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Setup Budgets

  • Updated

Where to find budgets?

  • Android: Main dashboard - main side menu
  • iOS: Bottom bar, tab: Planning
  • Web app: Budgets aren't available in the Web App yet

What are budgets for?

  • The budgets feature serves to divide your total expenses among individual budgets. 
    Examples of budgets:
    • Fixed expenses - housing
    • Common daily household expenses
    • Entertainment and leisure
    • Reserve for unplanned/unexpected expenses
  • During a given period (week/month/year), you can track how much money you have already spent from this budget and how much more is expected to be spent.

How are budgets defined?

Properly defining budgets is absolutely crucial for tracking them. You have several options for defining budgets:

  • By selecting specific categories (recommended)
  • By selecting specific accounts
  • By selecting labels you have defined

Note - We recommend setting up budgets so they do not overlap (for example, do not include the same category in multiple different budgets) - this will make working with statistics easier for you and prevent misunderstandings

What do individual budgets display? 

  • They display 2 main tabs (Overview and Transactions)

    • Overview displays:

      • Graphic and numerical expression of budgets:
        • Spent = How much you have spent so far for the given budget
        • Remaining (in default currency) = Budget - Spent. I.e., how much money we have left that we can use in the given budget (for planned or other expenses)
        • Predicted expenses = Estimate of how much we will spend for the entire period of the given budget. It consists of 3 parts:
          • Spent: How much we have already spent to date
          • Planned payments: Sum of planned payments for the given budget
          • Other predicted expenses: Calculated as the average of expenses for the given budget that we spent in previous periods
        • Expected balance = Budget - Predicted expenses
    • Widgets:
      • Expenses breakdown: in which categories we spent how much. If we select a specific category, we see by what % we spent more or less in that category compared to the same period in the past
      • Spending trend: Comparison with the five previous periods
      • Expected expenses: Detailed view of the given period
      • Upcoming planned payments: Planned payments that have not yet been paid for the given period

  • Transactions display:

    • Individual transactions for the given budget. We can sort transactions by date/amount and search them full-text.

What does the overview of all budgets display?

  • Spent (%)
    • what % we have already spent for a specific budget (at the top, it also shows Total expenses, and at the bottom, Estimated expenses at the end - these are sums for all budgets)
  • Remaining (in default currency)
    • how much money in the default currency is left to spend (at the top, it shows Total remaining to spend, and at the bottom, it shows Expected balance at the end: these are sums for all budgets)

Note: Displayed also graphically and in color (green - budget okay, orange - risk of overspending, red - budget exceeded)

How to create a budget

You can create a budget in a few taps. Budgets use your main currency. When you pick a Category (and, if you want, a Label), every record with that Category and Label counts toward the budget.

Android

  1. Tap the menu button "≡" in the top left.
  2. Tap Budgets.
  3. Tap the + button in the bottom right.
  4. Fill in the details:
    • Name – Give your budget a name.
    • Period – Choose how long the budget lasts (for example, monthly).
    • Amount – Enter your spending limit.
    • Categories – Choose which categories this budget should watch.
    • Account – Optional: use this budget for one account only.
    • Labels – Optional: track only records with a certain label.
    • Notifications – Get an alert if you overspend or are close to it.
  5. Tap Save in the top right.

Tip: You can change which day the month starts on. Go to Main Menu → Settings → Advanced Settings → Initial day of the month. (Not available on iOS.)

iOS

  1. Tap Planning in the bottom left.
  2. Tap Budgets.
  3. Tap the + button in the top right.
  4. Fill in the details:
    • Amount – Enter your spending limit.
    • Budget Name – Give your budget a name.
    • Period – Choose how long the budget lasts.
    • Categories – Choose which categories this budget should watch.
    • Account – Optional: use this budget for one account only.
    • Labels – Optional: track only records with a certain label.
    • Notifications – Get an in-app alert if you overspend or are close to it.
  5. Tap Save.

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