Guide
How Saldo thinks, one idea at a time.
The basics
The period
Home, budgets and statistics start again every period: month, week, pay cycle or year.
Saldo looks at one period at a time, and you choose which: the calendar month, the week, the year, or the pay cycle, which starts on the day you get paid.
Changing the period only groups your transactions differently: nothing moves and nothing is lost. Use ‹ › on Home to look at past periods.
Left to spend
This period’s income minus its expenses, not your bank balance.
If this period’s salary isn’t recorded yet, the number can be negative: record it, perhaps as a recurring one.
Only income and expenses up to today count. Transfers, future entries and those marked “Exclude from totals” stay out, though they still change their account’s balance.
What your accounts actually hold is on the Accounts tab.
Transfers
Moving money between two of your accounts is neither spending nor income.
A transfer changes the two balances and nothing else: it doesn’t touch Left to spend or the statistics.
Paying off a credit card is a transfer too, from the account it’s charged to into the card: you already recorded the spending when you made it.
Accounts
Account types
The type decides whether an account counts towards the spendable total.
Cash, Bank and cards are money you spend: they count towards the spendable total. Savings and Investments stay out, but count towards net worth. Change it per account with “Include in the spendable total”.
A debit card is an account of its own, with its own balance: add one if you top it up separately, like a prepaid card. If it takes money from your bank account, record the spending on that account.
Credit card
Spending goes on the card; paying it off at the end of the month is a transfer.
Record each purchase on the card, so it lands in the period you made it. A card’s balance is usually negative: it’s what you owe.
With the closing day, the charge day and the account it’s charged to, Saldo works out the statement and reminds you on the charge day. “Pay off card” prepares the transfer with the right amount.
Planning
Budgets
A spending cap on one or more categories that starts again every period.
The bar fills as you spend. The vertical tick is the pace: where you should be today to land exactly at the end of the period. Past the tick, you’re spending faster than planned.
With “Carry the leftover forward”, whatever you don’t spend is added to the next period. A budget can also run on the calendar week, month or year, whatever your period is.
Goals
Money set aside inside one of your accounts, towards a figure and, if you like, a date.
The money stays in the account but leaves the spendable total: under the account you see how much is in goals and how much is free.
Set aside and Withdraw are transfers between the account and the goal. When you use the money, close the goal: record the spending or return it to the account.
Recurring
Rent, subscriptions and salary: record them once, with “Repeat”.
Saldo creates the next occurrences on its own, up to the end of the next period. Until their date comes you see them as “Upcoming”, and they don’t count in the totals.
When you edit one, it asks whether the change is for that one only, the following ones too, or all of them. You’ll find them all under Transactions → Recurring.
Forecast
The next three periods, from what already repeats.
In Statistics, on the current period, Cashflow adds three forecast periods, dimmed. Each one adds your recurring transactions and anything already dated ahead to your usual free spending: the median of the last 6 periods.
The light band behind spending runs from the lightest period to the heaviest: that’s how much it can move. The balance starts from today’s net worth. It needs at least 3 periods of history, otherwise the forecast doesn’t appear.
Organising
Categories and tags
Every entry has one category; tags are optional, and there can be several.
The category says what kind of spending it is: statistics and budgets use it. A tag gathers entries from different categories, across periods too: a trip, a move, a refund to claim.
An entry with several tags counts in each of them.
Hidden amounts
The eye hides totals and balances when someone is looking at your screen.
Single entries stay readable: only the sums are hidden. It stays that way until you tap it again, even if you close the app.
Your data
Your data
It lives on this phone. On a server of yours too, if you connect one.
Saldo works with no network and no account. Connect a Saldo server from Profile and your data syncs across your devices.
Without a server, make a backup now and then from Profile → Export your data: if you lose your phone, it’s the only copy.