Checking a number you do not believe

Sometimes stewardship is nothing loftier than pressing on a number you don’t believe. If a category says you spent far more than you think, don’t argue with the figure. Open it. On Budget, select the category’s row. Its detail opens beside the list, or as a sheet on a phone. It shows this month’s figures, and under them every transaction behind the number: cleared, pending and still scheduled. See all shows the same transactions on Transactions.

Nine times out of ten it’s one of four things:

• A transfer that was never marked as one. Money you moved to your own card counted as spending. Check Review, the “to review” strip at the top of Transactions.
• One big charge that belongs somewhere else, or should be split across several categories.
• A rule doing its job too well. You sorted a merchant once, but it also sells something else entirely.
• A yearly bill landing in a monthly category. That’s what Savings Goals are for. Set aside a little each month instead of taking the hit all at once.

The detail also has a folded Last 6 months line. Open it to see the category against its budget, month by month. A figure that’s high every month is a budget to raise, not a mistake to hunt for.

Pending changes things

Some totals count only cleared transactions, and some include pending ones. If a figure is close but not exact, a pending charge is the usual reason. It clears on its own.

If it still doesn’t add up

Tell us. Every figure should trace back to transactions you can see. If one doesn’t, that’s a bug in this app, not a mistake on your part. That’s the standard the budget is built to. What’s been entrusted to you deserves an honest accounting, and so do you.