Dashboard
The Budget tab is your home screen. It tells you at a glance whether your budget needs attention, summarises where your money is going and lists every group and category with what's still available.
Budget health check
The Budget health check card at the top checks your budget for four things. Each line shows a short message, and once it's fine it's crossed out with a tick:
| Line | When it shows a warning | Tap the arrow to… |
|---|---|---|
| Ready to allocate | "You have $1,000.00 left to allocate to your categories": money that hasn't been given a job yet. | Open Allocation suggestions, which lists overspending, upcoming transactions and targets to fund. |
| Overspent | "$200.00 overspent in your categories. Review and adjust to stay on track": one or more categories are below zero. | Open Overspent categories. See Overspending. |
| Overallocation | "Your category allocations exceed your combined available account balances by $200.00" (zero-based budgets) or "…exceed your entered income by…" (classic budgets and the simple tracker). | Open the Allocation history to see which change caused it. The ? button explains what overallocation is. See Overallocation. |
| Pending reconciliation | "3 transactions to reconcile": imported transactions waiting for you to review them. | Open Pending reconciliation. |
When there's money left to allocate, the line also has a lightbulb button: Auto-allocation. It opens Auto allocation, which can fund your categories in one go.
When everything is fine, the card says Everything is settled up.
Collapse and pin the health check
- Collapse: tap the card to collapse or expand it. Collapsed, it shows only the most important warning plus "Expand to view 2 more issues", or Everything is settled up.
- Pin: tap the pin icon in the card's header (or open the ⋮ menu at the top right and choose Pin health check) to keep the health check at the top of the screen while you scroll through your categories.
- Hide it when all is well: in More › Settings › Budget Display, turn off Budget health check to hide the card when nothing needs attention.
Fix warnings as soon as they appear. While the budget is overspent or overallocated, the "available" numbers aren't telling you the whole truth.
Budget summary
The Budget summary card shows how much you've spent of what you've allocated this month, as a progress bar ("Spent / Allocated"). Below it, swipe left and right through more views:
- Top allocations
- Safe to spend today: how much you can spend each day until the month ends. See Safe to spend today.
- Top spending
- Allocation vs spending
- Spending comparison
- Recent spending
- Quick cash flow: this month's income, expenses and targets, with your savings rate under it
- Budget insights
- Historical top spending and Historical cash flow
Some views have a switch of their own in their header:
- Top allocations and Top spending: the compass button (Category natures) switches the chart to your category natures, as Category nature allocations or Category nature spending. Tap it again to go back to categories.
- Allocation vs spending: the toggle button (Include carryover) adds or leaves out the Carried over amount from earlier months. Left out, Carried over is struck through and the Balance counts only this month's allocations. You can also tap the amounts to switch.
Tap the card to collapse or expand it. The eye button in its header turns the Available funds day indicator on or off.
Some of these views are part of Pro. To choose which views appear and in what order, open the ⋮ menu and choose Customize interface (reordering is a Pro feature). To hide the whole card, turn off Show budget summary in More › Settings › Budget Display.
Groups and categories
Below the cards come your category groups. Each group header shows:
- the group name with the share of your total allocation it takes, for example Needs (53%);
- on the right, the total still Available in the group's categories (Total to repay for a debt repayment group, Total for income).
Tap a group header to collapse or expand it. The ⋮ menu also has Collapse groups, Expand groups and Hide zero balance categories.
Each category shows how much you've allocated ("$800.00 allocated", or "$1,600.00 allocated of $1,800.00" when it has a target) and, on the right, the amount still available. To see the spent amount too, turn on Show category spent amount in More › Settings › Budget Display.
Tap a category to allocate money, reallocate it, see its transactions or open its settings. See Allocate money to a category. Swipe a category to the right to see its transactions, or to the left to add a transaction to it (Swipe shortcuts).
Category icons
Small icons next to a category's name tell you more about it: it has a target (the icon shows the due day or weekday when the target has one), an upcoming transaction, a reminder, a note or linked accounts. An icon turns grey once that item is taken care of, for example when an upcoming transaction is already funded.
Category colours
The colour of the available amount tells you how the category is doing:
- Positive colour (blue in the default scheme): the category is funded and on track.
- Warning colour (orange): a target isn't fully funded yet, or an upcoming payment isn't covered.
- Negative colour (red): the category is overspent and below zero. Cover it from Ready to allocate or another category.
- Grey: nothing allocated and nothing available.
You can change these colours, the category progress indicator and the icon style. See Color scheme, Category visuals and Home customization.
Look at another month
The month you're looking at is shown at the top of the Budget tab, above your budget's name. To go to another month:
-
Tap the month at the top of the screen.
-
Use the arrows to change the year, then tap a month. The month you're looking at is highlighted (in your scheme's positive colour when it's the current month, in its warning colour otherwise), and past months are dimmed.
The whole tab switches to that month: allocations, spending, available amounts and the health check. You can plan ahead by allocating in a future month, or look back at a past one. Picking a month the budget hasn't used before sets it up for you.
While you're not on the current month, a banner above your groups says "The selected period is not the current month." Tap Go to current month to come back.
To make it even more obvious, turn on Dim non-current months in More › Settings, under Navigation & Layout (see Other settings).
Tips for using the dashboard
- Start with the health check. Allocate what's left, then clear overspending and overallocation.
- Fund needs first. When you have money to allocate, cover essentials and debt repayments before discretionary spending.
- Watch the colours. Orange and red are your cue to act before a small gap becomes a big one.