Using the Budget page
See all of your budgeted categories and a budget summary in one place. The Budget page is your hub for creating and understanding your budgeted categories⚡️
In this user guide
Budget page overview
On the Budget page, you can:
- Create new budgets
- Make changes to existing budgets
Compare your overall earning and
spending
using the budget summary
- View the current budget for a category
- View the total budget for a category based on specific dates
The Budget page has two main sections to help you understand your budget in PocketSmith
- The overall budget summary at the top of the page
- Your individual budgeted categories further down the page
Both of these sections can be viewed and analyzed independently of each other, however, they also relate to each other, and you can use both sections together to get a thorough grasp of your earning and spending!
The Total Budget Summary section
The Total Budget Summary takes into account your overall earning and spending budgets, presenting the full sum of all of your budgeted categories for the date period selected.
By default, the totals at the top of the page will be based on all budgets that occur in the current calendar month. However, you can change these dates to look at past dates! Learn more about this below.
Budgeted categories section
Whereas your individual budgeted categories, further down the page, show information based on each category's budget and its current budget period. We go into more detail about this below.
Understanding your budget summary
The budget summary at the top of the page is designed to give you an overview of all of your earning and spending budgets!
The date picker
At the top of the summary, you can use the date picker to choose a date range you'd like the Total Budget Aummary to be based on. You can choose from one of the provided options or select Custom Range and enter a specific date range. To apply a new date range, click APPLY.
Note
The date range will only apply to the earning and spending bars in the Budget Summary and not your individual budget categories further down the page unless 'Use total budget summary date range for budget amount analysis' is ticked. When this option isn't ticked, your budgeted categories further down the page will be based on the current budget period for that category.
Learn more about this option here: Applying the budget summary date range to the entire page
Include rollover
If you are using our beta Rollover feature, you can choose whether you want rollover amounts to be included in the Total Budget Summary by ticking or unticking Including rollover
This option will only show if you are a beta user and have enabled rollover for a category. This guide has more details about rollover: Rollover budgeting.
Your earning and spending bars
There are two bars in the budget summary - one represents your total income budgets and actual transactions, and the other represents your total expense budgets and actual transactions.
- The grey background of the bars represents the total budgeted figure for either your earning or spending
- The bars will fill up with green (income/earning) or red (expense/spending) as you earn or spend money
- If you have budgeted to earn more than you have budgeted to spend, a surplus section will show on the spending bar
- If you have budgeted to spend more than you have budgeted to earn, a deficit section will show on the earnings bar
- You can click on either bar to see a breakdown of your budgeted versus actual earned or spent amounts, along with how you're tracking
- We'll let you know if you're above or below target for your income, or whether you have any leftover or you've overspent in your expense budget
Note
Transfer transactions (any transaction in a transfer category or a transaction in a non-transfer category that is marked as a transfer) are not included in your actual earning and spending figures in the budget summary. Transfer budgets are also excluded from your budgeted figures in the budget summary.
Understanding your budget categories
Default behavior
By default, the information you'll see in the budget bars beside each of your categories is based on the current budget period for the category.
For example:
You have a repeating fortnightly expense budget for your 🍎 Groceries category of $200. This budget was started on October 1.
- The first budget period will run from October 1 - October 14
- The second budget period will run from October 15 - October 28
- The third budget period will run from October 29 - November 11
If you view this budgeted category within the Budget page on October 17, the budget information that will be displayed within the budget bars will be based on the second budget period from October 15 - October 28.
Note
You can change the period shown for each category so that it matches the date range in your Total Budget Summary - you can see more about this below, in the section: Applying the budget summary date range to the entire page
Budget types
PocketSmith uses different icons to show different budget types.
- Budget - a regular budget
- Bill or scheduled income - a category set up as a bill or a scheduled income(see user guide: Bill and scheduled income categories)
- Transfer - a category that is set up as a transfer (see user guide: Dealing with transfers in PocketSmith)
- Unbudgeted category - a category that does not have a budget
Terminology and features on the budget bars
There are many different variables that can affect how a budget category is displayed. We've made sure to consider as much as possible so you can see an accurate representation of your budgeted earning and spending. Here are some common scenarios you might notice alongside your budget categories.
