The Income & Expense report overview guide
This overview guide contains a breakdown of all the key features of the Income and Expense report. You can also find smaller, specific guides in the Income & Expense collection if you are looking for something in particular.
Main areas of the Income & Expense report
Highlighted here are the key areas of the Income & Expense report:
- Date range - Choose the period you want to report on
- Net totals - Shows the total income less expense, for both budgeted and actual figures, and the difference between them. The Net totals appear at the top of the report, within a fixed header.
- Budgeted column - Shows budgeted amounts
- Actual column - Shows actual amounts earned or spent
- Difference column - The difference between your budgeted and actual figures
- Income totals - Displays the total income, for budgeted and actual amounts and the difference between them
- Expense totals - Displays the total expense, for budgeted and actual amounts and the difference between them
- Alerts - If you have overspent in a category, a red line is displayed to the far left beside the category. This allows you to easily identify any areas of overspending for the period displayed
Income & Expense report options
Customise the Income & Expense report to reflect the particular information you would like to report on.
Some options you can change including:
- Changing the date range
- Selecting specific accounts
- Including or excluding transfer transactions
- Nest categories
You can also save custom report configurations, allowing you to revisit them with a click! 🙌
Changing the date range
The date picker allows you to select the date range to be displayed on the Income & Expense report.
To change the date, click on the date range displayed in the toolbar and select from any of the default values or enter a custom range using the drop-down menu.
Selecting the account you'd like to view
The side panel allows you to choose which accounts you include in the Income & Expense Statement. Any accounts with a green tick are included in the current report being viewed. Untick or tick to make changes to your selection.
Note
When viewing a single account or selection of accounts, the category totals displayed will only include transactions that have occurred within the selected account(s).
Budgeted figures will only show for a category if the budget has been assigned to the account, or one of the accounts, being viewed.
To learn more about budgets in PocketSmith, please see: Creating a new budget
Including or excluding transfers
Use the transfers toggle to include or exclude transfer transactions from the report.
Any transactions marked as transfers or within transfer categories will be included or excluded depending on the option selected here.
For more on transfer transactions, see: Dealing with transfers in PocketSmith.
Nest sub-categories under parent categories
Use the Nest categories toggle to have sub-categories nested under their parent category in the report.
Expanding the sub-categories
You can hide and unhide the sub-categories for a parent category by clicking the arrow to the left of a parent category.
Rolling up the sub-categories
To roll-up the amounts for the sub-categories into the parent category, click the up icon on the right of the table
Nesting and roll-up when exporting the report
The nest categories and roll-up options selected are taken into consideration when exporting the report.
Show percentage of total
If you'd like to view the percentage that a category has contributed to your total earning or spending, you can enable the 'Show percentage of total' toggle.
This option displays the percentage of total amount spent/earned that a category is responsible for, for both budgeted and actual amounts.
Include rollover
These options 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.
No rollover options toggled:
- No rollover amounts are included
These toggles allow you to choose if the rollover amounts are included in the amounts within this report.
Budget includes rollover toggled on:
- Budgeted amount changed to take rollover into account
- Rollover amount taken into account in the Difference column
Difference includes rollover toggled on:
- Budgeted amount not changed
- Rollover amount taken into account in the Difference column
Filtering by category
If you need to isolate a category quickly, you can use the 'Filter categories' tool at the top right of the report.
Simply type in the category name, and the report will highlight results for this category:
Saved Income & Expense reports
Save custom configurations of your Income & Expense report so that you can revisit your favourite reports with a click! 🙌
All configuration options, including account selections, hiding certain categories, date ranges and toggle options, are saved when you choose to save a report.
Save a new report
- Go to the Income & Expense report (Reports > Income & Expense)
- Configure the report as needed
- Click Add to your reports from the toolbar
- Enter a name for the saved report and click SAVE
The saved report will now show in the sidebar under Your Reports
Save changes to an existing saved report
- Click on a saved report within Your reports on the Income & Expense report sidebar
- Configure the report as needed
- Click SAVE CHANGES at the top
Delete a saved report
- Find the saved report you want to delete within Your reports on the Income & Expense report sidebar
- Hover on the saved report name and click the X icon on the right side
- Confirm that you want to delete this saved report
- The saved report will no longer show in the sidebar
Hide categories from saved reports
Easily hide categories from your saved Income & Expense reports for a completely custom view of your finances. For all the details, check out Options for hiding or restoring categories
Exporting and printing for the Income & Expense report
To see the export options in the Income & Expense report, hover over Export in the toolbar, choose the report you want to download, or select the print option.
