Know your past spending and earning patterns, plan for the future. This is what the Planning graph is all about.
There are 4 different tabs on top, to help with different parts of your financial plan.
Balance – monthly balance of incomes and expenses
This balance is separate for every month and is calculated like this: “incomes this month” – “expenses this month” = “monthly balance“. For total balance in all time, see the net worth graph.
Staying above the 0 line is crucial. At least on a yearly average, if it doesn’t exactly work out every month.
Expenses – spending per month
Shows the sum of expenses each month, but can also be filtered to display spending on certain categories, tags, locations and financial accounts.
Incomes – earnings per month
Shows the sum of incomes each month, but can also be filtered to display earnings on certain categories, tags and financial accounts.
Net worth – total balance of your financial accounts
These funds accumulate if you have regular surpluses on your monthly balances. The amounts reflect the account balances at the end of the month.
Click & hold for details and a lollipop
To get the exact value for each column, click and hold somewhere on the graph.
A “lollipop” will show up, displaying the exact value for the month.
Past months will also display averages for the latest 12 months, while future months can also show estimates for the period.
River flow – see the financial flows each month
You’ll notice that the River flow graph is displayed below the multi-month graph. It shows how your incomes and expenses compare to each other and your budget in an individual month. If you have a monthly budget for all expenses, it will include it in the calculation as well, so you’ll know how much you can spend while keeping within your budget limits.
Travel in time
14 months are shown on the graph. By default 8 past ones, the current month and 5 future months.
You can move through time by using the < > arrows on the left and right side of the graph or by using the general time span settings on the top of the page.
If you’re interested in sums for a certain period, you can also select a custom time span. The selected months will be displayed in darker color below the graph and you’ll see sums for the entire period.
Filter by category, tag, account, location
You can zero-in on specific data you’re interested in and want to see over a longer period of time.
Let’s say you want to know how your spending on Food & Drinks varies in time. Click on “Expense categories” in the right sidebar, “Select categories” and click “Food & Drinks”. The graph will immediately filter to show you only spending data for the Food & Drinks category, so you can see how it varies through the year.
You can narrow it down even further by selecting a tag. Do the same in the “expense tags” section and you can see how much you spent only on restaurants, alcohol, groceries or a combination of multiple tags.
You don’t have to pick only one filter. They can be combined. For example, you can set it to only show expenses paid with MasterCard (financial account), for Leisure (category) for books, movies and music (tags) in HMV Manchester Arndale (location).
This filtering is global, so it will work with all the data in Toshl apps. You can also turn off the filtering panel by clicking on top right, to reveal the expense list below. Any filter that’s applied will be displayed on the top right next to the filtering funnel icon. If no filters are applied, it will just say “All accounts”.
Estimates and planned expenses
You’ll notice that the future months aren’t as colorful on the graph. That doesn’t mean that the future isn’t bright, just a bit hazy for now.
The semi-transparent columns in future months can display your planned entries, future estimates or both.
Planned entries
These are the expenses, incomes and transfers you have already entered into the future, or were generated automatically based on the repeating entry settings that you have set earlier. We advise to add much of these as you can possibly predict. They’ll help you plan your future months so you can keep financial stress down to the minimum.
These planned entries can be set to display in the graph or not. You can set this by clicking the month on the top of the page, then setting the switch for Planned ON or OFF. This will also affect other graphs in Toshl.
Estimates
Estimates project your past trends in earning and spending into the future, providing a rough guide of what to expect with your balances, spending, earnings or net worth if the current trends continue as they have so far.
As it’s based on your past data, the more time you’ve been tracking your finances with Toshl, the more precise they can become. We’ll also be improving the algorithm for this over time, so it will become better at guessing your spending patterns.
You can switch estimates ON or OFF in the filtering sidebar on the right side of the graph.
The Planning feature is available with Toshl Pro. Manage and save money better for the price of a coffee per month.
Improving and maintaining apps takes resources and time. By upgrading, you’re supporting the future development of Toshl Finance. Thank you!
