Budgets: Help Guide (iPhone and iPad)


Important FAQs
Help Guide for iPad version of Budgets
Help Guide for iPhone version of Budgets

Important FAQs

Important! We’ve got a lot of questions and reviews with the following:

- My amounts do not match!

This is not a bug! If you choose a budget periodicity (when creating a budget), for example setting it for 4 weeks, and in the budget list you have a filter for monthly view, you will get decimal numbers because the numbers will be adjusted to match the days. Please pay special attention to the way how you select the periodicity!

- I’ve added my data, but nothing is showing up!

This is not a bug! You need to choose the right filter from the left part of the screen! To see all your entries, select All (left upper corner where you have Income and Expenses) and All from the list of budgets (below the upper bar).

Top ↑

Help Guide for iPad version of Budgets

Budgets for iPad (with Sync) are meant for planning, tracking and analyzing your expenses and income per category for the desired period of time, with a feature of syncing between various iPads.

Use it the following way:

1. Planning

First, add your income: select “INCOME” tab from the upper bar, tap “+”, and add details to your budget entry. You may add all your expected income sources by different categories, including your salary, investment funds income, business, etc.

Second, add your expenses: select “EXPENSES” tab from the upper bar, and tap “+” again. Specify where your expenses are going: (loans, car, meals, clothing, entertainment, etc.)

Subcategories:
Please note that you may also create subcategories for your main categories. For example, you can specify that your car expenses break down into gas, parking, service, etc. And you will be able to track each of the categories separately (i.e. gas, parking, etc.), as well as the parent category (car). To create a subcategory, go to the list of categories, tap the desired category and HOLD THE FINGER DOWN for 3 seconds. This way you will call a drop down menu. Select “Open” and tap “+” to create a subcategory in the category. You may also edit the category in the same manner by holding your finger down and selecting “Edit”. Please also note that there are only 2 levels of categories: parent level, and subcategories.

Adding a budget entry:
When you are adding a budget entry, you need to fill out the following details:
- Category
- Amount (how much you expect to pay or receive per time period; this sets your limit, which you do not want or do not expect to exceed)
- Period when your entry is valid (you can see 1 Month by default, and can change it to another period)
- Start date and End date (please note that you can specify your end date earlier or later than your Period, but in this case the period will end on that date).
After adding the details, tap Save.

2. Tracking

After you have added all your planning details, you need to start adding your actual transactions (i.e. your actual instances of income and expenses). There are 2 different kinds of transactions: one-time and recurring transactions. Recurring transactions are those, which you are confident about (for example, you are confident that you get your salary each second week on Mondays, or you are confident that you need to pay for your loan every month on 25th day).

Add all your recurring transactions by going to the yellow tab in the “desk”. Tap the yellow tab, and from there tap the “icon with a list and a plus” on “the hologram”. You will see a dialog for adding a new recurring transaction. The dialog is already familiar: category, date and actual amount of income or expense.

After adding the recurring transactions, start adding your everyday transactions from the green tab of “the desk”. For example, you have bought a t-shirt, then you go to the green tab, and tap the “icon with a list and a plus” on “the hologram”.Add all your everyday transactions regularly, and your progress bars for each category will grow accordingly. Then you will be able to analyze your data.

3. Analyzing

By now you have the plan by category, and you regularly add your actual transactions. It means that you can see the progress of each entry per category, including your income and expenses.

Please note!
You can see charts for each entry and for all the entries at once. If you want to see charts with data from all your entries, tap ALL (top left bar) and All (from the “futuristic flip board”); it is important to select both “all” options. Then, if you want to see charts per single categories, you need to tap the category you want.

All the charts are available from “the desk” color light options (bottom right).
The “Battery” chart (red light) gives you general ratio between the plan and the fact.
The “Histogram” chart (purple light) shows you the progress of various categories.
The “Pie chart” (dark blue) compares your actual and budgeted entries (please note that you can roll the pie chart).
The “Bar and line chart” (light blue) shows you yearly progress for major analyses.

