Getting started tips & tricks
Getting started tips & tricks
Get the inside scoop on how to get set up and get the most out of BudgetBuddie. Here in this guide, we'll go through each step that's vital to ensure you get fully set up and ready to go to level up the way you manage your money.
1. What to do after signing up
Once you've signed up and connected your accounts, all your transaction data will load in. We'll then organise your merchants and automatically categorise most of your transactions using the default categories we get from Akahu. You'll then be taken to the getting started screen, where you can take a tour of all the features we have to offer. We organise the tour in order of your financial priorities, so you can start with what's most important to you.
2. Categorise your income
Once you've completed the tour, move on to categorising your income transactions.
When you connect your accounts and transactions load in, we'll pick up all of your regular income transactions such as your wages and automatically categorise them to the income category we create for you when you sign up. You can choose categorise these to a different preferred category. If you want to edit that category or create another category, you can read more about doing that here.
Once your income transactions are categorised, these figures will display throughout all the widgets within BudgetBuddie.
3. Categorise your expenses
Most of your expense transactions will already be automatically categorised, but there may be some that you'll need to allocate a category to. Work through your transactions and categorise the ones that don't already have a category assigned. You can slice and dice your transactions to only show uncategorised ones by using the filter function.
If you want to categorise expense transactions into a custom category, you can create a new category by selecting the green 'New category' button in the category selection pop-up.
Instead of having to categorise transactions into the same category one-by-one, you can use bulk category changes by holding down on a single transaction and then selecting the ones you'd like to update. Once you have more than one transaction selected, change the category of one of the selected transactions, and the rest of them will change to that new category. Then select 'Done' to complete the change.
4. Review your expenses and income
Now that you've categorised your merchants and most of your transactions, open the 'Money insights' feature to review your spending habits along with what you earn. Start with using the bar graph to spot trends each month for different time periods. Now work through the category breakdown and see exactly where your money is going by category, simply select each category to display data by subcategory. You can read more about money insights here.
5. Set up your budget
Now that you understand where your money goes, you can create some budgets to manage your spending habits and see where you can make some savings. Start by adding your income budgets, income budgets are for any consistent income streams like your wages for example. Enter all your details and then select 'Save & Finish'. You can read more about income budgets here.
Now create your expense budgets, once you're in the add expense budget screen, start by selecting the 'Select or create category' button. If you've created some categories already, these will appear here under 'Your created categories' along with the default categories available. Select your category and then enter your budget amount, how often it occurs and if it's a want or need. If you're using a default category, you can tap the 'Auto expense' button and we'll automatically populate what you spend per month based on a monthly average of the last 3 months of transaction data.
Once you've entered your details, select 'Save & Finish', or 'Next expense' if you want to create another expense budget. You can read more about expense budgets here.
Now that you've entered all your budgets, review your budget breakdown. Your budget breakdown gives you a total of your budget income and expenses to then tell you what you'll have left over. Having money left over means you can add that to your savings. If your leftover amount is negative, review your budget and see where you can make some adjustments. Look at the expense budgets for your 'Wants', this is where you can cut back and make some savings.
6. What happens once you categorise merchants & transactions
Categorising your merchants and transactions means your information is more accurate throughout the app. If you leave merchants and transactions uncategorised, then these values don't get factored into any dashboard widgets or other features. Any merchants or transactions that are categorised as 'Ignore' or 'Transfer' also don't get factored into widget calculations.
7. Set a goal
Make sure you've got something to aim for, navigate to the goal feature, and start to create your first goal. Goals can be anything like saving for something or even paying off debt. We make it easy to stay on track and know exactly how you're progressing and when you're likely to achieve your goal with predicted achievement dates based on your contributions.
Select 'Add a new goal' and then enter in all your details for the goal you'd like to set. Connect your accounts to your goal to sit back, relax, and keep track of your progress without having to make any updates.
8. Explore your personal finances
Now that we've covered the essentials, it's time to explore your personal finances further. You can utilise other features like Net worth, the Retirement planner, Cashflow plus much more. If you ever get stuck on how to use a feature, you can take the tour by selecting the information icon in the top right corner of each screen.
You're all ready to go 🎉
Woohoo! Now that you've set up the core features of the app, you can go and explore all the rest of the features we have to offer! If you run into any issues while setting everything up, feel free to get in touch with us at hello@budgetbuddie.co.nz