packages/docs/docs/experimental/budget-automation.md
:::warning
All functionality described here may not be available in the latest stable release. See Experimental Features for instructions to enable experimental features. Use the nightly images for the latest implementation.
:::
Budget automations allow you to automate your budgeting step every month. With budget automations, there is no need to manually fill in each category each month. With one click you can fill in your entire budget based on the automations you have added. At the end of the month, another click can clean up what’s leftover!
Here are a few examples of what you can do, all with a single click!
For any given category, there is one source of truth for Budget automations, either the UI or the notes, not both.
If you have a notes template, the first time you open the UI (pie chart icon) you will be presented with migration automation(s). Click to show the original notes templates at the top of the form for comparison.
Make any changes you feel are needed, then Save the form to complete the migration. The notes can now be deleted. Once you have migrated to UI based automations, adding new ones to the notes will no longer work. To revert back to using notes, you'll need to "Unmigrate" from the bottom left of the UI modal.
Click on the pie chart icon that appears when you hover over a category name.
From the opening view, you can
A. Add a new budget automation
B. Add a long-term goal
C. Add month-end cleanup to the category
:::info Balance caps only take effect once another automation is contributing funds to the category. :::
You can have multiple automations!
:::tip The projected amount to be budgeted will be shown in the top right of the automation form. This will update with the category’s automations. :::
:::tip
Don't forget to Save your work when you are finished adding and editing automations.
:::
Most of the budget automations will have a priority field that you can use to set the order in which the automations are run, from lowest to highest.
:::warning
:::tip When you first start using priorities, space them 10 numbers apart so you have room to insert additional priorities later. :::
Every automation can have their own note. This is handy; you can jot down what you are trying to accomplish with the automation. For example, with a long-term goal, you could note when you are hoping to reach it and what you are hoping to purchase.
When you hover over a category automation icon (pie chart), you will see all of the automations present and the notes associated with them.
Here are two examples:
General budget automations:
Dining out budget automations:
This is the simplest type of automation. The amount (A) will be budgeted at the cadence you choose (B & C) with the starting date you set (D).
:::info For weeks or days, the entire month will be budgeted based on the number of weeks/days in that month.
For weeks, the number of weeks in a month is based on the weekday of your start date. Our start date above is on a Saturday. There are 5 Saturdays in May 2026, so the automation projects a budget of 250.00. :::
:::tip You can give different priorities to multiple Fixed amount automations in the same category and they will be respected when the budget fills.
This blog post using note templates from 2024 goes into this in more detail. :::
Use this automation to save up the desired amount (A) by a specific month (B).
The automation determines how much to budget each month to meet your savings goal. If you add or remove funds along the way, it recalculates the remaining monthly amounts so you still reach your target on time.
Options:
:::warning All Save by date automations in the same category must have the same priority. :::
This automation budgets based on a schedule previously added to actual.
Pick a schedule (A) and a mode (B). See below for a discussion on adjustments (C).
There are two modes:
For schedules repeating monthly or more often the modes are equivalent.
You can edit the schedule in the schedule editor and the automation will stay up to date automatically.
:::warning All Cover schedule automations in the same category must have the same priority. :::
With this automation, you can budget based on historical data.
Choose a mode (A) and the number of months back (B). This is another automation that allows for adjustments (C).
Modes:
This automation budgets a percentage of income from this month or last month, or a percentage of available funds from this month.
When you click in the Category field, you will be presented with current choices to base the percentage on.
This automation requires a Balance cap and will refill the category to the cap.
Click on Add balance limit and you will be taken to the Balance cap automation. After you add a balance cap, the refill automation will be active.
After all of the other automations have run, the leftover of To Budget will be doled out by these remainder automations based on the weights you choose.
The sum of the weights of all remainder automations is used to determine the split amounts:
budgeted_amount = available_funds / sum_of_weights * category_weight
If a category has a balance cap, the automation will fill to the cap, subtract that amount from the available funds, then make another pass.
Starting with $100 leftover in To Budget and 0.00 in all of our three categories below.
Snack Fund has a balance cap of 40.00.
Pass 1:
Snacks, 100 / 6 * 3 = 50 (exceeds the cap, so Snack Fund receives 40.00, To Budget is now 60)
Pass 2:
Vacation, 60 / 3 * 1 = 20 (Vacation Fund receives 20.00)
Investment, 60 / 3 * 2 = 40 (Investment Fund receives 40.00)
| Category | Weight | Balance cap? | Amount applied |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snack Fund | 3 | Yes, 40.00 | 40.00 |
| Vacation Fund | 1 | No | 20.00 |
| Investment Fund | 2 | No | 40.00 |
Scheduled expenses (e.g. insurance, property rates, etc.) often increase year on year. Often the amount is unknown until close to the due date. This creates a budget crunch - if your $ 1,000 insurance jumps 20% ($ 1,200), you need to make up that extra $ 200 in just a month or two. Even for day-to-day costs, inflationary pressures can put a dent in your budget plan if not accounted for. Or, perhaps you'd like to slowly bring down a category you spend too much on, a historical automation with a decrease adjustment can help you do just that.
This feature adds adjustments to either Cover schedule or From history automations.
You can adjust your automation by either a Fixed amount or by Percentage.
The Fixed amount type can either increase or decrease the amount budgeted. The default is to increase the amount. Click the + to switch.
The Percentage type can also either increase or decrease the budgeted amount by a percentage.
Set a maximum amount over which the budget automations will not add funds.
