Knowing where your money goes is an important step. It can help you rein in your spending, as you become aware of your weak points. But sometimes you need to grab the bull by the horns and firmly set the direction in which you want your finances to go. Budgets are here to help you do that.

Consider what your goals are. Is the situation dire and you need to seriously reduce your spending to the minimum? Or would you just like some more money left over to start some savings? Want a friendly reminder in case the spending goes over your usual average? This consideration will determine your basic budgeting strategy.

1. Set a monthly budget for all expenses

Take a look at how much you usually spend each month altogether. Based on what your goals are, pick a number that will be your monthly spending goal. If you’re with the easygoing, “just monitoring” crowd, you can keep it much the same as it was in the previous months. If you want to spend much less than before, reduce the number accordingly.

Now let’s get to the practical part.
Go to the Budgets section. Tap the navigation icon on the top left or simply swipe from the left edge of the screen.

Tap the blue + button on the bottom left to add a budget.

Leave the “budget for” on All expenses. Tap the “Time period” section below.

Leave the setting to the budget period of 1 month. You can add other types of budgets later on, we recommend starting with a monthly budget which will be in sync with your financial month. Monthly budgets for all expenses also play nice with other features. They get included in the River flow graph, as well as get a more prominent place in the Budgets section.

If you want, you can also make the budget start further in the past using the “Budget starts on” setting. This is useful if you have data in Toshl from earlier periods.

Tap the row labeled “Amount”.

Remember that monthly spending goal number you chose before? This would be the time to enter it. Once you click in the amount field you also get some additional options:
– “number” enter the amount as a regular number which stays the same every month until you change it
– “income –“ this will sum up all the incomes in the current financial month and subtract a number of your choosing. If you stick to your budget, this will be the amount of money you save each month.
– “income +” your budget will be your income plus the number you chose. Probably not ideal for most, but if you can draw on a reserve of cash to add to your monthly income, this is the solution for you.
– “% of income” great to set a proportion of income you want to save. If you want to save 20 % of your income each month, set the budget to 80 % of your income and stick to it.

Whether you want the number to be static or adjust automatically to your income, your call. You know your circumstances best. If things change, or you manage to save more you can always change it later.

The next step is simply a sum up of what you chose so far. If you’re satisfied with the choices, tap the tick icon on the top right of the screen to Save the budget.

Your first monthly budget. Congratulations!

While we covered the basic things you need to set up your budgets in previous steps, there are a few more options that you can use once you nudge closer toward becoming a budgeting savant:

Accounts – You can limit the budget to follow only certain accounts. That way only expenses coming from those accounts will be counted in the budget. For the start, it’s probably better to leave it to “All accounts”
Date – This defines when a specific budget starts. If you left the budget on the monthly period, the default will be the start of the current month. If you have already been using Toshl for a longer period of time, you can set that start date in the past and budgets will be calculated automatically for all those past periods. Neat trick, eh?
Move remaining funds to next period – Also known as “the rollover”. If you set this to ON, any surplus or lack of funds in the budget will be transferred to the next budget period. If you really want to be rigorous about your spending, use this and see how good you are at self-discipline. If the sins of the past months become too much of a burden, you can edit the rollover amount separately later on. But you’ll know you’ve cheated on the inside. ;)
Title – We automatically generate a title for your budgets based on the settings you chose for each one, but you can always change it to something custom if you so desire.

2. Add a monthly budget for specific categories

Not all spending is the same. Some costs are relatively fixed or a bit harder to change, like rent for example, while others are more flexible and more easily change month to month based on your habits.

Think about what kind of spending gets you in trouble. Which are the unnecessary things you really could do without, or at least spend a bit less on them. All the tech gadgets, drinks, games, gardening supplies… ? Your call. Just don’t say “alimony”. Not cool! ;)

If you’ve been using Toshl for a while, it’s best to browse through your past months in expense graphs and see where your money leaks are.

Once you’ve thought about it, go to the Budgets section again, click the blue + button on the bottom left to Add a budget.

This time, in the “Budget for” section choose this to be a budget for a category.

You’ll see your categories listed so you can choose which category or categories you wish to track with this budget. We’ll go with Food & Drinks this time.

Next, let’s scroll down and tap the Amount setting below.

How much you can spend on this specific category is up to you. If you have past data base it on that, see how much you spent and what your goal is. If you prefer, you can also define it as a percentage of your income, but that will probably take a bit more fine-tuning in this case.

If you’re satisfied with your choices, that’s all there is to it. Click “Save”.
If you’ve used some more advanced features like starting the budget in the past or for certain accounts before, you can set these to match with this budget as well.

3. Budgets for more categories?

If you’ve identified multiple categories that you need to keep a vigilant eye over, by all means, add them as well. If you want, you can make a budget for every single category, the same way we have been doing this so far in this tutorial.

Monthly budgets for categories and the one for all expenses are a bit different than the rest of the budgets. Because they all use the same monthly period and the categories add up to 100 % of the expenses sum, this is reflected in the budget list.

The top budget is your general monthly budget for all expenses. The ones below each represent a percentage of the total monthly budget. That’s why the little progress bars beneath each category budget are of different lengths. The category budget amounts all represent a percentage of the total monthly budget. The categories for which you have not yet made a budget for are covered in the “Remaining budgets” section. That way you get a rough picture of how your monthly budget for all expenses is distributed among the categories.

4. What about other, non-monthly budgets?

In this tutorial, we covered the most basic budget that we think would be most beneficial for most people to set up at first. We also offer a lot of different budget options for your specific needs. You don’t need to base your budget based on your financial month, although they’re displayed a bit more nicely if you do (see point 3.).

