What is the Spending Plan and Leftover? – Money Dashboard Neon

Introduction

This article will run through an overview of what the spending plan is and how it ties in with your scheduled payments and budgets.

What is the Spending Plan?

How does Scheduled payments impact the Leftover figure?

Debit scheduled payments (Upcoming SPEND)

Credit scheduled payments (Upcoming INCOME)

Example of Leftover figure with both debit and credit scheduled payments

How does budgets impact the Leftover figure?

What about credit transactions (e.g. refunds) that are tracked under a budget?

Scenario 1: The credit transaction is LESS THAN your budgeted amount

Scenario 2: The credit transaction is MORE THAN your budgeted amount

What is the Spending Plan?

The Spending Plan is designed to help you gain visibility over your finances so that you can expect the amount you have that is safe to spend in this pay cycle and until your next payday.

The Spending Plan is based on the following formula:

Account BALANCE

Upcoming INCOME (credit scheduled payments)

Scheduled Bill Payments (debit scheduled payments)

Budgets

Leftover within this Pay Cycle

Account Balance is the total amount you have based on the bank accounts you have connected onto Money Dashboard and have included in the spending plan filter (top right). This includes your offline accounts as well.

Upcoming INCOME is the expected incoming transaction that has not yet occurred in the duration of your pay cycle.

Scheduled Bill Payments also known as ‘Scheduled payments’ within the application are repeat payments and transactions that you make from your accounts on a regular basis. For example, monthly rent or mortgage, electricity and internet bills or council tax payments.

Budgets lets you track your spending against a set amount based on how you have categorised your spending. Spending plan assumes you spend all the money out of your budgets. As such, the' Leftover 'figure is the projected amount you would have by the end of the pay cycle assuming you were to spend all the money out of your budgets. More information and further explanation with an example is found below under 'How does budgets impact the Leftover figure?'.

As an example, you can set a ‘Household’ budget of £100 and assign the ‘Household’ category to it. Any transactions that come through that are categorised with the ‘Household’ category will be reflected on the budget.

To further illustrate with the following transactions:

Bedding JL - £70.00 - Categorised as ‘Household’

Cinema - £8.30 - Categorised as ‘Experience’*

*(excluded from budget as this is NOT in the category that is tracked for this example)

‘Household’ budget would reflect as:

£70.00/£100

£30.00 remaining

More information about Budgets can be found here.

Leftover shows you the amount you have leftover within this Pay Cycle.

How does Scheduled payments impact the Leftover figure?

Debit scheduled payments (Upcoming SPEND)

All debit scheduled payments within this pay cycle are deducted from your Leftover figure.

This would include:

1. Debit scheduled payments that have already occurred within the pay cycle (transactions has already cleared and is pulled in from your bank)

2. Debit scheduled payments that have not yet occurred

For example:

Current date in the pay cycle: 15th July

Pay cycle running from 1st - 28th

Scheduled payments set up:

2nd - Internet bill: -£15

18th - Energy bill: -£45

Your Leftover figure would have deducted both of the above transactions

Credit scheduled payments (Upcoming INCOME)

All credit scheduled payments within this pay cycle are contributing as a credited amount to your Leftover figure.

1. Credit scheduled payments that have already occurred within the pay cycle (transactions has already cleared and is pulled in from your bank)

2. Credit scheduled payments that have not yet occurred

For example:

Current date in the pay cycle: 15th

Pay cycle running from 1st - 28th

Scheduled payments set up:

5th - First fixed income - £200

18th - Second fixed income - £800

Your Leftover figure would include both of the above transactions

Example of Leftover figure with both debit and credit scheduled payments

Using the two above scenarios WITHOUT consideration of your budgets for now for a better understanding of how scheduled payments impact your Leftover figure:

Current date in the pay cycle: 15th

Pay cycle running from 1st - 28th

Account BALANCE (£5,000)

Upcoming INCOME : Credit scheduled payments (£200 and £800)

Upcoming Spend: Debit scheduled payments (£15 and £45)

Budgets (excluded for this example)

Leftover within this Pay Cycle

£5,940

(£5,000 + £200 + £800 - £15 - £45)

How does budgets impact the Leftover figure?

Using the same example as above, budgets lets you track your spending against a set amount based on how you have categorised your spending. Spending plan assumes you spend all the money out of your budgets. As such, the' Leftover 'figure is the projected amount you would have by the end of the pay cycle assuming you were to spend all the money out of your budgets.

As an example, you can set a ‘Household’ budget of £100 and assign the ‘Household’ category to it. Any transactions that come through that are categorised with the ‘Household’ category will be reflected on the budget.

To further illustrate with the following transactions:

Bedding JL - £70.00 - Categorised as ‘Household’

‘Household’ budget would reflect as:

£70.00 spent of £100

£30.00 remaining

Even though there is still £30.00 remaining in the 'Household' budget, this £30.00 will have already been deducted off your Leftover.

As a compilation of the above examples:

Current date in the pay cycle: 15th

Pay cycle running from 1st - 28th

Account BALANCE (£5,000)

Upcoming INCOME : Credit scheduled payments (£200 and £800)

Upcoming Spend: Debit scheduled payments (£15 and £45)

Budgets (£100 Household)

Leftover within this Pay Cycle

£5,840

(£5,000 + £200 + £800 - £15 - £45 - £100)

What about credit transactions (e.g. refunds) that are tracked under a budget?

There are 2 scenarios that can happen here that would impact your Leftover figure in two ways.

Scenario 1: The credit transaction is LESS THAN your budgeted amount

Using the same above example of a budget with only the Household category included:

Bedding JL - Debit £70.00 - Categorised as ‘Household’

Bedding JL (Partial refund) - Credit £10.00 - Categorised as 'Household'

‘Household’ budget would reflect as:

£60.00 spent of £100

(£100 - £70.00 + £10.00)

= £40.00 remaining

Scenario 2: The credit transaction is MORE THAN your budgeted amount

Using the same above example of a budget with only the Household category included:

Bedding JL - Debit £70.00 - Categorised as ‘Household’

Bedding JL (Full refund) - Credit £70.00 - Categorised as 'Household'

Home Furnishing - Credit £200 (Online Gift Card) - Categorised as 'Household'

‘Household’ budget would reflect as:

-£200.00* spent of £100

*(notice the - against the spent amount, this is to factor in the excess amount in credit of your budget)

(£100 - £70.00 + £70.00 + £200.00)

= £300.00 remaining

At this point we assume the excess in a budget is intended to be used and is thus factor in as part of the budget and as such this will also be deducted from the Leftover figure as per above's explanation. Due to the nature of counter-intuitiveness of Scenario 2's impact on the Leftover figure, the following example is used to visualise the overall impact on the Leftover figure should scenario 2 happen occur.

Account BALANCE (£5,000)

Upcoming INCOME : Credit scheduled payments (£200 and £800)

Upcoming Spend: Debit scheduled payments (£15 and £45)

Budgets (£300 instead of the defined £100)

Leftover within this Pay Cycle

£5,640

(£5,000 + £200 + £800 - £15 - £45 - £300)