If you don't want to bring any transactions into PocketSmith, you can still manage your finances by setting up manual balances and using the budget and forecast features.
Overview
You can create budget events on the Calendar page to plan your finances and then simply adjust the budget events for past dates to match your actual transactions outside PocketSmith.
To do this, you will first need to create scenario-only accounts. A scenario-only account is a manual account, which uses the 'Scenario balance' option. The balance of these accounts is not based on transactions but on budget events in the Calendar.
The process for setting up a scenario-only account is different depending on whether you are a brand new PocketSmith user or if you have previously set up bank accounts within your PocketSmith account:
- If your PocketSmith account is brand new and empty (i.e. with only the onboarding checklist is available), you can start here: Creating a 'scenario-only' account by avoiding the checklist.
- If you have previously had accounts set up within PocketSmith, start here: Creating a scenario-only account from the Account Summary page
Creating a 'scenario-only' account and avoiding the checklist
When creating a new PocketSmith account, your checklist asks you to either Connect bank feed accounts, Move from another app, or Upload your bank files.
However, to create an account that doesn't have transactions at all, you will bypass this and instead use the steps below.
Bypassing the checklist to create a manual account
- Head to the Account Summary (Manage > Account Summary) page.
- Click + New bank.
- Select Accounts from a file import and then click Save (don't worry, you won't need to import bank files!)
- Create a new account at the bank you just added. Add details such as the Account name, the Currency, the Opening balance, Date and the Account type, then click Save and continue
PocketSmith will pop open an import bank file tab but you can quit out of this:
Changing the balance option to Scenario-only
A manual account has now been created, but the balance option still needs to be changed to Scenario-only.
- To do this, click MANAGE ACCOUNT, and select Balances from the menu that appears
- In the Use Scenario Balance section tick Current scenario balance, then click Update balances
Manually add a dummy transaction to your account
To begin using the calendar only, you'll need to first create a dummy transaction in your scenario only account (which can later be deleted). This will give you access to the Transactions page and the Calendar page, along with other areas of PocketSmith.
If you have successfully created an empty account from the Checklist, it's likely that you do not have access to the Transactions page in your menu bar yet. Follow the steps below to add a transaction.
- Select MANAGE ACCOUNT on the account you have just created
- Select Manual input
- Enter a dummy transaction, then click Save all transactions
Creating a scenario-only account from the Account Summary page
If you have already had accounts set up in PocketSmith, you can easily create a new scenario-only account from the Account Summary page.
- Head to Accounts > Account Summary
- Click New offline account > Scenario only and select the appropriate bank
- Add details such as the Account name, the Currency, the Opening balance, and Date.
- Then click Save and continue
Using Budgets on the Calendar for scenario-only accounts
Once you have created your scenario-only account, you can begin adding budgets to reflect your earning and spending. After adding the budgets, you can see how these budgets will affect your future finances by checking the account balance displayed on any single day in the future.
Create repeating budgets to represent regular/recurring earning and spending such as salary, rent, or utilities. Or add one-off budgets to represent any irregular income or expenses.
If you end up spending more or less than you budgeted for, you can easily edit a budget event to reflect this. For more detail on budgets on the calendar, take a look at the following user guides:
Note
If you would prefer to manually enter transactions instead of only using budget events on the Calendar, we've got all the details here: Using PocketSmith without bank feeds or bank files