Budgets can be based on almost any time period, be it a custom number of days, weeks, months, even years.
They can be set to track all expenses, some categories, exclude some categories, tags or exclude some tags. They can also track your budget using all financial accounts, or just a few you selected.
You can have the budgets transfer the remaining or lacking funds to the next period (rollover) or see them individually for each period.

Explore Toshl, try the different options and we’re sure you’ll find a way to budget which suits your needs the best.

When you start using Toshl for the first time, it’s prudent to first set up the basic layout of your personal finances. It’s a quick an easy process, nothing complicated. We’ll simply add the accounts where you keep your money and where you pay from. Bank accounts, credit cards, cash etc. Next, we’ll take a look at how to best describe your spending with categories and tags. Last but not least, set up your repeating expenses and incomes so they show up automatically and you get a warning when they need to be paid.

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to do this in the Toshl iOS app. You can do all the same things in our Web App app as well, but the buttons and graphs might be positioned a bit differently.

If you’d rather start in the web app, see the How to Set Up Your Finances in the Web App blog post.

Without further ado, here’s what you should do:

1. Add your financial accounts and balances

When you sign up on Toshl, a Cash account is added in advance. You can see your accounts by tapping the time span and accounts button on the top right.

That time span/accounts button is there all time time in the Toshl app, except when adding a new entry or in Settings. When it’s there you can also reach the right sidebar simply by swiping anywhere from the right side of the screen towards left.

Open your actual wallet, count what’s inside. Then tap “Edit” below the accounts. Once in editing mode, tap the Cash account to edit it.

In the initial balance field, enter the amount that you counted in your wallet. Keep in mind that the inital balance amount will be added to the current balance, it won’t just replace it. Although if you started with 0 on your account, that’s all the same.

When you’ve entered the initial balance of the account tap the tick button on the top right to save.

If cash is all you use and that’s all you mean to track in Toshl, you’re all done. Most likely you have at least a bank account and a credit card or two to add as well.

Tap “Add account” to add another financial account. You can name the accounts however you like, but for most, the name of the bank or the name of the credit card will be most suitable. Remember to check what the current balance on that account is and enter it as your initial balance. Just like you did with the Cash account.

There you go. All set.

When you add an expense or an income to Toshl, you can choose to which account should this entry go. Expenses will be deducted from your balance, incomes will of course be added. Balances on accounts are “all time” meaning that they will always show the current balance, no matter which time span you have chosen to display.

Quick tips:
– When you withdraw cash at an ATM, add this as a transfer from your bank account (or credit card) to your cash account.
– When you need to pay your credit card bill, add this as a transfer from your bank account to your credit card account. Most likely the credit card balance should be 0 just after you’ve paid.

2. Check your categories and tags

We have already added the most widely used categories and tags that should cover most of your spending and earnings. Naturally, we all have our own stuff going on, so you might need to add a few.

When adding an expense or income, you can also add categories and tags. When you’re selecting a category or tag, you’ll see a + button on the right side of the section. Tap that to add a category or tab.

For renaming, removing or merging of categories and tags, please use the the Web App. This functionality will be making its way to the mobile apps soon, but for now it’s only available in the Web App.

3. Add your salary and other incomes (repeating incomes)

Most people have some sort of regular income. It’s best to enter these incomes in advance and set them to repeat automatically, so you don’t have to enter them manually each month or every few weeks.

Go to the Incomes section. Click the green + button on the bottom left.

Quick tip: Drag the + button with your thumb toward the top right corner. You’ll see that it changes colour and switches between adding expenses/incomes/transfers. Let go of the button when you’re on the type of entry you want and the add screen will open. That way you can quickly add different types of entries no matter on which screen you are.

Enter the information about your salary: amount, the category “Salary”, if you like you can also add tags. Choose the financial account this salary usually comes to and the date of the month you get the salary on.

Important: If you wish to add past salaries, you can set the date in one of the past months. Keep in mind that the past salaries will also be added to your financial accounts.

Now tap the R in the circle icon in the bottom row, it will open the options for repeating incomes.

You should set the salary to repeat automatically. Set your salary to repeat in the period that you are paid. Be that monthly, weekly or whichever period is applicable. You can also choose the “Custom repeat” and set it to repeat in any period you like e.g. every 2 weeks, every 17 days.

If your paycheck varies, you can later edit each individual repeat to enter the correct amount. If that happens a lot, set up a reminder (the little bell icon) to remind you to do that with a notification when the next pay-check arrives.

Save and you’re done. The salary will show up automatically in each period. Hopefully, so will the real one.

4. Add your regular bills (repeating expenses)

You should also add the bills that you know will be coming each month to make things more predictable, quicker and financial planning easier. Add things like electricity, internet bills, rent, gym memberships… all the regular expenses you have in your life.

Go to the Expenses or Monthly overview section and click the red + button on the bottom left.

Enter all the relevant information like the usual amount, category, tags (optional) and the date in the month that you usually pay the bill on.

Now tap the R in the circle icon in the bottom row, it will open the options for repeating expenses.

Select one of the predefined repeating periods like, weekly, monthly or add a custom period like every 4 weeks, every 3 months etc.

If you would like to be reminded to pay those bills when they arrive, you can also set up a reminder so the notifications will remind you when the bills arrive. It’s also useful if the amount of the bill varies and you need to modify it in each period. You can set up the reminders on the day it’s due, before, or any time you like. Up to 4 reminders per expense.

5. Look around Toshl, enter expenses on the go

Now that you’ve entered your expected incomes and expenses, the graphs around Toshl should look a bit differently. Explore them a bit and see how they can help you with monitoring your finances. Then as time passes, remember to enter the expenses and incomes on the fly to keep the balances on your accounts accurate. If you’re having trouble remembering to enter the expenses, set up a daily reminder in Settings / Notifications. You’ll get the hang of it in no time.