When thinking about budgeting your money, there are typically two types of budgeting, Categorization and Envelopes. The idea behind categories is that you create separate categories for each expense over a monthly period and allocate from the entire monthly income how much you would like to spend during that month. With Envelopes, this usually is allocated based on each check so you know how much is available after each check instead of the whole month. With BudgetTracker, we offer both methods for budgeting your money.

• Categories – The way categories work is that you first need to setup your Bills and Income. By doing this, the budget categories will automatically get created for those expenses and income and will be calculated directly from the Bills or Income page. So if you have a Paycheck that occurs weekly, the budget amount will change depending on how many weeks are in the month. Once you see your Bills and Income on the My Budget page, then it’s time to start entering in your manual categories. For this you have 3 options:
  • Enter the categories directly on the My Categories page. You’ll also see categories that have already been created for you from the My Bills or My Income page. Once the categories are entered, go to the My Budget page and you’ll then see links next to each new category titled “Add to Budget”. This will allow you to determine how much you would like to allocate for that category. As you progress, you can see at the bottom how much is available from your Income.
  • The second method is to manually create your categories from the My Budget page. With this method, we give you some default categories to choose from or you can create your own. This works similar to setting up your categories on the My Categories page, only that you get more options and can enter the Budget Amount directly from the input section. Also note, your Categories and your Budget Categories are the same thing so that when you record a transaction against a category, you are updating your budget at the same time.
  • The third option for manual budget entry is to use the Setup Wizard by selecting “Setup Wizard” at the top of the page. This give you default category names with text-boxes to make it easy to enter in several new categories/budget items from a single page.

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When setting up your Income on the My Income page, we give you the flexibility to split the way your Income comes in. The easiest way to handle Income is record the Net Amount in the amount field but if you are one of those users that want to keep track of taxes withheld or taxes paid, here are a few options:

• The first option is to enter the Net Amount in the top Amount box, then enter your Gross Amount in the first split box. In the 2nd input box and on, you’ll want to enter in negative amounts to simulate your taxes. This is essentially how it will look on your paycheck. Gross – Social Security – Federal, etc. The tricky part comes when selecting a category. With this method you’ll want to choose the same category for all split amounts so that when viewing your chart by category, you see the total net amount for the month and not your gross. You can then further categorize your taxes by turning on Tags from the Settings page and tagging the split items as their appropriate tax category.
• The second option which is mainly for Small Businesses is to enter your net amount in the first split box, and taxes in the text boxes thereafter. If you have a small business this works well since in real life you are adding the full gross amount to your Checking Account and then spending it when tax time comes. For personal users however, this method will not work since the total amounts whether negative or positive will not add up to the actual amount you received.
• And the third option is to utilize the “Deposit To Multiple Accounts” feature. This will allow you to specify the net amount for your Checking account and assign the category as expected. You’ll then want to create a special account just for your taxes as a placeholder to keep track of so that they do not effect your Checking Account balance when recorded. You can then assign the additional split text boxes their own category and the Tax Account allowing you to graph them separately when needed.

When importing your transactions, most times the bank will give you a payee that starts out with the name of the place you made the purchase at and ends with a long tax id or bank id. To automatically import the correct payee, we have 2 methods in place. The first is to go to Payees page and click on Payee Rules. This allows you to define Payee names to search for when they come in and automatically import them as the name you choose. The second we do automatically. Whenever you change a payee that was imported, we’ll track the change so that if it comes in again, we’ll update it for you. Note that if the payee has a tax id or a unique number, this will need to be added to the Payee Rules to be changed.

Keeping your accounts in balance with your Bank can sometimes be difficult when entering your Transactions manually. The flexibility of entering your transactions before your bank knows about them allows you to plan for your budget and upcoming expenses. If you find yourself too far behind what your bank states you should have as a total balance, don’t worry we have a solution to get you caught back up. On the My Transactions page at the bottom of each Account is a “Balance Account” link. This allows you to enter what the balance should be according to your bank. If you have future transactions that your bank doesn’t know about yet, leave those as unreconciled and clear all others. If you just want the remaining balance to be identical to the bank, check the Clear all transactions checkbox. This will create a Balance Account transaction by subtracting what your current balance is from the balance it should be.

Included with the BudgetTracker site is the ability to keep track of Invoicing, Product Inventory, and send those Invoices to other BudgetTracker users for review. First of all, to access Invoices you can either change your theme to “Business” or switch to Advanced Navigation and look under My Business. The first page your presented with is the Invoice Template List. This allows you to view a list of all Invoices you’ve entered as well as the ability to group them together and view your costs, prices, and profits for each invoice. Once you’ve created a new template, click the “View Invoice” link next to the name of your template. From this page, first select the Contact name of the company you want to send an invoice list. This is tied in directly with the My Contacts page. You will need to get permission first from your Contact to be able to send the invoice over which is done from the BudgetTracker site.  Then click the “Add new Row” button to create a new invoice item. Now you’ll need to update your Product Inventory if you havent done so already by choosing update inventory from the dropdown menu. You can then enter in the price, quantity, and whether its taxable or not. Once your finished entering all your items in, click the send invoice link next to your contact and they’ll automatically get an email notifying them a new invoice has been sent. Now click on “Overview” from the top of the page to view the status of that Invoice. This will allow you to see Invoices you’ve sent out and whether they’ve approved them or not. Once your Invoice has been paid, click on the Invoice Template List and click “Record Payment” to enter it into your BudgetTracker registry.

