Monthly budgets by category

A budget answers the question the spending chart never could: is that a lot? The chart shows you spent 340 on groceries; only a limit can tell you whether that is fine or the reason this month feels tight.

Setting one

Open Budgets and add a limit for a category. Two things are worth knowing before you pick a number:

• One limit per category. Two budgets for the same category would have to be reconciled on every screen, and there is no honest rule for doing that.
• The amount is in your team's base currency. A limit covers transactions booked in several currencies, so it can only be stated in the one currency they are all comparable in — the app converts as it counts.

The period is the calendar month

Budgets run from the 1st to the end of the month, and reset on their own. There are no weekly or custom windows yet: shipping one period that behaves predictably beats four that each behave nearly right.

What counts against a limit

Only expenses in that category. Transfers between your own accounts do not — moving money is not spending it — and neither does income, even when it carries the same category.

When you go over

Once a month, per budget, you get a notification that the limit is blown. Once — not daily: a limit stays over for weeks, and a reminder every morning is how people learn to mute an app. You can turn these off entirely under Settings → Notifications.

Going over changes nothing else. Nothing is blocked, no transaction is refused, and the number is not "corrected" — a budget is your intention, not a rule the app enforces on your money.

How many you can have

The free plan carries a few budgets, which is enough to try the idea on the categories that actually vary; paid plans lift the cap. The limit is checked when you create one, so lowering your plan never deletes a budget you already have — you simply cannot add another beyond the new cap.

On the dashboard

If your plan includes it, the dashboard shows a burn-down card: how much of each limit is spent, and how much of the month is gone. Reading them together is the point — 70% of a budget on the 10th and on the 28th are opposite situations.