Getting Paid and Creating Allocation Plans

When deposit transactions are created or imported they will look a little different in the pending transactions view.

Yes, the amount is black instead of red, but there is an extra button. With a deposit, you can either assign the transaction directly to an envelope (in the case of a refund for example), or, most often, move it to the Unallocated Income box by clicking the button highlighted in the screenshot above.

Once you have moved your paycheck deposit into the unallocated income box, you can then allocated it into your various envelopes. To do this, click the Allocate tab, or, hover over the Unallocated Income box and click the Allocate Funds button that appears.

Allocating Funds

Now, go through and enter the amounts you want to allocate to each envelope.

Notes & Tips:

1. In the goal column, you can click on a goal amount to edit it. This is simply a monthly allocation goal. Enter the amount you would like to allocate to this envelope each month.
2. The Funded column shows how much you have funded in the current month. Note that you can change the month to see how much you have funded for past or even future months (2a). If you want allocations to be shown as funded for past or future months, change the allocation date (2b).
3. The Remaining column shows the difference between your goal and how much you have funded so far. Tip: Clicking on the remaining amount will populate this amount in the amount to fund.
4. The Amount column is where you enter the amount you wish to allocate to that envelope. Tip: When you hover over this table cell you will see either an x or an arrow to the right of the amount field. Clicking the x will clear any amount you have entered and set it to 0. Clicking the arrow will enter the value of the Total amount left (4a) to this envelope.
5. The Memo column allows you to add notes to allocations. For every envelope allocation a transaction record is created. This memo you enter here can be seen in that allocation transaction record from the transaction search view.
6. The Balance column shows the current balance of the envelope plus the amount you have entered in the Amount column (4). Tip: Clicking the amount value will enter the amount needed to set that envelope’s balance to zero. This is helpful if you have a negative balance on an envelope and you need to bring it to zero. Or, it is a nice way to sweep the funds from that envelope to use toward another envelope.
7. You should work towards assigning every last penny to an envelope so that the Total amount left (4a) equals zero. (This is why this type of budgeting is often called zero-based budgeting). Once you are at zero, click the Allocate Funds button.

Allocation Plans

But wait! Don’t click that Allocate button yet. Instead, we can create an allocation plan that will allow us to pre-populate these same amounts the next time we get paid. To do this, click the Create Allocation Plan button.

You will then be prompted to give it a name. Let’s call it Paycheck #1, then click the Save button.

Once you have saved the allocation plan you will notice that you have some new buttons on your allocation page.

To use this plan, select Paycheck #1 from the drop-down list, then click the Populate button. This will fill in each Amount with the amount you have saved on this plan. You can then adjust as needed and then click the Allocated Funds button when you are ready.

If you need to make a change to the allocation plan, populate the plan, then make changes to any amounts you would like, then click on the Update button. You will be prompted to confirm the name (so you can also edit the name here if you would like), then click Save.