New user's guide
Please consult the following page for first time users of My Budget. Included are walkthroughs and explanations of the software. If you are looking for the application itself, you can find a download link on this page.
The first time you load the app, you will have an opportunity to encrypt your budget information with a passphrase. This is an optional step, and just adds an extra layer of security to your data. To set your passphrase, enter it in the "passphrase" box before clicking go. If you don't want a passphrase, simply click go without entering anything in the input box.
My Budget organizes your transactions in categories and sub-categories. Think about what you spend your money on, and create categories and sub-categories to categorize these transactions.
![Creating [sub]categories](https://github.com/reZach/my-budget/raw/master/images/creating%20%5Bsub%5Dcategories.png)
Typed in the wrong name or title? You can easily rename a category or sub-category by clicking on the pencil icon. Confirm your change by clicking the checkmark, or cancel by clicking the no sign.
![Renaming [sub]categories](https://github.com/reZach/my-budget/raw/master/images/renaming%20%5Bsub%5Dcategories.png)
Tip! - If you would like to expand or collapse all categories, you can do so with these buttons.
![Collapse and expanding [sub]categories](https://github.com/reZach/my-budget/raw/master/images/collapse%20expand.png)
Select a category and sub-category, and enter any transactions you've made. The month for this transaction will be the currently selected month in the header! The "Note" field is optional.
Transactions can be deleted individually or by bulk. Deleting transactions by bulk only deletes the transaction for the current month you are looking at!
If you've added transactions with no income, you will see a negative net balance. Go and add your income by clicking on the Income button.
Add as many sources of income you have. You can choose the amount, start date and frequency of your income (if you add an income with a date in the past, we will calculate how much you have based on the current day and frequency of your income). Your income records will show up in a table below after you've added it.
Any time you make a change while using My Budget, you need to save these changes or else they will not be persisted when you open the software up again. To see if you have pending changes, notice that the Save button is enabled. Click the Save button to save your changes.
We currently have limited support for this, but if you happen to have a supported bank, you can follow these steps to import your transactions from your bank. First, search for the bank name and select the entry that is displayed.
Enter your credentials you use to login to your bank.
My Budget will log into your account and import transactions.
Clicking on any transaction, you can edit the category or sub-category it gets assigned to. Existing categories and sub-categories that exist in the month your transaction was made will be available to select from the drop-downs. You also have an option to create a new category or sub-category here as well. Any updates you make to a transaction, be sure to click Update after. To undo all changes to a transaction, click the Undo all button.
Tip! - Only transactions that are set to be imported will be imported!
You'll likely want an easy way to navigate between months while using My Budget. To do so, hover over the month name to get a friendly popup. You can navigate back a year (-12), 6 months (-6), today's month (Now), ahead 6 months (+6) or ahead a year (+12). You can also navigate back or ahead one month by clicking the arrows to the left and right of the month name in the header.
In the future, we will have the ability to export your data in certain formats, but if you want to save your data elsewhere, you can do so by clicking the Export button in the header (Be sure to click Save before you export!!). If you'd like to delete all your data, click the Delete button (please close out of the app after clicking the Delete button).
If you have exported your data (step 8) and would like to re-import, click the Import data button while the app has started and select your exported data file.
You'll get a confirmation prompt when it succeeds.
You can choose an optional passphrase like in Step 1 if you'd like before; this new passphrase overwrites your old passphrase.