How budgets work

A budget is a monthly spending cap. You choose which categories it covers, and Quidough works out what you’ve spent against it as you go.

What a budget covers

Pick the categories it applies to. You can narrow it to particular accounts as well, or leave accounts empty to mean all of them. Budgets are always in your household’s currency, and they follow it if that ever changes.

The spend is worked out live

Quidough adds your transactions up each time you look, rather than keeping a running total that could drift out of date. Refunds reduce what you’ve spent, and a budget never shows less than zero.

Your cap keeps a history

When you change a cap you choose whether it starts this month or next, and it holds from there until you change it again.

Earlier months keep the cap they actually had. So “did I stay under in May?” compares against May’s real cap, not whatever you’ve set since.

That’s also why deleting a budget doesn’t erase it. It goes from the month you delete it onward, and every earlier month keeps it exactly as it was, real cap and real spend.

The bar

Each budget shows how much you’ve used and how much is left, with a bar that changes color as you go. Green while you’re comfortably under, orange as you get close, and red once you’ve reached the cap.

When there’s more than one of you

Budgets are grouped by owner: shared ones first, then yours, then everyone else’s. That order is from where you’re sitting, so you each open the page and find your own in the same place.