Budget total
The full budgeted amount and period will be displayed on the far right of the category row. For example, this Entertainment budget is set up as $332 / month:
Income budgets will show the full budgeted amount and period in green. For example, this Salary and Wages income budget is set up as $3,295 / month:
Expense budget
The budget bar will fill up as you spend money within an expense budget. For example, $284 has been spent out of a total budget of $554 / month for this Groceries budget. There is $270 left to spend:
Income budget
The budget bar will fill up as you earn money against an income budget. For example, $1,488 has been earned out of a total budget of $3,295 / month for this Salary and Wages income budget. There is $1,807 to go:
Transfer budget
The budget bar will fill up as money is transferred from one account to another. For example, $310 has been transferred out of a total of $332 / month for this Repay Credit Card budget. There is $22 pending that is still budgeted to be transferred:
Exceeding an expense budget
If you spend more than you budgeted, the budget bar will be adjusted to represent your total spending and any spending over budget will be displayed in red. For example, $615 has been spent out of a total Entertainment budget of $332 / month. The budget bar shows that $283 has been overspent:
Exceeding an income budget
If you earn more than you budgeted, the budget bar will be adjusted to represent your total earnings and any earning over budget will be shown. For example, $1,488 has been earned out of a total Salary and Wages budget of $500 / 2 weeks. The budget bar shows that $988 has been earned above target:
Alerts
The budget bar will display an ! icon when you're close to reaching the budgeted amount:
Timeframe for each budget
A pointer will indicate how far through the budget period you are based on the current budget period being viewed:
Transactions from each budget category
The number of transactions assigned to a category within the period of the row will be displayed to the right of the category name. You can click on this number to quickly view the transactions in a pop-up and then to also choose the option VIEW ON THE TRANSACTIONS PAGE.
Unbudgeted categories
All of your categories are displayed on the Budget page regardless of whether they have a budget set up or not. This makes it easy for you to create a new budget straight from the Budget page.
- Un-budgeted categories are represented with a folder icon
- Click Start to create a new budget
- The figure displayed on the far right of the category row reflects the average spending or earning in that category (as opposed to a budgeted category, where the figure reflects the budgeted amount)
Applying the budget summary date range to the entire page
If you'd like to analyze your individual budget categories based on the date range chosen for the Total Budget Summary, you can do this by ticking 'Use total budget summary date range for budget amount analysis'
How the budget summary date range is applied to your individual budget categories:
Regular (non-bill) categories
- PocketSmith will evenly distribute the budget for regular categories over the entire budget period when 'Use total budget summary date range for budget amount analysis' is selected
- What this means is if a budget period only partially fits into the date range being displayed, the budgeted amount calculated will include just the portion of the budget period that is within this range
Example
John has a $90 expense budget for his 🍬 Treats category that runs from November 1 - November 30. However, John has set his Budget Summary date range to show from November 1 - November 14 and has ticked 'Use total budget summary date range for budget amount analysis'.
Because PocketSmith will evenly distribute this $90 budget across November 1 - November 30, once John has decided to apply the date range of November 1 - November 14 to the entire Budget page, the budgeted amount showing beside his 🍬 Treats category will only be for $42.
Bill and scheduled income categories
- PocketSmith will treat bill or scheduled income category budgets as whole amounts that occur on the day the budget starts (or repeats)
- Repeating bill or scheduled income budgets are not distributed over the budget period from the budget start date to the next repeat date
Example
Sally has a budget of $90 for one of her bill categories called 🛡Insurance. She started this budget on November 1 and it is set to repeat every three months. Sally sets the budget summary date range to show from November 1 - November 14 and has ticked 'Use total budget summary date range for budget amount analysis'
PocketSmith will not distribute this budget amount of $90 across that three-month period, and, instead, only considers the bill to take place on November 1st (and then again on the date three months later). So once Sally has decided to apply the date range of November 1 - November 14 to the entire Budget page, the budgeted amount showing beside the 🛡 Insurance category will be the full $90.
Roll-up: parent and sub-categories
If you've created parent and sub-categories you can analyze your budgets in terms of individual sub-categories, or you can roll them up to see budget analysis on a parent category.
Just click on the arrow at the end of the row to roll-up the total of the sub-category budgets into a parent budget.
The roll-up budget will display alongside the parent category and you will still be able to view the individual sub-category totals.
Display options
You can use the column titles on the Budget page to change the order your categories are displayed. By default, the category order on this page will be based on the category order from the Categories page (see user guide: Change the category order).
Click on any of the column titles to change the display order accordingly.
- Category - Allows you to view in the default category order, alphabetically or reverse alphabetically.
- Items - View budgets according to the number of transactions assigned to them. Choose to view in ascending or descending order.
- Budget - This option orders budget categories according to the portion of the budget that has been spent or earned. Choose to view from greatest portion spent/earned to least, or vice versa.
- Amount - View budgets according to the amount that has been budgeted. You can view these in ascending or descending order. If viewed in ascending order, your income budgets will be listed after your expense budgets. They will be displayed first if viewed in descending order.