Cashflow: your balance in the weeks ahead

Open Cashflow from its own button in the main navigation, right after Accounts (on a phone, in the bar at the bottom). The Overview tab opens with the answer to the question people actually ask: does the money last until the next paycheque? The card says it in one sentence and is coloured to match: green when it does with room to spare, yellow when it only just does or gets close to your Warning amount, and red when your balance would go below $0 before then, or below your Alarm amount, the lowest you have said you want it to go. Every figure on the card is counted from $0: when your balance would go below $0, the card says how much you would be short.

Beside the sentence are four figures. Safe to spend is how much you can spend before your next paycheque arrives without your balance going below $0. Then the lowest balance ahead and its day, your balance today, and your next pay, with who pays it. All cash adds up every cash account. The Reyes household has $26,834.98 across chequing and savings, so $21,610.14 is safe to spend before October 30, and that figure already holds back their $4,165.99 cushion (step 14). The card says they make it to their October 30 pay with room to spare.

Above the card, Show picks what the answer and the chart are drawn with: With my plan (the Reyes household’s current plan is Tighter November, step 11), Without a plan, or another saved plan. Beside it is the account. Everything else on the Overview, the details, the fixes and your plan, sits below the chart.

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1. 1Three tabs: Overview, Plans and Settings. Switching is instant.
2. 2Show: draw everything with your plan, without a plan, or with another saved plan.
3. 3The answer, in one sentence, coloured green, yellow or red, with safe to spend, the lowest balance, today's balance and your next pay.
4. 4Details: paydays, how close the forecast was, the everyday spending and your cards, one click away.

The timeframe button on the chart opens two rows of choices: look back anywhere from 7 days to 12 months, or not at all, and look ahead anywhere from 2 weeks to 12 months. The default is 30 days back and 3 months ahead, which is enough to see the next six or seven paydays. The lowest balance is worked out over whatever period you pick, but safe to spend always stops at your next income, because that is the money you have until then. Mintro remembers your choice.

Your total can look fine while the account your bills are paid from runs low. Pick Prairie Credit Union Chequing in the account picker beside Show, and the card turns red: the household makes it to the October 30 pay, but chequing’s balance goes below its $3,000 Alarm amount on November 12, when the ENMAX power bill comes out. Only $661.15 is safe to spend before October 30.

Bills only projects your balance from what is scheduled: the bills and paycheques you set up, and nothing else. Use it when you keep an eye on everyday spending yourself and only want to know whether your fixed costs fit. With spending also includes what you usually spend on things like groceries and gas, which is better for planning. It draws that balance in colour, keeps the bills-only balance as a faint line above it, and shades the gap between the two, so you can see how much your everyday spending takes. On chequing, the bills-only balance stays above Alarm; with spending included, the ENMAX bill takes it below. When the chart is drawn with a plan, the faint line shows your balance without the plan instead, and the chart says so under it. Every figure on the screen, and the answer, follow the view you pick.

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1. 1The answer for chequing: the day the balance goes below Alarm, and how low it gets.
2. 2The Alarm and Warning amounts for this account. Click them to change them in the Settings tab.

Move your pointer along the chart and a card shows the day, the balance, and what changed it. On a future day it shows the balance in both views, or, when you have a current plan, the balance with the plan and without it. November 12 shows $2,904.86 with the plan and $2,894.86 without it, and lists the reasons: $0.66 the plan saves on Fun money, a day of expected spending from Fun money ($5.36) and Utilities ($5.93), and the ENMAX bill of $142.00. It also says this is the lowest balance before the November 13 paycheque. That answers “can we afford the TV this week?” without a spreadsheet: it shows the day money is tightest, and why.

Each payday ahead is a small tick along the bottom of the chart, and the lowest balance before it gets a small dot. Click Details under the chart, and Your lowest balance before each payday spells out the next three: chequing's lowest balance is $3,661.15 before the October 30 paycheque, $2,904.86 before November 13 (in red, because it is below Alarm), and $3,911.81 before November 27. The rest are shown as a count you can open to see the full list. This way a tight stretch is easy to spot weeks in advance.

