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Budgee basics

A simple guide to the ideas you will use most in Budgee.

If Budgee feels like a lot at first, this page is for you.

You do not need to learn every setting before you begin. Budgee helps you bring your real cash activity into one board, build a forecast, and test decisions without changing your real records.

The board

The board is your main workspace for one organisation. It shows cash activity over time, usually in monthly columns.

Most work starts from one of these views:

  • Cash summary: a grouped view of money in, money out, and transfers.
  • Dashboard: summary charts, metrics, and reporting widgets.
  • All transactions: a flatter view that is useful when you need to inspect or find specific items.
Budgee board showing cash summary information across monthly columns

Time periods

Budgee organises the board into time periods. A period might be a month, week, day, or year, depending on the time view you choose.

The current period is where live work often happens. Future periods are where forecasts, unpaid items, scenarios, and expected dates become useful.

Dashboard date picker controls for changing the time view

Transactions

A transaction is money coming in, going out, or moving between accounts. It might come from your accounting software, a forecast, a manual entry, or a scenario.

TermMeaning
ActualA real item from your accounting data, or one that has been marked paid or received.
ForecastA planned future item based on your forecast settings.
DraftAn item you have added while you are still planning.
Repeating seriesA saved rule that creates future items on a schedule.
Budgee board with transaction rows in the cash summary

Categories

Categories are the cash flow groupings Budgee uses to organise transactions, forecasts, and scenarios. They help you see what money is for, such as sales, rent, wages, subscriptions, or tax.

If you connect accounting software, categories usually come from your chart of accounts. You do not need to think about the full chart of accounts while using Budgee. In most places, choose the category that best describes the transaction or forecast item.

Due dates, expected dates, and payment dates

Dates are a major part of cash flow. Budgee separates dates so you can see both what was agreed and what you expect to happen.

  • Due date: when the transaction is officially due.
  • Expected date: when you expect the money to move.
  • Payment date: when it was actually paid or received.

If a transaction is unpaid, moving its expected date is often the most useful way to keep the forecast realistic without rewriting history. Paid or received transactions also show the payment date, so you can compare what was due with what actually happened.

Transaction editor showing the due date and expected date fields
Forecasted item: due date and expected date
Transaction editor showing the due date and payment date fields
Paid item: due date and payment date

Forecasts

A forecast is Budgee's estimate of future cash flow. It can be based on past activity, imported repeating invoices or bills, or amounts you set yourself.

Your first forecast does not need to be perfect. Start with the big incoming and outgoing areas, then adjust anything that clearly needs attention.

Forecast dialog with graph and forecast assumptions

Tabs

Tabs are saved ways of looking at the same organisation. They do not create separate copies of the data. They control what you see and how it is grouped.

This means one board can have a simple cash summary, a dashboard, an all transactions view, and custom views for specific clients, teams, or reporting needs.

Budgee board header showing Cash Summary, Dashboard, and All Transactions tabs

Footers

Footers are the totals at the bottom of transaction views. They help you understand the net change, incoming and outgoing totals, bank balances, available funds, and other summary rows for each time period.

Footer visibility can be controlled by tab defaults and by your own live footer settings.

Footer totals shown at the bottom of the Budgee board

Scenarios

Scenarios let you ask what could happen. You can test changes such as delayed payments, higher sales, lower costs, new hires, or one-off purchases without changing your real transactions.

Active scenarios follow you across tabs, so the same what-if question can be reviewed in the cash summary, dashboard, and other views.

Scenario creator panel beside the Budgee board

A simple way to start

  1. Create or connect your organisation.
  2. Open the Cash summary tab and understand the main incoming and outgoing groups.
  3. Create your first forecast.
  4. Review the Dashboard to check the headline numbers.
  5. Try one small scenario and turn it on and off.

That is enough to understand the basics: real activity, forecasts, helpful views, and possible changes.

Where to go next

Set up your first forecastFollow one clear path from setup to a forecast you can review.Automatic forecastingGenerate a forecast and understand the assumptions behind it.ScenariosTest what could happen without changing your real data.Transactions and repeating seriesWork with individual transactions and repeating items.