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Budget

What the budget is for

Section titled “What the budget is for”

Tovari’s budget is an envelope budget. You pick the handful of categories that are worth managing actively, give each one a monthly amount, and Tovari tells you what is left in each as you spend.

That is deliberately separate from categorizing. Every transaction you have already carries a category, whether or not you budget it — see Categories. Budgeting is the smaller, deliberate selection you make on top of that.

An envelope is something you turn on

Section titled “An envelope is something you turn on”

Nothing becomes an envelope by itself. Tovari never decides a category deserves a monthly amount, however much you spend on it. A category is an envelope only because you turned it on, and it stays one until you turn it off.

The choice is not a monthly one. Turning a category into an envelope is a one-time decision: it stays an envelope in every following month, and what you revisit each month is the amount, not the membership. Categories you leave alone are still tracked in full — they are grouped together on the budget screen and still appear in your reports; they simply have no monthly amount and nothing carrying forward.

Only spending categories can be envelopes. Income categories, and the built-in ones Tovari maintains for you, are never offered as candidates and cannot be turned into envelopes.

What carries forward

Section titled “What carries forward”

An envelope keeps a running balance. Whatever you did not spend in a month is added to what is available the following month, so an envelope you underspend gets roomier and one you have been saving into builds up.

Three things decide where that running balance starts.

  • It accumulates from the month you turned the envelope on. Tovari does not invent a history for a category from before it was an envelope.
  • Turning it on while you are looking at an earlier month pulls the start back to that month — and so does setting a monthly amount for an earlier month. For as long as the envelope stays on, the start of the accumulation only ever moves earlier, never later.
  • Removing an envelope and adding it back later starts the running balance fresh from the month you added it back. The monthly amount you last set comes back with it automatically, so the envelope reappears with a figure already filled in — but the leftover it had built up before does not come back with it. If you want that history kept, leave the envelope on and set its amount to zero rather than removing it.

Overspending does not follow you around either. If you spend more than an envelope holds, that month shows you over, and the next month starts from the amount you set rather than from a debt.

Every one of these figures — what is available, what has been spent, what is left, what rolled over — is worked out by Tovari and handed to you. They are numbers to read rather than sums to reproduce: the running balance depends on the whole stretch of months the envelope has been on, so adding up a couple of targets and receipts will not reliably reconstruct it.

Savings goals

Section titled “Savings goals”

A goal is a yearly amount you want a category to reach, marked so that it appears on your dashboard. It is not a separate thing you create and maintain: it is a mark on that category’s year target, so the goal amount and the target are always the same figure and can never disagree.

Two things follow from that:

  • A goal needs a year target first. Until the category has one, the goal control is unavailable rather than quietly inventing an amount for you.
  • A goal is a yearly view of one category, not a second monthly plan. A category can carry a goal whether or not it is also an envelope.

Progress is worked out by Tovari and is signed: a goal you have gone past reads as the amount you are over, never as a reassuring zero. Do not try to reproduce it from your register — refunds, adjustments and money moved between your own accounts are all accounted for in that figure for you.

A goal appears on your dashboard during the year it is set for, so one you mark for next year will not show up today. Setting a category’s year target is done in the web app on a computer — that is still the only place a target is created. Once a category has one, opening it on a phone browser also offers a Track as Goal checkbox, so you can mark or unmark an existing target’s category as a goal from there too; the checkbox stays disabled until a target exists. The native mobile app shows your budget but carries no goal control at all.

Finding the budget

Section titled “Finding the budget”

Budget is in the left-hand navigation. The screen keeps a header band of the period’s headline figures pinned at the top while the categories scroll beneath it, and offers three views from the switcher beside the title:

  • Tracking — how the month is running.
  • Monthly — the grid of envelopes for one month, with an editable amount on each row.
  • Planning — a whole year at a time, one column per month, with a year target per category.

Switching views is not a reload: an edit made in one is already there in the other.

Turning a category into an envelope

Section titled “Turning a category into an envelope”

Press Budget a category in the header. The picker lists the categories you are already spending on but not budgeting, grouped by section and searchable, each with a Budget this action. The category is promoted into the grid for that month and every month after it.

The All Other Categories row leads to the same categories, alongside what each one actually cost you — useful when you want the spending to choose for you.

Setting amounts

Section titled “Setting amounts”

Click a budgeted amount cell and type. The budget screen autosaves; there is no Save button.

Selecting a row opens the details panel beside the grid: the month’s amount, what has been spent, what is left, what rolled over, recent averages, and the same month a year earlier. In Planning the panel also carries the category’s year target and an action that spreads that target across the months still to come.

Marking a goal

Section titled “Marking a goal”

Open a category’s details panel in Planning, set its year target, then tick Track as Goal. The category appears on the dashboard’s savings-goals card for that plan year.

To change a goal’s amount, change that year target — they are the same figure, which is why the dashboard and the budget can never quote you two different goals. To remove a goal, untick Track as Goal; the target itself is left alone, so the category keeps its yearly plan and simply stops appearing on the dashboard.

Turning an envelope off

Section titled “Turning an envelope off”

Open the category’s editor from the budget screen and use its remove from budget action. The category itself is untouched — it keeps its name, its history and its transactions; it simply stops having a monthly amount. Remember that adding it back later restarts the running balance from the month you add it back, while bringing the last amount you set with it.

On a phone browser

Section titled “On a phone browser”

Opening the web app on a phone gives you the same budget as one scrolling list: a Left to budget band at the top, income, then your sections with an editable amount box on each envelope’s row, so planning a month never leaves the list. A Not budgeted list at the foot offers the categories you are not budgeting yet, and Add category creates a new one.

Tapping an envelope opens a sheet with what a row cannot show — what rolled over, the recent average, and the option to remove the envelope. If the category already has a year target, the sheet also offers a Track as Goal checkbox for it. Year targets themselves and the year-at-a-time Planning view are not in this layout; use View Desktop Site in the More menu when you need them.
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