Over past days, a dotted line shows what Mintro forecast for those days. Every day, Mintro saves its projection for the month ahead, and later draws it next to what actually happened. How close the forecast was tells you how close it came, as a count of days, and names the biggest miss. On chequing it reads 25 of 29 days within $25, and the biggest miss was the $7,114.98 moved to savings on October 20, a transfer nobody had scheduled. On All cash that transfer cancels out, so the biggest miss is Reyes Contracting's $5,000 payment on October 10, money that came in without being scheduled. A miss tells you what to set up: a bill that keeps surprising you belongs in Upcoming.

Expected everyday spending tells you how much of the drop in your balance comes from everyday spending and how much from bills: $314.14 of everyday spending by November 12, compared with $2,921.00 of bills. Everyday spending is spread evenly across the days: each included envelope's usual month (last month, its 3-month average, or its target, whichever you chose) is divided by the number of days. Utilities accounts for the most, $224.08 based on its target, followed by Fun money. The shaded stripes on the chart are that spending.

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1. 1Your lowest balance before each payday, in red when it is below Alarm.
2. 2How close the forecast was: how many days went as forecast, the biggest miss, and why the others missed.
3. 3Expected everyday spending: how much of the drop in your balance is everyday spending, and how much is bills.

When your balance would go below $0 (or into the buffer safe to spend holds back) before the next paycheque, Ways to fix it under the chart lists what would keep it at or above $0, in one list: bills that could be paid a little later, on the day your next paycheque arrives, and how much less everyday spending would do it. Mintro tries each bill on the chart before it lists it, so each one says whether it is enough on its own. Bills that are enough come first, smallest first, because the smallest bill is the easiest one to ask about; then spending less; then bills that would only help.

The list works from what the chart is drawn with, here Tighter November, the household’s current plan. For chequing it says any one of these keeps the balance above Alarm until the November 13 paycheque: pay ENMAX ($142) on November 13 instead of the 12th, pay TD Insurance ($289) on the 13th instead of the 5th, pay the Prairie CU Mortgage ($2,310) on the 13th instead of the 1st, or spend $100 less before November 13 on top of the plan, about $7 a day, most of it from Utilities and Fun money. Your agent reads the same list and can tell you the same thing.

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1. 1A bill paid on your next payday. Mintro tried it on the chart: this one alone keeps you above Alarm.
2. 2Spending less: how much, about how much a day, and which envelopes it would mostly come from.

Try it draws the fix on the chart and works the answer out again with it. Nothing is saved and your budget does not change. Try ENMAX on November 13, and the card turns yellow: with your plan and this fix, the household makes it to the October 30 pay and stays above Alarm, but the balance still goes below its $3,500 Warning amount on November 5 and is lowest on November 12, at $3,036.86. You can try more than one fix at a time; click Trying it again to take one off the chart.

When you like what you see, Add to my plan puts the fixes you are trying into the plan the chart shows, or starts a plan when there is none. Tighter November is already applied, so the button starts a new version of it in Plans, and the budget keeps following Tighter November until you apply the new one (step 9). A tried bill also offers Move this payment now, which changes the day Mintro expects that one payment straight away, without a plan. Moving a bill moves no money, so check first that the company you pay will accept the payment later.

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1. 1The answer, worked out again with the fix.
2. 2The fix being tried. Click Trying it to take it off the chart.
3. 3Add the fixes you are trying to your plan.

The Plans tab is where you test changes before you make them. Your plans are listed on the left, with Start a new plan above them; the plan you pick opens on the right. A plan is a named list of changes, and each change is one of four kinds, each with its own button under Add a change:

• A one-off purchase or payment: a single purchase, or a single payment coming in, on one day.
• Pay a bill on another day: the next payment of a scheduled bill, paid on a different day. Its later payments stay on their schedule.
• Keep an envelope to an amount: the most you want to spend in one envelope from tomorrow until a date you pick, or, if you prefer, how much less than usual. Mintro says it both ways: Keep Dining out to $44.05 from Oct 29 to Nov 11, about $3.14 a day, and you usually spend $84.05 in that time, so this saves $40.
• Put a lump sum into savings: money you plan to put somewhere on one day, such as an RRSP, a goal or the emergency fund, out of one account.