One idea we’re thinking about adding in a future release is automatically reducing your Inventory quantity for an item once an invoice has been paid. If you have other ideas you would like added, please email us at service@budgettracker.com or respond to this post.

When recording cash transactions on the BudgetTracker site, the first thing to think of is how does it actually get effected in your bank records. Although BudgetTracker gives you the ability to use the site in a way that best fits your needs, below are some suggestions for how to record cash transactions:

• ATM Withdrawals – With an ATM withdrawal, there is usually a fee involved if it’s not coming from your bank so we’ve built in a way to handle those types. When creating a new transaction, select the type and choose Transfer since this is essentially a transfer from your Checking Account to your Cash Account in BudgetTracker. You then have the option to select the “Fee” checkbox. Checking this box will first create a withdrawal split transaction including the fee from your Checking Account. It will then generate the deposit transaction minus the fee you’ve entered so your Cash Account doesn’t end up showing more than you actually have.
• Cash Back – When entering a cash-back transaction, it’s best to try and match what your banking statement shows. If for example, you went to the market and got $20.00 from a $100.00 bill, your bank statement would only show $100.00 deducted from the account. If you’d like, you can create a split transaction of $80 and $20 and apply the budget categories as needed. Then create a separate deposit transaction into your Cash Account for $20.00 which is money you received from the market. In a future release, we’ll be including a way to generate the extra deposit for you automatically so you’ll only need to enter in one transaction.
• Cash Withdrawal – This should be setup simply as a transfer from your Checking Account to your Cash Account. If you don’t see Cash in the Account drop-down, you’ll need to go to the “Settings” page and make sure Cash Accounts are not hidden.
• Extra Cash – If you’ve received or spent cash from or to some other source not related to your accounts, you can record these as single transactions. You can then attach the budget category that best fits how the cash was received/spent. Remember that you can create Income Budget items on the My Budget page if you’ve received extra cash to have this added into your Budget equation.

Included in the BudgetTracker site is the ability to view a schedule of how long it will take to pay off a loan, credit card, or any other debt you might have that has a limit value. There are two ways to view your pay-down schedule:

• The first is simply to create a loan or credit card account from the My Accounts page. While creating the account, you’ll notice you have the ability to add this account to your recurring bills schedule for you automaticallly. If you’ve already created the accounts, you’ll need to create a new transfer recurrence on the My BIlls page and ensure that it is setup as a transfer from your Checking account to your Loan or Credit Card.
• The second way is when you are creating a new bill, click “more options…” and notice the “Total Due (optional)” field. If you enter a total amount of the debt that is due, we can calculate your pay-down schedule from this amount instead of the remaining balance on your account.

Once these have been entered, on the monthly forecast on the My Bills page, you’ll see small calculator icons next to the bill amount. Calculator Icons will only show up next items that meet the above conditions. Once clicked, you will be taken to the Pay-Down page where you can see the amount and date of each transaction until the balance is paid. Additionally, if you’ve chosen the first option (Accounts) and entered in an interest amount, we’ll calculate the interest into the schedule as well so you can see a more realistic time frame of when your debt will be paid off.

Setting goals though a Budget is a great way to adjust your spending by giving you an incentive each month to save extra money.  The BudgetTracker site comes with the ability to setup your goals either by account, or by budget category. Your goals can be accessed from the Accounts page, Budget page, or the Navigation menu.

• By Account – When setting up a goal by account, you are basically saying that when the account reaches a certain dollar amount in transactions, the goal has been completed. From the My Accounts page, you’ll notice next to any Checking or Savings accounts the ability to create a goal. Once created, you’ll see how far away your account is from reaching the goal as well as the name of your goal underneath the account that goal is tied to.
• By Budget Category – The other way to track your goals is by Budget Category. From the My Budget page, click the “Go To…” dropdown and choose Goals. From the goals page, you can enter in the name of your category, how much you plan to allocate each month towards your goal, and how much your goal is. At the bottom, check off “Or Tie to Budget Category” instead of account. This will create a new budget item for you to keep track of each month. As you add money to the budget category, you can navigate to the Goals page to see how much is left until reaching your goal.

Also note that if your goal is to payoff a credit card, this is built into the My Bills page already without having to create a goal. When creating a new bill, if you enter a total amount due, you’ll notice a small calculator that will take you to the paydown schedule showing you how many payments until your credit card or loan is paid off.