Generate Cash Flow Projections in Bubble app

Need help Database
1

Hi everyone!

I just joined Bubble and after going through a couple of hours of training i feel i can venture into my first app.
I need the help of the community though to understand an important functionality.
Here goes:
I want to input an event with a recurring nature and then be able to generate all individual events stemming from it, in order to be able to do calculations and charting.

Example:
Setting up a data type “Obligation” with fields “Amount” , “Frequency” (1-monthly, 2-every six months, 3-annually), “StartOfObligation” (should denote the first date ahead for the obligation), “HowmanyTimesObligationRepeats” (number)

Based on this input i would like to input multiple obligations with different details and then

  1. create a report that goes up to 12 months ahead and give for every month the total obligations due
  2. create a corresponding chart

Is there a way to do this in Bubble, and if yes, can you provide some guidance / reference?

Thanks!

Kostas

2

Hello and welcome to Bubble.

I would avoid the temptation to create a “thing” for every obligation, and have a template instead to represent the pattern. So pretty much as you have done.

Then you can have a repeating group that shows the 12 obligations, and calculate their dates. That is obviously the trickier bit.

3

Thanks Nigel.

Can you provide some guidance on how i could set up such a template?

If I used an SQL db, i guess i would maintain an events table and i would generate all 12 obligations as entries within the table. But is there a way to do this without linking the Bubble app to an SQL db?

4

Yes, you could do. Although you might still be better off storing the pattern rather than the individual entries.

To create the multiple entries you would “Schedule an API Workflow on a List”. And that list would be the 12 dates you want to create entries for.

So you need to create a list of the next dates somewhere, and then run an API Workflow on it to create the entries.

The issue is that Bubble doesn’t do “loops” - so you can say “Do this until you get to the end date”.

People have tried to create workflows that look like loops, but they are pretty fragile.

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