The Income & Expense report has the following exports:
Income & Expense Statement
You can download the report as a spreadsheet in Excel (XLSX) or Generic (CSV) format. This will allow you to open this report with spreadsheet software such as Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets.
This export has the same layout as the Income & Expense report, including the Nest categories and roll-up options.
Transaction report
This option generates an Excel (XLSX) or Generic (CSV) file that lists all of the individual transactions that contribute to the Income & Expense report, arranged into their categories.
This export is designed for users in Australia who may need this information to do their annual Australian taxes.
A shortcut to print or download a PDF version of the report using your browser's print feature.
For more details about printing in PocketSmith, see this guide: Printing pages and reports.
The tooltip
When viewing the Income & Expense Report on screen, a tooltip i icon may be visible if there is something about the total to be aware of.
If it shows, hover over the tooltip i icon in the total rows to see how the Total Expenses and Total Income have been calculated.
This informs you how many of your sub-categories have been excluded from the sum total due to roll-up and being included in a parent category.
The exports do not include the tooltip. Instead, these will exclude any rolled-up sub-categories to prevent double-counting.
Exporting only parent categories
If you have the Nest categories option toggled on, and the roll-up of the sub-categories is selected:
- only the parent category totals are exported
- the sub-categories will not be exported
For example
The Rent and Utilities sub-categories are rolled-up to the Household parent category, and the Groceries and Cafes sub-categories are rolled-up to the Food parent category.
The export contains the Household parent category and the Food parent category, but none of the sub-categories.
Exporting nested sub-categories with only sub-category amounts
If you have the Nest categories option toggled on and roll-up of sub-categories is not selected only the sub-category totals are exported
When the Rent and Utilities sub-categories are not rolled-up to the Household parent category, and the Groceries and Cafes sub-categories are not rolled-up to the Food parent category. The Statement appears on the screen as follows:
The export contains the Household parent category and the Food parent category, but none of the sub-categories.
The sub-categories are indicated in the export by the '>' character.
Exporting only sub-categories
When the Nest categories option is toggled off the export is consistent with the on-screen report
Income & Expense report: Frequently asked questions
How do I hide specific categories from the report?
Hide a category from your Income & Expense report by navigating to the category you would like to hide, and hovering over the far right of the category row. Click on the three-dot menu, and then the crossed eye icon. For more details, and to find out how to restore hidden categories, see: Hiding or restoring a category on the Income & Expense report
Why is there a category missing from the Income & Expense report that I did not hide?
Transfer categories are automatically hidden from the Income & Expense report. You can learn more about transfer categories here: Removing transfer categories from different reports and pages in PocketSmith
What are the benefits of using an expense tracker?
Expense tracking is a good way to stay on top of how much is going in and out of your accounts. Generating an income and expense report can give you a much better idea of your monthly expenses, so you don’t have to check each bank account statement individually, and you can categorize expenses to help make your personal budget more accurate. Expense report accounting plays an important role in personal finance, which is why it is a popular feature in budgeting apps.
Will this help me to meet my financial goals?
By keeping a close eye on your monthly income, budgeted spending, and actual personal expenses, you can get a clearer picture of your spending habits, including your credit card purchases. This could help you to improve your money management and get your finances in order, which can have knock-on benefits when it comes to saving or improving your credit score. If you have a household budget or monthly budget, this can make it easier to keep on track.
Can this help me to save money?
If you have specific savings goals, perhaps for an emergency fund or for another purpose, tracking your expenses may help you to reduce spending and save more.
Can I use this for my small business budgeting?
Yes, many of our customers use this feature for managing both their personal finances and their business expenses. So if you are a freelancer or self-employed and you need a budget to track your expenses, you may find it useful.