Budgeting Overview

Budgeting in Common Cents is where you decide what your money should be ready to do before spending happens. The Budget page is built around one working grid, a few summary cards, and a small set of menus that help you make changes without bouncing through separate screens.

At the top of the Budget page, Common Cents can show summary cards such as:

• Unassigned for money you can still give a job right now
• Unplanned when Income Planning is enabled

If Targets is enabled, each of these has a related action:

• Unplanned - Apply Target Needs to Planned
• Unassigned - Apply Target Needs to Assigned

Right above the budget grid, the main controls are:

• Filter to narrow the page to categories like Overspent, Rollover, Zero, and, when Targets is enabled, Underfunded or Overfunded
• Zero Month to set all category’s Assigned or Planned amounts back to zero for the month
• Category Group to add a group or expand and collapse all groups
• Commit Plans when planned money can be turned into assigned amounts

The grid is where most of the real work happens. Depending on the month you are viewing, it can show columns like Planned, Assigned, Activity, Available, Expected Starting, and Expected Available. Every group and category row also has a Related Actions menu so you can edit, move, archive, or target items without leaving the Budget page.

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• Category Groups and Categories
• Assigning Money
• Available vs Activity

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Use these pages when you need to organize your budget, assign or move money, or understand what the Budget numbers are telling you. If you are trying to answer “what already happened,” that is usually a Transactions question instead.