Using the workbook
Budgeting
Setting spending limits by category, sub-category, account or member, choosing a period and an alert threshold, and what each status and the monthly rollover mean.
On this page
The 🐷 Budgeting tab lets you set a spending limit and see how much of it you've used. Spending comes from the expenses on your Transactions tab, so budgets update by themselves.
| Column | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Budget Name | A name you recognise, for example Groceries. |
| Budget Type | What the budget watches: Category, Sub-category, Account or Member. |
| Target | The specific category, sub-category, account or member. The dropdown follows the Budget Type. |
| Period Type | Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly or Custom. |
| Start Date / End Date | Only for Custom periods. For the other types, they are filled in for you. |
| Amount | The spending limit for one period. |
| Spent (auto) | Expenses that match the target in the current period. |
| Remaining (auto) | Amount minus spent. |
| % Used (auto) | Spent as a percentage of the amount. It can go above 100%. |
| Status (auto) | See Statuses. |
| Alert Threshold | The percentage used at which the budget turns to warning, for example 80%. |
| Owner | The household member the budget belongs to. |
| Is Active | Tick to use the budget; untick to pause it. |
A budget adds up the expenses (not income, not transfers) in its period that match its target:
- Category — every expense in that category, for example all of
🏠 Living Expenses. - Sub-category — every expense with that sub-category, for example
Groceries. - Account — every expense paid from that account.
- Member — every expense whose Owner is that member.
- Monthly — the current calendar month.
- Quarterly — the current quarter of your fiscal year.
- Yearly — the current fiscal year.
- Custom — from Start Date to End Date, which you enter.
Quarters and years start from the Fiscal start month you chose during setup (January unless you changed it). A transaction counts if it is dated anywhere on the first day through the last day of the period.
The alert threshold is the percentage of the budget at which you want a heads-up. The default is 80%. It must be between 0 and 100%.
- 🟢 Good — you've used less than the alert threshold.
- 🟡 Warning — you've reached the alert threshold.
- 🔴 Over — you've spent the whole amount or more.
- ⚪ Inactive — Is Active is unticked, or today is outside the budget's period.
Budgets in warning or over show up on the sidebar's Home screen (for example 1 budget needs attention), in the Dashboard's commitments and in the sidebar's Analytics under Budget health.
- In the sidebar, select More, then Budgets. The Budgeting tab opens too.
- Select + Add budget.
- Fill in Budget name, Budget type, Target, Period type, the amount, Alert threshold (%), Owner and Active. For a custom period, also fill in Start date (custom only) and End date (custom only).
- Select Save.
On the 1st of every month, early in the morning, MonetrixOS rolls your active budgets over to the new month:
- it saves a snapshot of each active budget to the Budget History tab;
- each budget starts again from its full amount. Unspent money doesn't carry over to the next period.
This happens automatically; see Automation schedule. The Budgets screen in the sidebar also has a Rollover button, for when the automatic run was missed.