Envelope Budgeting in SavePoint

📒 Key terms to know first

A handful of words come up throughout envelope budgeting. Here is what each one means in SavePoint:

• Envelope - a labelled bucket for one spending purpose (Groceries, Gas, Vacation). A linked envelope is tied to one of your expense categories and moves automatically whenever you spend in that category; a custom envelope has no category and only moves when you fund or move money into it by hand.
• Unassigned Cash - the holding envelope for money you have not given a job yet. Income you record (an Income-category transaction) lands here, and you fund your other envelopes from it. When you first turn envelope mode on, it gets a one-time starting balance from the accounts you choose to include in your envelope budget (see "Which accounts are in your envelope budget" below). The default selection is your everyday spending accounts (checking, savings, cash) plus credit cards, and the total is their asset balances minus what you owe on the cards. The seeding happens only once - after that, Unassigned Cash changes only through income and funding.
• Funded / Spent / Available - the three numbers on every envelope. Funded is what you put in (including anything carried over from last month), Spent is what you have spent against it, and Available is what is left to spend (Funded minus Spent, plus any refunds).
• Fund - move money from Unassigned Cash into an envelope.
• Move Money - move money straight from one envelope to another (for example, to cover an overspent envelope).
• Sinking fund - an envelope you fill a little at a time toward a goal (vacation, car repairs, an annual insurance bill), letting the balance build up month after month instead of resetting.
• Future Funds - money you set aside today that is earmarked for a future month, kept separate so it stays out of this month's picture until you need it.
• Card Payment Reserve - cash automatically set aside to pay a credit card later when you spend on it, so your envelopes stay honest about money you have already committed.
• Cash on hand, drift, reconcile - Cash on hand is your real account balance from the Balance Sheet; drift is any gap between that and your envelope total; reconciling is closing that gap.
• Close Month - finalise a month so its balances roll forward. Leftover money in each envelope either resets to Unassigned Cash or rolls over, depending on that envelope's setting.

🔌 Turning it on

Choose envelope budgeting during first-time setup, or switch any time in Settings → Budgeting. When you turn it on, SavePoint sets up a few things automatically:

• An Unassigned Cash envelope, seeded once with your starting cash. You choose which accounts that total comes from (see "Which accounts are in your envelope budget" just below)
• An envelope for each of your expense categories, sorted into the Needs, Wants, Savings, and Debt groups by name
• A Card Payment Reserve for each credit card account (covered below)

During setup you also choose what should happen to leftover money in a monthly spending category at month end: reset it, or roll it over. That is only the starting default - you can change it per envelope later. The sidebar label for the page changes from Budget to Envelopes, and the dashboard's home-tab and chart options follow the same naming. Switch back to classic and the label returns to Budget.

Classic and Envelope are two views of the same budget. Your category envelopes are your Classic budget categories, so a category-linked envelope's Monthly Fund Target is the same number as that category's Monthly Budget in Classic mode for that year. Set it in either place and the other updates to match, so you can flip between the two modes without re-entering amounts. (Custom envelopes with no linked category are envelope-only and have no Classic counterpart.) Income sources are shared the same way, which is why the year carry can rebuild a complete Classic budget for the new year.

🏦 Which accounts are in your envelope budget

The first time you turn envelope mode on, SavePoint asks which accounts are part of your envelope budget. The total of the included accounts becomes your starting Unassigned Cash, and a live preview shows that amount as you tick accounts on and off.

• Included by default: your everyday spending accounts (Liquid Assets such as checking, savings, and cash) plus credit cards, so card spending is tracked through the Card Payment Reserve
• Excluded by default: investments, retirement, property, and loans - most people do not budget those into envelopes, so leaving them out keeps them from inflating your starting cash

An included account is part of the envelope system: its balance counts toward your cash on hand and its transactions move your envelopes. An excluded account is invisible to envelopes - it does not seed Unassigned Cash, is not counted in cash on hand (so it cannot create drift), and its transactions never touch an envelope. This is the standard "budget accounts vs. tracking accounts" split, and it is what keeps your starting numbers sensible (your 401k or house value does not land in your grocery envelopes).

