Budgets

Budgets let you define how much you expect to spend or earn across different categories, then compare those targets against what actually happened. Tally Up can build a budget for you from your transaction history, or you can set one up manually.

Creating a budget

Go to Settings → Budgets and tap Add. A setup wizard guides you through:

1. Name

Give the budget a name. Names must be unique within a plan.

2. Scope

Choose which parts of your plan the budget covers:

Assets — All assets, or a specific selection
Expenses — All expenses, or a specific selection
Incomes — All incomes, or a specific selection

Narrowing the scope is useful if you want separate budgets for different parts of your finances — for example, one budget for day-to-day spending and another for a specific project.

3. Category lines

Set a target amount for each category you want to track:

Enable the toggle next to a category to include it
Enter an amount and choose a frequency: weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly
Tally Up normalises all amounts to an annual figure for consistent comparison

Creating a budget from history

Rather than setting amounts manually, Tally Up can analyse your recent transactions and propose a budget based on what you have actually spent and earned.

Tap Create from History and choose:

A name for the budget
The date range to analyse (last 3, 6, or 12 months, or a custom range)
The default frequency for generated budget lines
Which assets to include

Tally Up processes your transactions in the background and generates a budget with one line per category found in your history. Amounts are averaged across the period and converted to your base currency. You can review and edit the result before using it.

Budget vs actual report

Tap any budget to open its report. The report compares your planned amounts against actual transactions for the selected period, with several chart views to explore your data from different angles.

Time range

Switch between Calendar mode (aligned to calendar years) and Rolling mode (a rolling 36-month window) using the range selector at the top of the report. Use the arrow buttons to step forward and backward through time.

In Calendar mode, tap a quarter pill (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) to narrow the focus to that quarter. The chart and category breakdown update to reflect the selected period.

Chart views

Use the Pace / Cumulative / Variance / Categories selector to switch between chart types.

Pace

The pace chart shows, for each period bucket (quarters within a year, months within a quarter), how your actual spending or income compares to the expected pace. The goal bar represents what you should have spent or earned by now, based on how much of the period has elapsed.

Green bars indicate you are on track or ahead of pace (for income, spending less than goal means under-pace)
Red bars indicate you are behind pace (overspending for expenses, underperforming for income)

Use the Expense / Income toggle to switch between the two views.

Cumulative

The cumulative chart shows planned vs actual as running totals over time, so you can see how the gap has grown or narrowed across the period.

Variance

The variance chart shows the net over- or under-budget position for each period bucket as a single signed bar:

A positive bar means you spent less than planned (for expenses) or earned more than planned (for income) — shown in green
A negative bar means you overspent (for expenses) or underearned (for income) — shown in red

Periods that have not yet started are shown at zero so the axis labels are visible without implying any result.

Use the Expense / Income toggle to switch between the two views.

Category breakdown

Below the charts, a table shows the budget vs actual breakdown by category for the selected period. Each row shows:

Budget category drill-down table — The category drill-down compares actual, planned, and variance amounts.

Actual — what was actually spent or earned
Planned — your budget target for the period
Variance — the difference between planned and actual

Tap a category row (or click the › disclosure indicator) to see the individual transactions that make up the actual amount.

Transactions for a budget category — Selecting a category opens the transactions included in its actual amount.

Adjusting planned amounts

From the category breakdown, you can update a category’s planned amount without leaving the report. Tap the › indicator on any category row and select Adjust Planned Amount.

Adjust Planned Amount view — Adjust a category manually, from its projection, or from its historical average.

The adjustment sheet offers three modes:

Manual

Enter an amount and choose a frequency directly. A Period Equivalent figure shows what that per-frequency amount translates to over the current report period, so you can compare it directly against the Actual and Planned figures above.

Set to projected

Tally Up calculates a projected year-end total based on how much has been spent so far and how much of the period has elapsed. It then back-calculates an amount at your chosen frequency that would match that projection. Use this mode to align your budget with your current spending trajectory.

Historical average

Choose a date range from your transaction history and tap Compute from History. Tally Up calculates the average spend or income for that category over the chosen range and proposes a frequency amount. Useful for setting targets based on a typical past period rather than the current one.

Tips

Start with Create from History — even a rough budget from past spending is a better starting point than a blank sheet.
Uncategorised transactions appear under an “Uncategorised” line in inferred budgets. Improving your categorisation before running inference gives better results.
You can have multiple budgets in one plan — useful for tracking different areas of spending independently.
Use Set to projected mid-period to quickly reforecast a category based on your actual run rate.