Budgets and categories in Cashfulness: create, read and renew a budget
In short
A budget in Cashfulness is a pact with yourself: for these things, this amount, over this period. You create it in two steps, on a single account or on a category, which is a group of accounts. Then you read it by comparing two bars, how much you've spent and how much time has gone by, and the detail tells you how much you can spend per day from now to the end. When it expires, no budget renews itself: you decide.
This page goes with lesson 6 of the free video course "Cashfulness step by step". The steps are in the same order as the video.
Watch the lesson
The lesson lasts just over five minutes.
First, one word: category
In many apps a category is a label on a purchase. Not in Cashfulness: your supermarket shopping goes into an expense account, as you saw in lesson 3. Categories are something else: groups of accounts, used for budgets and reports. For example, a Home category can bring together Mortgage, Bills and Maintenance. Cashfulness also has Labels, which behave just like labels, but that's a topic for another time.
Where to find it
- On a computer: sidebar, Balance section, Budget.
- On a phone: under Tools.
- Your main budgets also show up on the home page, in the Your budgets card.
The list has three filters: Active, Expired, All.
Creating a budget, step by step
- Press New budget. The Type & target step opens.
- Under Budget type choose one of the four types: Expense, Income (bring in at least a certain sum), Wealth (grow it) or Debt (cut it). Wealth and Debt need a paid plan.
- Under Target perimeter choose Single account, for example fuel, or Category, which adds up several accounts.
- If the category doesn't exist yet, press Create new category: type the Category name and tick the Accounts to include, for example Supermarket and Hardware store. Then Create category and Next.
- In the Amount & period step, type the Amount and choose the Frequency: Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly or Custom. The frequency sets the dates by itself; you can adjust them if you like.
- Press Create budget. Budget created appears.
Reading a budget
The trick is to compare two bars: how much of the budget you've used and how much of the period has passed. Half the budget used by mid-month means you're on track. Eighty per cent gone by the 15th? Better to know on the 15th than on the 31st.
Every budget carries a status label: On track, Above plan, Below plan, Not started, Expired. It's information, not an alarm. If you have lots of budgets, leave List order on By priority: the ones that need attention come first.
Open a budget and Budget Detail appears:
- How it's going: the two bars, Spent and Time elapsed, and a sentence with the two percentages.
- At this pace: where you'll end up at the end of the period if you carry on like this. It doesn't appear if the budget has expired or the period has only just started.
- Just below, the number you need right now: "spend at most" a given amount per day from now on.
- Numbers and, at the bottom, Expenses in this period, one by one, each opening with a click.
When it expires
A week before the end, a notice appears on the Budget page: the budget is about to expire. There are two buttons, Renew and Don't renew. Renew opens Renew budget, with the Amount already filled in and editable, and creates the budget again for the next period. If you do nothing, the budget doesn't renew: a pact is renewed with your eyes open.
If you don't know where to start
From the list of budgets, Choose a template offers three: Monthly Base Budget, Family Budget and the 50/30/20 Rule, which splits your income between needs, wants and savings. The template gives you the structure; you type in the amounts.
The Categories screen
It's under Tools, Categories. At the top are the four Pillars, already set up: Liquidity, Emergencies, Planned expenses, Long run. Below, under Your categories, are the ones you've created: open one and, in Linked accounts, use Add accounts, or remove one. Removing an account from a category doesn't touch the transactions: you only lose the grouping.
Common mistakes
- A category with no accounts. The app lets you create it, but a budget on that category will always stay at zero. Tick at least one account.
- Looking for the category on the purchase. The transaction goes into the expense account; the category groups accounts, not transactions.
- Reading only one bar. Seventy per cent spent is a lot on the 10th and little on the 28th: always look at the time elapsed too.
- Expecting automatic renewal. Without Renew, next month that budget isn't there.
Frequently asked questions
Does a budget renew itself when it expires?
No. A week before the end the app shows a notice with two buttons, Renew and Don't renew. If you choose Renew, the budget is created again for the next period and you can change the amount.
If I remove an account from a category, do I lose the transactions?
No. The transactions stay where they are. You only lose the grouping: from then on, that account no longer counts towards the category's budget.
How many budgets can I have?
It depends on your plan: three active monthly budgets on the starting plan, five with Premium, unlimited with Ultra. Quarterly, yearly and custom budgets don't count towards the limit. Plans are the subject of lesson 10.
In the manual
All the details are in the Budgets and Categories chapter of the user manual, including the section on Categories and Pillars.
The previous lesson
Lesson 5 · Recurring entries and payments due. What repeats, you set up once; what falls due, you see in advance.
The next lesson
Lesson 7 · The Balance Sheet and the Income Statement in Cashfulness. The two reports that really matter: a photograph of what you own and what you owe, and a film of what came in and what went out.
Vittorio Giusti is an economist and psychologist, and he built Cashfulness.