🔁 Your envelope routine (what to actually do)

Day to day, envelope budgeting is a short loop. You do not have to do it on a fixed schedule - fund whenever money arrives, and close a month once it is finished - but the order is always the same. The sections after this one explain each step in detail.

💵 Unassigned Cash and funding envelopes

New money lands in Unassigned Cash - everything you have not yet given a job. Each month your task is to move it into the envelopes you care about using the Fund Envelopes button.

• Fund Envelopes moves money from Unassigned Cash into a spending envelope
• Move Money shifts money directly between two envelopes (for example, covering an overspent Groceries envelope from Entertainment)
• Funding never creates or destroys money. Your cash on hand does not change when you fund or move - only the split between envelopes changes

🛒 How transactions move your envelopes

You do not log spending on the envelope page itself. You record transactions the normal way - typing them on the Transactions page or importing them from your bank - exactly as you would in classic mode. The only difference is that, behind the scenes, SavePoint reads each transaction's category and automatically adjusts the matching envelope. Your habit does not change; envelope mode just reacts to every transaction you record:

• An expense reduces the envelope linked to its category (Spent goes up, Available goes down). For example, a $60 Groceries purchase lowers the Groceries envelope by $60.
• A refund (a positive amount on an expense category, such as a returned item) goes back into the envelope's Refund line and raises Available. Spent stays at the original amount, so you can always see what you actually spent versus what came back.
• Income - a transaction in an Income category, such as a paycheck or interest - lands in Unassigned Cash, ready for you to fund envelopes with. What matters is that the category is an Income category, not which account the money was paid into.
• Transfers between your own accounts have no envelope effect - you are just moving your own money around.

Where does the money in Unassigned Cash come from? Two places: the one-time amount SavePoint seeds when you first turn envelope mode on (your current cash, read from the Balance Sheet), and every income transaction you record afterwards. You then split that cash into envelopes with Fund Envelopes. Note that simply updating an account balance on the Balance Sheet does not add to Unassigned Cash - only recorded income does - because your cashflow log and your account balances are tracked separately.

If an envelope goes negative it turns red. SavePoint never blocks the purchase or hides the problem - it shows you the overspend, and you resolve it by moving money in from another envelope.

🔄 Reset, roll over, or reset to a set amount

Each envelope decides what happens to leftover money when a month ends. Set this on any envelope with its edit (pencil) button:

• Reset each month - leftover sweeps back to Unassigned Cash so you re-assign it fresh next month. The classic envelope behaviour and the default for everyday categories such as Groceries and Gas
• Roll over - leftover stays in the envelope and carries forward. The default for sinking funds and savings, where you want the balance to build up
• Reset to a set amount - the envelope returns to a fixed amount each month; any excess sweeps to Unassigned Cash and a shortfall is topped up from it. Pick this and a Reset amount field appears where you enter that amount. Useful for a steady buffer. The Reset amount is a single setting for the envelope, so changing it applies to every month you have not closed yet

🐷 Sinking funds

A sinking fund is a rollover envelope you fund a little at a time so the money is ready when a planned expense arrives - a vacation, an annual insurance premium, holiday gifts, or car repairs. Create one as a New Envelope: leave the linked category as "(none)", pick the Sinking Fund role, and set the Sinking fund target to your goal (for example $1,200 for a vacation). The separate Monthly Fund Target (planned) field is optional, it is how much you plan to add each month, and it drives the underfunded warning, the Fund Next Month preset, and the months-to-goal estimate (remaining ÷ monthly) - it is not the goal. SavePoint then shows your progress toward the sinking fund target and the monthly pace to reach it.

