Budget Analysis

RightCapital's Budget tool empowers clients to create and track their monthly budgets. Invite your clients to the Client Portal and begin setting budget goals and monitoring their spending all in one place!

Summary Overview

The Summary tab gives you and your client an overview of their current monthly budget. This section will highlight the budget percentage that has been spent and the remaining budget for the month.

Each Budget category will be listed on the right side of the page showing the total dollar amount left in the budget for the current month.

The bar will turn yellow when a client is close to exceeding their budget. When the client exceeds their monthly budget, the bar will turn red. This allows you and the client to track spending for each category and quickly identify areas where the client is overspending.

Activity Overview

The Activity tab provides an overview of expenses, income, and net income over a specific time frame. The Activity tab will display a graph to compare the budget over time. Click on the particular budget category to see a detailed overview.

Viewing Transactions

Your clients may choose to share the details of transactions with you. If so, select Transactions to see all transactions supporting the budget information.

You can filter by account, budget category, and time period on the transaction tab or use the search field to locate specific transactions. Click on the transaction to edit the date, description, category, and dollar amount.

You can change an assigned category by selecting one or multiple transactions using the check box on the left side of the page. Then select the blue "Edit Category" button in the upper right-hand corner. Click on the category drop-down box to choose a new category.

Once a category has been changed, any future transaction with the same description will be automatically categorized into the new category. Budget categories will be listed alphabetically in the Budget Summary and Transaction tab. When an account is initially linked, RightCapital will import the past three months of data associated with that connected account.

Transactions categorized as "Other" are not considered expenses. If expenses appear missing from the budget, double-check the "Other" category -- the transactions may need to be re-categorized to appear as an expense.

You can also download transaction information to a .csv file based on the filters you apply on the Transactions tab. Simply click the download button.

Client transaction permissions

Clients can permit you to access the Transactions tab. Have your client navigate to the ⚙️ icon > Security > Permissions in their Client Portal to do so.

If the client unchecks the box shown below, you will be able to see the Transactions tab.

Action Items

Users can include/exclude bank and credit card accounts directly from the budgeting module. Click into the Action Items > Edit button allows users to exclude accounts from the budget.

Adding manual transactions

Once a client has linked one or more bank/credit card accounts, there is also an option to add in manual transactions. A manual account is required to post manual adjustments to budget line items. All linked accounts import all line items automatically; to generate a new (and manually entered) line item, do so once a manual account is created.

To add manual transactions:

1

Add a manual bank or credit card account on the Profile > Net Worth screen. Click Add Account button and choose Bank or Card.

2

Go to Dashboard > Budget and click on the Transactions tab. Select the left-hand drop-down box; select one of the manually entered accounts:

4

Selecting + Transaction will bring up a pop-up box to enter the Date, Description, Category, and Amount.

Splitting Transactions

When an account is linked through account aggregation, you can assign portions of the transactions to different budget categories. To split a transaction, click the icon on the far right:

Creating a Budget

Navigate to the Budget tab to create a monthly budget. Click on each budget category to specify a specific dollar amount allocated to that category. The information will feed to the Summary tab, where you can track the monthly budget. You can also select a time frame to see the average monthly spend compared to the current monthly budget.

If you have already filled out a detailed expense worksheet in either Profile > Expenses or Profile > Goals, you can choose to copy the values into the Budget tab via the "Copy From" button in the lower left:

Customize Budget Categories

You or your clients can add additional budget categories for clients to use in the Budget tool!

Transactions will not be automatically categorized into the new categories — you or your client must re-categorize transactions in the Transactions tab. If one of the existing budget categories is renamed, all transactions remain linked to that category. If you delete a budget category, all transactions will be moved to Uncategorized.