "cash" on the commissioner's screen and having it show up as "miscellaneous" is confusing. I mean, it's not miscellaneous. It's cash we just give a team.

Is there any chance we can just get an actual line item for every single possible expense and income item so that we can actually see it all? I see no reason for any "miscellaneous" category. The game controls it all. It has to know what it is.

Yes, I’d be for this.

[coljesep]

Originally Posted by The_Niddler

Matt,
So if there is no more Available Cash, why does the Maximum Cash setting still exist?

It looks to me like the cash total is used to offset now rather than increase the potential to spend.

In this example, the league has a cash max of 30m and rev share at 25%.

Last Year:
Starting Balance was: $31,727,981
Season Profit was: $559,210
Total Cash: $32,287,191

Shared Rev: $19,022,525
Other Misc (This is the subtraction to get me to the 30m cash cap): $1,727,981
Total lost cash: 20,750,506

Total Cash - Total lost cash = $11,536,685

And that becomes my season rollover.

[The_Niddler]

I have to figure out where to take money from now when teams want to add seats to their stadiums or add a roof, etc.
I would previously, just take it from the cash line. They would pay $5M for 1000 seats. So I would just edit their finances and make their cash line $5M lower.
Now, I cannot do that. So I have to figure out where to put that in expenses to lower everything.
Maybe the Misc. Player expenses line so I know it deducts from their revenue.

And thank you all for all the info you are sharing.
Finances have always been difficult to figure out and I am not sure why. I run a local little league organization with no issues, but as RonCo suggested, a simple line item approach for every single income and expense would simplify things greatly!

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by The_Niddler

I have to figure out where to take money from now when teams want to add seats to their stadiums or add a roof, etc.
I would previously, just take it from the cash line. They would pay $5M for 1000 seats. So I would just edit their finances and make their cash line $5M lower.
Now, I cannot do that. So I have to figure out where to put that in expenses to lower everything.
Maybe the Misc. Player expenses line so I know it deducts from their revenue.

And thank you all for all the info you are sharing.
Finances have always been difficult to figure out and I am not sure why. I run a local little league organization with no issues, but as RonCo suggested, a simple line item approach for every single income and expense would simplify things greatly!

Internally there is still a "cash" variable that you can edit. Basically if the books don't balance, it will show up on the accounting sheet in the bottom misc expenses category. We just don't show it by default if it's zero.

[snepp]

On the topic of cash, I've got one I just noticed.

Should an owner be allowed to "take cash" at the end of the year when there's none to be taken? This is a penny-pinching owner, so I understand that they're looking to line their pockets, but doesn't seem like they should be able to take something that doesn't exist.

[The_Niddler]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Internally there is still a "cash" variable that you can edit. Basically if the books don't balance, it will show up on the accounting sheet in the bottom misc expenses category. We just don't show it by default if it's zero.

True, but if there is nothing in there anymore by default, then I cannot take anything away from it.