A sinking fund's Spent stays at $0, which is normal. A sinking fund is a custom envelope with no linked category, so no transaction ever lands on it - you are funding it (adding money), not spending against it, so only Funded and Available move. When the time comes to use it, you draw it down with Move Money, shifting the saved cash to Unassigned Cash or to the spending envelope where the real cost lands; that lowers its Available, not its Spent. (The actual purchase then shows up as Spent on whatever envelope you moved the money to.) For the same reason, its progress bar fills toward your target (Saved vs Target), turning green when you reach it, rather than tracking spending the way an everyday envelope's bar does. The Sinking-Fund Progress report lists every sinking fund with its percentage to target, remaining amount, and estimated months to the goal.

If you give a sinking fund a target date, the row shows the monthly pace needed to reach the goal by then, and that pace drops as you save more. If the date passes before you have reached the goal, the line switches to a clear past-due note (for example "$800 / $1,200 saved. Past Sep 1, 2026, $400 to go") instead of a misleading estimate. It never stops you, you can keep funding the envelope, push the target date out, or leave it, whatever fits.

⏭️ Planning ahead with Future Funds

Have money now for next month's bills? Use Manage Future Funds to set it aside for an upcoming month and a specific envelope, or the one-click Fund Next Month preset to pre-fill next month from each envelope's monthly target.

What it does to your numbers: setting money aside does not change how much cash you have - it just earmarks part of it for later. So you do not spend it twice, SavePoint holds it out of your available Unassigned Cash this month and shows it as Future Funds instead:

• The Unassigned Cash card shows your available amount (balance minus what you set aside). Set aside $200 of $4,400 and it reads $4,200
• Future Funds shows the $200. In the envelope list it appears as its own line under System, and the Unassigned Cash row notes the set-aside, so the two add back to your real balance ($4,200 + $200 = $4,400) and the All Envelopes total still ties to cash on hand
• Your cash on hand and drift do not change - the money never left, it is only earmarked

🗂️ Organizing your envelopes

Envelopes are arranged into groups: the four standard ones (Needs, Wants, Savings, Debt), plus any you create. Groups are purely visual, so moving an envelope between them never changes a balance.

• Manage Groups (above the envelope list) lets you add your own groups, give a group an icon, reorder them, or remove ones you do not need. Removing a group is safe: its envelopes simply move to "Ungrouped", never deleted
• The four standard groups are protected. Needs, Wants, Savings, and Debt cannot be renamed or removed, because new spending is auto-sorted into them by name. You can still give them an icon and reorder them
• Linked vs. custom envelopes: a linked envelope is tied to one expense category and draws from it automatically whenever you spend (each category links to exactly one envelope, so duplicates are prevented). A custom envelope has no category and is a manual bucket, ideal for sinking funds; it only changes when you deliberately fund or move money into it
• Archiving: finished with a custom envelope? Tick Archive on its edit screen to tuck it away without losing history, then bring it back any time with View Archived. Linked envelopes cannot be archived because they keep tracking their category; to retire one, remove or rename its category in Settings

System buckets (Unassigned Cash and Card Payment Reserves) are shown together under a System group. They are managed by SavePoint, not funded by you, so they sit apart from your spending and savings envelopes.

🔍 View filters

Four buttons above the envelope list let you narrow the view to just the envelopes you need to act on right now. They are purely visual - no balance or movement is ever affected - and the filter resets to All whenever you switch months or leave the page.

• All - the default. Shows every envelope in your budget, exactly as normal
• Overspent - shows only envelopes where Available has gone negative. Useful when you have come back to the page mid-month and want a quick list of what needs covering with Move Money
• Underfunded - shows envelopes whose funding has not yet reached their monthly target. Handy at the start of a new month when you are working through Fund Envelopes and want to see what still needs attention. (Envelopes without a monthly target, and the System group, are never flagged as underfunded)
• Hide $0 - hides envelopes where Funded, Spent, and Available are all zero this period. Useful in months where many envelopes sit completely idle - for example a seasonal expense envelope in an off-month - so you can focus on the ones that are actually in play

Each button shows a count badge so you know at a glance how many envelopes match before you click. The active filter is highlighted. An amber triangle on a row means that envelope is underfunded against its monthly target; a red triangle means it is overspent (Available is negative).

