Using budgets instead of future-dated transactions

If you want to monitor an upcoming income or expense, avoid adding it as a future-dated transaction. Instead, create a budget for it.

Transactions in PocketSmith are meant for income and expenses that have already happened (actuals), while budgets are used for planning your future income and expenses (forecast).

You can learn how to create budgets with this guide: Creating a new budget.

Why you should add a budget

Seeing your forecasted account balance

Budgets in PocketSmith are for upcoming income and expenses and are used to forecast the balances of your accounts.

So, if you want to add a future-dated transaction to see what your account balance will be on that date, then you can do this with a budget and the forecast.

If you would like to learn more about how to see your forecasted account balance with budgets, follow this guide: Using the Calendar and Forecast graph.

Reports aren't designed for future transactions

The reports and dashboard widgets in PocketSmith are designed for transactions that have occurred, so the transactions have a today's date or have a date in the past.

If you enter a transaction with a date in the future, the reports may not show accurately or be useful.