All automations in the category will be subject to the cap.
Here’s an interesting example of budgeting money for a meal out every Saturday night and weekday work lunches in the same category.
June has 4 Saturdays and 5 Mondays. The projected budget is 375:
July has 4 Saturdays and 4 Mondays. The projected budget is 340:
August has 5 Saturdays and 5 Mondays. The projected budget is 425:
October has 5 Saturdays and 4 Mondays. Our budget looks different as the Balance cap is based on the 4 Mondays!
So, the budget covers 4 Saturday meals and 4 work weeks. The projected budget is 340.
Here’s another example. We want to budget 300 every 2 weeks, but not in months with 3 Fridays. We place a 600 balance cap on our category and start a Fixed amount automation at 300 every 2 weeks on a Friday.
There are 3 Fridays in July, but the Balance cap holds our grocery budget at 600.00:
After automations run, each category’s budget indicator appears as the color of its balance text. Hover over a balance to see the matching tooltip.
The example below shows these states: normal (no automation), empty (no automation), projected budget met (green), projected budget not met (orange), and negative balance (red).
The tooltip will give you more information about your budget and balance:
Long-term goals change how the budget indicator works. Instead of being based on the budgeted amount, the balance coloring will indicate how much progress you have made toward a desired target. Importantly, if you have met your projected budget for the month but are shy of your long-term goal the balance will remain orange.
Once you hit your goal, the balance will turn green. Note that if you remove funds and fall short, it will turn orange again.
:::tip
The tooltip will give you information regarding your progress:
In the budget header menu you will see the following options:
Check templates will test all automations.
Apply budget template will run all automations in categories that currently have 0.00 budgeted. This will leave any existing budget amounts intact.
Overwrite with budget template will fill in all budget cells using automations and overwrite any already existing budget amounts. This is the recommended method if you are using priorities greater than 0.
At month end, you can use cleanup automations to sweep up the surplus from categories that you overfunded and automatically cover any overspent categories and then distribute any leftovers to other categories, such as savings, vacation, or debt payoff.
Examples below will help demonstrate the power of End of month cleanup.
Global cleanup automations use To Budget as the pool.
Send leftover. These are source funds. Cleanup sweeps up the category's leftover funds and sends them to To Budget.
Receive leftover. These are sink funds. After overspent categories are covered, funds leftover in To Budget are distributed to the category by weight.
Named pools can be defined to target certain categories for more refined control. Create as many named pools as you need by using different pool names.
+ Add to a pool
Pick from a list of previously named pools or type in the field to get an option to create a new named pool.
Send leftover to pool (source). This sends surplus category funds to the named pool to be distributed.
Receive leftover from pool (sink). After overspent categories in this named pool are covered, leftover funds in the pool are distributed by weight to the categories in the pool.
:::note
Enable Only enough to cover any overspending to restrict the category from receiving leftover pool funds.
:::
End of month cleanup is run from the main menu in the Budget Header.
After clicking End of month cleanup, cleanup works sequentially as follows:
All named pools are run first.
Global cleanup runs next.
:::info Cleanup does not respect Balance cap. Funds will be distributed based on weight and a category may be filled above the cap. To keep the excess, use Retain existing funds over the cap or it will be removed the next time budgeting automation is run. :::
Cleanup uses the sum of the weights of the sink categories to determine how much to distribute to each sink category.
distributed_amount = available_funds / sum_of_weights * category_weight
Suppose there are 5 categories that are identified to receive leftovers with the following weights:
The sum of the weights is 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 4 = 10
The result will be:
1 / 10 or 10% of the pool2 / 10 or 20% of the pool4 / 10 or 40% of the poolI leave money in my To Budget balance all month, can this help cover my overspending? Yes!
I want to recover money from my Dining Out category because I always over budget and use that money to cover my overspent categories.
I'm behind on saving for our big Holiday celebration and would like to catch up faster. I would also like to save a little extra for vacation. Of any extra money I can find, I would like to put 1/3 in savings for the Holiday and 2/3 for vacation.
I want to pay down my debt as quickly as possible. I have a large Debt category with rollover overspending set. I already budget for more than the minimum payment, but I want to additionally add all extra money I can find.
All source funds will be used to cover your overspent categories first and then the remaining money will go to the Debt category to add extra to your payment.
I have a buffer category specifically meant to cover overspending for the month. Can I use this tool with that category? YES!
Cleanup will remove all of your buffer funds, cover your overspending, and put your buffer funds back into the buffer for next time. You can also add a Refill to cap automation to this category so you can fill it back up next month!
My utility bills fluctuate from month to month, but are always less than $500. Can I shift that $500 around in just the utility categories? Yes!
Method 1:
One way to do this is to have a Utilities Holding category with $500 budgeted.
Have separate categories for your various utilities, but don’t budget for them (power, gas, water, etc).
Cleanup will cover the overspending from the Utilities Holding category and return any remaining funds back to the holding category.
Method 2:
Another way to accomplish this is to budget what you think you will spend for each of the utilities in each category. For example:
In the first category, create a named pool and use both Send leftover to pool and Receive leftover from pool, weight 1.
In the rest of the categories, choose the same named pool and again use both Send leftover to pool and Receive leftover from pool, weight 1.
When cleanup runs:
Use different leftover weights if you would like! To match the above budget, you might use 20, 10, 15 and 5.
If you want all of the leftover to go to To Budget, enable Only enough to cover any overspending in all of the pool categories!