🧮 Reading the totals

Each envelope row shows three numbers: Funded (what you put in, including any balance carried over), Spent, and Available (what is left). At the bottom of every group is a Subtotal row, and below the whole list is an All Envelopes total.

If an envelope received a refund, a small green "refunded" line appears under Spent, and the same line appears in the subtotal and the All Envelopes total. That is why Available can be more than Funded minus Spent: the refund was added back.

The System group holds the buckets SavePoint manages for you: Unassigned Cash (shown net of anything set aside for future months), any Card Payment Reserves, and a Future Funds line for money set aside. Because Unassigned Cash is shown net and Future Funds is listed separately, the two add back to your real Unassigned Cash balance, and the All Envelopes total still equals your cash on hand.

💳 Credit cards and the Card Payment Reserve

Spending on a credit card is special: the cash has not actually left your bank yet - you owe it. To keep your envelopes honest, each card gets a Card Payment Reserve. It is a system bucket (money set aside to pay the card, not a budget line you fund), so it is shown under System with Unassigned Cash. The card balance itself stays on your Balance Sheet as a liability. The full cycle:

• You buy something on the card - the spending envelope drops, and the same amount moves into that card's Reserve. Your total cash on hand does not change
• Time passes - the Reserve holds the cash. It shows as Funded (filled by your purchases), not Spent, because you have not paid the card yet
• You pay the card - record the payment as a transaction on the credit card account with a Payment-type category (for example "Credit Card Payment"). The Reserve drains by the payment amount, and the spending envelopes are untouched because that money was already counted at purchase time

Important - use a Payment category, not a Transfer. To make a card payment affect your Card Payment Reserve, record it on the credit card account with a category whose type is Payment. A category typed as Transfer moves money between accounts without touching any envelope, so it will not drain the Reserve. So: account = the credit card, category type = Payment, amount = the payment you made. The Reserve drops by that amount; then update your Balance Sheet so cash on hand reflects the cash that left your checking account.

A refund on a card reverses a purchase: the money returns to the spending envelope's Refund line and the Reserve drops. If you would rather treat your card like a debit card (paid in full automatically), switch Card Payment Reserve Handling to "Treat as cash spend" in Settings > Budgeting. In that mode a card purchase is counted as a straight cash spend right away (no Reserve), so until you record the card balance on your Balance Sheet you may see a temporary drift - that is expected, and it clears once the Balance Sheet reflects the card debt or you pay it.

⚖️ Cash on hand, drift, and reconciling

Two numbers sit at the top of the page. Cash on hand comes from your Balance Sheet (your real account balances), not from your transactions. Envelopes total is the sum of all your envelopes. When they match you see a green "Envelopes balanced" badge.

Because SavePoint keeps your transaction log separate from your account balances, the two can temporarily disagree. This gap is called drift, and it is normal - for example, you enter $50 of groceries but have not yet lowered your bank balance to reflect it. The drift banner shows the size and direction of the gap and offers two ways to fix it:

• Update Balance Sheet (the usual fix) - a transaction moved money your Balance Sheet has not caught up with yet. Record your real account balance and the gap closes
• Reconcile to Cash - absorbs the difference into Unassigned Cash. Use this only when your account balances are already correct (for example, income that arrived but is not yet assigned)

🏁 Closing and reopening a month

When a month is done, click Close Month next to the month navigator. This finalizes the period and rolls balances forward: reset envelopes sweep their leftovers to Unassigned Cash, and rollover envelopes carry forward. A closed month shows a lock badge, and its funding and move actions (Fund Envelopes, Move Money, and Manage Future Funds) are disabled to protect the finalized balances.