The plan on the right reads from top to bottom: its name and when it ends, what you’re changing, the buttons to add a change (each opens a small form whose every field is labelled and says what its amount and date mean), then your balance with the plan and without it, and the two questions it answers. Each change shows on the chart the moment you add it, with your balance as it is now drawn faintly behind. Nothing in your budget changes and no money moves. Add a $650 couch out of chequing on October 29: safe to spend drops to $10.48 against $660.48 without the plan, chequing goes below its Alarm amount on November 1 instead of November 12, and the lowest balance falls to $2,244.86.

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1. 1How much you can set aside on a day without your balance going below $0 later.
2. 2How to keep your balance above $0 with this plan, and a button that adds it.
3. 3The changes in the plan. Click one, or Edit, to change it.

The Overview follows the plan too. The answer card says it is drawn with Plan from Oct 28, a plan you have not applied: safe to spend drops to $10.48 and chequing goes below its Alarm amount on November 1, when the Prairie CU Mortgage payment comes out. On the chart, the faint line is your balance without the plan, and Ways to fix it works from the plan: with the couch, spending less alone would not be enough, and paying a bill on your next payday helps.

You do not have to start from nothing. Add to my plan under Ways to fix it (step 7) puts the fixes you tried into the plan the chart shows, or starts one.

To change a change, click it, or its Edit button: it opens in the same form with its values, so you can give a spend-less a different amount or date, or move a bill to another day, then Save change. The X takes it out of the plan. There is no Save button for the plan itself: Mintro saves it with every change, and the bottom of the plan says Saved once the change is kept.

Your agent can do the same before you have opened the app. Ask whether the couch fits and it tries the plan and answers with the same figures.

Every plan, and your balance with no plan at all, answers two questions. They are folded near the bottom of the plan, under How much you can set aside, and how to keep your balance above $0.

How much you can set aside: pick the day you would move money into savings or an RRSP (your next pay, unless you change it), and Mintro shows the most you can move without your balance going below $0 later, or below your buffer when safe to spend holds one back. Once a plan holds a lump sum, it becomes How much more you can set aside, with every change in the plan counted. The button under the figure adds it to the plan.

How to keep your balance above $0 is Ways to fix it, with the plan counted: how much less to spend, and a bill that could be paid later, each a click from being in the plan. When nothing needs to change, it says your balance stays above your Alarm amount every day.

The Reyes household saved a plan on All cash called RRSP before Christmas: a $450 car repair on November 4, the mortgage paid on November 3 instead of the 1st, $40 less on Dining out until November 11, and $1,000 into their RRSP on November 21, out of savings. With all of it, they could still put in $19,877 more on October 30, and December 10 is the day their balance is lowest after that, so it sets the limit. The lump sum says the same thing from its own day: it could be as much as $20,877 on November 21, with the rest of the plan kept.

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1. 1Your plans. Pick one to open it; your current plan is marked.
2. 2The changes in the plan. Click one, or Edit, to change it.
3. 3Add a change: each kind has its own button and its own small form.
4. 4Apply this plan to my budget when you are ready. Nothing changes before.

On All cash, both answers are for your cash accounts added up. One account can still run low on its own, and the panel says so. Here chequing still goes below its Alarm amount on November 12, as it would without the plan. To plan for one account, pick it in Which balance, above the chart.

A plan saves itself. The first change you add creates it, named for the day, Plan from Oct 28, until you give it a name of your own, and every change and rename after that is saved as you make it. Leave the page and come back, or open Mintro on your phone, and the plan is there. Keep as many as you like and pick one in the list on the left. Delete this plan is at the bottom. If a change cannot be saved, the panel says so and puts the plan back as it was, so what you see is always what is kept. Trying an idea should not leave clutter behind, so a plan you never name and never apply is deleted after 14 days without a change. Give it a name and it stays.

Every cashflow chart, here, on Accounts and on Budget, has a Show picker in its toolbar: No plan, Your current plan, or any saved plan by name. The chart draws the plan you pick as the main line, with your balance without it faint behind, and the figures above the chart follow it. Mintro remembers the choice for you in this budget, so every chart opens that way on every device, and changing it on one chart changes it on all of them. Picking a plan in Plans picks it there too. With no current plan, the charts start with no plan; with one, they start with it.

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1. 1No plan, your current plan, or any saved plan. Every chart opens this way.

