What are auto budgets?
Auto budgets are set up to track what has happened in the past. This means that as those past values change, the forecast value will also change and keep up-to-date.
How do these work?
These budgets are set on an account level and can be set to track the value from the last month, the average value from the past 3 months and the average value from the past 6 months when available.
When a new month starts, the value of the auto budget will update to reflect the new data that is available, e.g. the data from the last month.
If the data in a previous month changes during the current month the auto budget will update to reflect this also. This could be the result of new data being reconciled and syncing to the cash flow in a previous month, or changing the bank accounts that are included in the cash flow where that changes the data the auto budget is built on.
Example
Let's take an auto budget set up to track the value of last month. In September, the budget initially uses the paid total for August, let’s say £150. This sets the budget value for September onwards to £150. If in September £200 is actually spent, when October starts the budget will update to reflect the new data from September setting the budget for October onwards to be £200.
FAQs
What happens if transactions are reconciled in a previous month?
If additional transactions get reconciled for a previous month the auto budget will update to reflect the new value
What about transactions for bank accounts that I’m not including? (e.g. Credit Card)
If you include/exclude a bank account that affects the previous month's figures, the auto budget will update to reflect the new value
Could you manually adjust the values?
No, the values of an auto budget will always show based on what happened in previous months. If you’re looking for a budget where values can be manually adjusted, check out ‘one-off’ or ‘repeating’ budgets
Can auto budgets be used with linked budgets?
Yes, an auto budget can be used as the source for a linked budget. As the auto budget updates, so will the linked budget