• Activity is locked too. In a closed month, each fund, move, or adjustment in the Activity feed shows a lock icon instead of an undo button. To change something, reopen the month first. (Transactions are the one exception - see below.)
• Sweeps and carry-forwards appear in next month's Activity feed as their own entries. The carried opening balance is shown as the envelope's starting figure, not as a separate movement, so the feed only logs what actually moved
• Reopening pulls the rollover back and makes the month editable again. Nothing is deleted. Because each month builds on the one before it, months reopen newest first, and SavePoint offers to reopen the whole chain in one step if needed
• What reopening does and does not touch. It reverses only what closing created: the automatic rollover, sweeps, and reset-to-target top-ups. It does not revert money you set aside yourself with Future Funds or Fund Next Month, those are your own funding decisions and stay in place. If you want that money back in Unassigned Cash, undo those entries by hand from the Activity feed
• Back-dated and closed-month edits: if you add or edit a transaction dated in a closed month, SavePoint updates that month's history, recalculates every later month automatically, and shows a brief heads-up so you know it touched a finalized period

🗓️ Crossing into a new year

SavePoint budgets one calendar year at a time, so a new year is a new budget. In envelope mode, the first time you open the Budget page in a new year, SavePoint carries your envelopes forward automatically so they never just disappear. A confirmation appears, for example "Finalized 2026 and carried your envelopes into 2027." Here is exactly what it does:

• It finalizes last year. Any months you had not closed yet are closed for you, oldest first, so the year is fully settled before the new one begins. Reset envelopes sweep their leftovers to Unassigned Cash, and rollover and sinking-fund envelopes keep their balances
• It rebuilds your envelopes in the new year with the same names, groups, rollover settings, and targets, and carries the right starting balance: rollover and sinking funds carry their balance, reset envelopes start fresh at $0 (their leftover is now in Unassigned Cash), and reset-to-target envelopes start at their target amount
• Your monthly targets and income sources carry too. The new year's Classic budget is created at the same time, so if you switch to Classic in the new year it is already complete, not blank
• Unassigned Cash and Card Payment Reserves carry across unchanged - they are persistent buckets (one per user, one per card), so their balances simply continue into the new year
• Future Funds you set aside for the new year land correctly on the right envelope, exactly once
• Last year is still there. Navigate back with the month arrows to see its finalized history; each month shows that year's envelopes, and you can still correct it (a back-dated transaction into the closed year recalculates forward into the new year)
• It runs once per new year. If you had already started a new-year budget in Classic, your envelopes are merged into it rather than duplicated
• Forgot to close some months before year-end? That is fine - the year-end carry finalizes them for you, and money is never lost. A reset envelope's unspent leftover simply returns to Unassigned Cash, ready to fund the new year

📄 Envelope reports

Turning on envelope budgeting adds three report types on the Reports page (in the Report Type dropdown). They are covered in detail in the Reports section:

• Envelope Month - a full snapshot of one month: every envelope's Funded, Spent, and Available, grouped like the page, plus a System Balances section and a drift note when balances and envelopes disagree
• Envelope Trends - a month-by-month history showing Funded, Spent, Available, and how many envelopes were overspent each month
• Sinking-Fund Progress - how your savings funds are tracking toward their targets, with a percentage, remaining amount, and estimated months to the goal

The Envelope Month and Sinking-Fund reports show the month at the end of your selected date range; Envelope Trends spans every month in the range.

📊 Envelope budgeting across the app

When envelope mode is on, a few other screens adapt to it:

• Dashboard - Envelope Progress chart: the Budget Progress doughnut is relabelled Envelope Progress and switches to a traffic-light view of your envelopes' health (green within funding, amber running low, red overspent)
• Dashboard - Envelope Summary module: a quick read on Unassigned Cash, any overspent envelopes, and sinking-fund progress, without opening the Budget page
• Financial Health - Envelope Adherence: the Budget Adherence component is relabelled Envelope Adherence and measures the share of your envelopes that are not overspent