A new use case ?

[cri217]

This is the month of April…, but its the same for all months

The savings concept seems to be the major issue to resolve, and the rest may settle itself

The total is the month total income, not the actual status of the account in the bank, thats fine but it leads to issues understanding the other figures

The savings goal is set to 4000 as a monthly amount to match a yearly goal, but is apparantly not tracked against actual savings – have at least not been able to get that to work

At the end of the month there is usually more than the savings goal available for saving :-)

I also always leave around 4500 as a buffer as that matches the average standard income of 27300 and expenses

The expense are the total expenses, including savings of 16000 for that month

The net result is negative because of a difference between the monthly income and the actual status of the account – savings (or rest) will never match actual transactions.

Available after savings deduction is fine

Budget status, and over budget status are skewered by the 16000 saved...

Not sure how to solve that and make sense of it all, but it is confusing as it is…, the transactions are a mirror of my bank transactions for the ’budget’ account where everything revolves – as you do not have the actual status along with the transactions, i suppose that make it hard to get this right.
Maybe the savings concept is the major issue to resolve, and the rest will settle itself.

[aSoftwareByDesignRepository]

Hi @cri217 — thank you for the detailed write-up and screenshot. You’re right that the savings side is the heart of the confusion, and a lot of what you describe matches how the app worked before the latest release.

BudgetCheck 1.0.17 adds a clearer savings model. Here’s how it’s meant to work, and what you need to set up.

What the numbers mean (by design)

BudgetCheck is a planning ledger built from your transactions. It is not a bank balance:

• Income / Expenses / Net result = cash flow from booked transactions in that month
• Savings target = how much you plan to set aside
• Available after savings = planning cushion after reserving the target — not your account balance
• A negative net result can be normal if money moved in/out of the account in ways that don’t line up with “this month’s income” (transfers, buffers, timing, etc.)

So your €4,500 buffer and “more than the goal available at month-end” are real life — the app doesn’t model an opening/closing bank balance today.

What we improved in 1.0.17

The monthly summary is now split into three blocks:

1. Cash flow — income, expenses, net result
2. Savings — target, saved this month, available after savings
3. Everyday spending budget — grocery/housing-style budgets without savings transfers

The important setup step (this is likely why tracking didn’t work for you):

Settings → Categories → edit your savings/expense category → enable “Savings transfer”

Once that flag is on:

• Transfers to that category count toward Saved this month vs your €4,000 target
• Those amounts are excluded from everyday budget saldo (so a €16,000 transfer shouldn’t blow up “over budget” on groceries/housing)
• They still appear in total expenses in cash flow (money did leave the budget account)

If no category is marked, the Savings section shows a hint instead of “Saved this month” — progress then falls back to income minus everyday expenses, which won’t match real transfers.

Relating this to your April example

What you see | What it likely means -- | -- Expenses include €16,000 savings | Expected in cash flow (money out) Budget status skewed by savings | Should improve once savings category is flagged Savings transfer Savings goal not tracked | Mark the category used for those transfers Net result vs bank reality | Ledger timing / transfers — not a bank reconciliation feature yet

Available after savings sounding “fine” to you fits the model: it’s “after reserving the target,” not “what’s left in the bank.”

Suggested next steps

1. Upgrade to 1.0.17+ and run occ upgrade if needed.
2. Mark your savings transfer category as Savings transfer.
3. Re-check April on the Monthly page — look at Savings → Saved this month and Everyday spending budget separately from Cash flow.
4. If you use special transactions for one-offs (e.g. car), keep those flagged — they’re excluded from everyday totals by default (OnTime income/expense exclusion #5).

What we’re not solving yet

• Live bank balance / opening balance / running buffer (e.g. your €4,500)
• Automatic reconciliation between “account status” and monthly income

Those would be a bigger feature. Your feedback helps us see whether the next step should be something like “opening balance + buffer” or clearer labels — we’d love to hear how it looks after the savings-category setup on 1.0.17.

[cri217]

Thank you for the very detailed feedback, it allowed me to just do a few tweaks on categories and transactions to have everything fall into place - it actually all seems to work very nice - also noted some minor nice changes to the UI,

• will be looking for issues
  The bank/reconciliation feature would be very nice - but not sure it will really improve

Very nice danish localisation !, my compliments to whoever (or whatever?) do this - no errors and beautiful language - but we really do not use 'De' or 'Dem' anymore - maybe 40 years ago...:-))))))))))))