I only ever use cheats for two purposes. First, in early parts with small factions I maintain the treasury at exact 0 (conceptionally excusable by the ruler bluntly defaulting on his loans or something similarly crude - they did that sort of thing often enough), because Debt City is a sucky and boring place. Second, in combination with quicksave, I sometimes employ add_money and process_cq to quickly take stock of the recruitement potential of a settlement.