Use these charts to analyze the progress of your budget: whether your expenses exceed your expectations or whether you could actually spend more than you expected, and think of what you can do to improve your personal finance management. Use this information to update your real budget when creating a new budget. This approach will help you to reach your financial goals in an elegant manner with your iPad.

NB!
Please pay attention to the extra options (second row of “the desk”): Pin Code protection, Export and Sync. Make sure to add your email address to be able to recover your Pin Code if you set it up!

Top ↑

Help Guide for iPhone version of Budgets

Budgets (with Sync) are meant for planning, tracking and analyzing your expenses and income per category for the desired period of time, with a feature of syncing between various iPads and iPhones.

Use it the following way:

1. Planning

Start with adding your expected income and expenses. For doing so, you need to fill out the left part of the screen, where you can see a future-oriented flip board.

First, add your income: select “INCOME” tab from the upper bar, tap “+”, and add details to your budget entry. You may add all your expected income sources by different categories, including your salary, investment funds income, business, etc.

Second, add your expenses: select “EXPENSES” tab from the upper bar, and tap “+” again. Specify where your expenses are going: (loans, car, meals, clothing, entertainment, etc.)

Subcategories:
Please note that you may also create subcategories for your main categories. For example, you can specify that your car expenses break down into gas, parking, service, etc. And you will be able to track each of the categories separately (i.e. gas, parking, etc.), as well as the parent category (car). To create a subcategory, go to the list of categories, tap the desired category and HOLD THE FINGER DOWN for 3 seconds. This way you will call a drop down menu. Select “Open” and tap “+” to create a subcategory in the category. You may also edit the category in the same manner by holding your finger down and selecting “Edit”. Please also note that there are only 2 levels of categories: parent level, and subcategories.

Adding a budget entry:
When you are adding a budget entry, you need to fill out the following details:
- Category
- Amount (how much you expect to pay or receive per time period; this sets your limit, which you do not want or do not expect to exceed)
- Period when your entry is valid (you can see 1 Month by default, and can change it to another period)
- Start date and End date (please note that you can specify your end date earlier or later than your Period, but in this case the period will end on that date).
After adding the details, tap Save.

2. Tracking

After you have added all your planning details, you need to start adding your actual transactions (i.e. your actual instances of income and expenses). There are 2 different kinds of transactions: one-time and recurring transactions. Recurring transactions are those, which you are confident about (for example, you are confident that you get your salary each second week on Mondays, or you are confident that you need to pay for your loan every month on 25th day).

Add all your recurring transactions by going to the yellow tab in the “desk”. Tap the yellow tab, and from there tap the “icon with a list and a plus” on “the hologram”. You will see a dialog for adding a new recurring transaction. The dialog is already familiar: category, date and actual amount of income or expense.

After adding the recurring transactions, start adding your everyday transactions from the green tab of “the desk”. For example, you have bought a t-shirt, then you go to the green tab, and tap the “icon with a list and a plus” on “the hologram”.Add all your everyday transactions regularly, and your progress bars for each category will grow accordingly. Then you will be able to analyze your data.

3. Analyzing

By now you have the plan by category, and you regularly add your actual transactions. It means that you can see the progress of each entry per category, including your income and expenses.

All the charts are available from “the desk” color light options (bottom right).
The “Battery” chart (red light) gives you general ratio between the plan and the fact.
The “Histogram” chart (purple light) shows you the progress of various categories.
The “Pie chart” (dark blue) compares your actual and budgeted entries (please note that you can roll the pie chart).
The “Bar and line chart” (light blue) shows you yearly progress for major analyses.

Use these charts to analyze the progress of your budget: whether your expenses exceed your expectations or whether you could actually spend more than you expected, and think of what you can do to improve your personal finance management. Use this information to update your real budget when creating a new budget. This approach will help you to reach your financial goals in an elegant manner with your iPhone.

Please note that the first “red light” chart also gives you the list of your entries, and the actual chart is above them. Please notice the little arrow to the right from the table. If you tap it, you will see the bar of your overall progress. Make sure to try out this feature!

NB!
Please pay attention to the extra options (second row of “the desk”): Pin Code protection, Export and Sync.

Top ↑


Make sure to Like Budgets on Facebook and follow moneypro to stay updated.