Showing a saved plan changes nothing in your budget. Only Apply this plan to my budget does, and only in the ways listed next.

Apply this plan to my budget makes it real, and first lists every change it would make. A bill you planned to pay on another day gets that new date, for that one payment only. A spend-less change offers a smaller monthly target on its envelope, here Dining out from $250.00 to $164.00, about $86 a month less, and only changes it if you tick the box. The money stays in the envelope: the plan's limit shows beside it on Budget instead. A lump sum becomes a reminder on its day, because Mintro never moves the money for you. One-offs stay in the plan as notes. Because the Reyes household already has a current plan, the confirm starts by saying what replacing it would undo (step 11).

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1. 1A target changes only when you tick it. Left alone, the plan keeps it as a reminder.

Applied, the plan becomes your current plan (step 11) and is marked In effect. Its changes stay in the list under What this plan does, each with how it is going. You can still change it: Edit a change and save it, and it takes effect at once. A bill moved to another day moves again, and a keep-to counts its new amount from tomorrow. Taking a change out asks first, then puts back just that change. A change you add is part of the plan as soon as you save it. Stop this plan puts any bill it moved back on its old day and moves the plan to Finished plans.

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1. 1Stop this plan: the moved bill goes back to its day. No money moves either way.

On a lump sum’s day, a reminder sits at the top of Cashflow until you press Mark as done. Your agent hears about it once, and so does your inbox if you get cashflow alerts by email. Here, the current plan is Top up the fund, applied on October 28, which puts $500 into the emergency fund today, and Your plan on the Overview shows that change as Due now.

A plan is for a stretch of time, so it ends. It ends the day after its last change finishes: the last day of a spend-less change, the new date of a moved bill, or the day of a one-off. In an applied plan, a lump sum keeps the plan going until you mark it done. When this plan ends, beside the plan’s name, says the day in a sentence, and you can pick another: a later day keeps the plan going longer, and today ends it now. Each change in the plan is labelled Coming up, Happening now or Finished, so you can see where you are.

When a plan ends, it leaves your list of plans and the Show picker on every chart, and if it was your current plan, it stops being followed everywhere: Cashflow, Budget and Your plan on the Overview. Ending a plan does not undo it: a bill it moved stays on its new date. The plan moves to Finished plans, under your plans on the left, closed until you open it, with a sentence on how it went. Here, Lean October asked for $100 less on Groceries and $40 less on Dining out until October 23, and neither happened. Finished plans are kept for 90 days, then deleted. Start a new plan from this one copies its changes into a new plan, each date moved forward by the time since the old plan started, so the same plan next month is one click. If a plan ended by mistake, give it a later end date and it comes back to your plans as it was.

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1. 1How the plan went, in a sentence: what you kept to, and what went over.
2. 2The same changes in a new plan, with every date moved forward.
3. 3A later end date brings the plan back to your plans.

The plan you applied last is your current plan. You have one at a time. Mintro draws it on every cashflow chart, here, on Accounts and on Budget: the main line is your balance if you keep to the plan, and the faint line is your balance without it. Its name sits above the chart on Accounts and Budget, with whether anything needs your attention.

On the Overview, beside Ways to fix it, Your plan lists each change in the plan and how it is going. A spend-less change has a bar: how much of what the plan allows you have spent so far, red once you are over. Under it are the amount spent so far and about how much the plan allows a day. Mintro compares what you have really spent in that envelope since you applied the plan with what the plan allows up to today, spread evenly over its days, and says whether you are on track, ahead of the plan, or over it. Over means the chart is now hopeful: it still assumes you keep to the plan from here on. A bill the plan moved says it is done, and a lump sum says when Mintro will remind you.

The Reyes household applied Tighter November on October 20: $60 less on Groceries, $50 less on Dining out and $10 less on Fun money until November 12, and Netflix paid a day later, on November 23. Groceries is ahead of the plan: $168.31 spent so far, and the plan allows about $23.99 a day. Dining out is over: $50.55 spent so far, $28.32 more than the $22.23 the plan allows up to today, and its bar is red. Change the plan opens the Plans tab.

Everything worth a second look is folded into one line under the changes, things worth knowing about this plan; click it to open it. A note there can mean the plan and your budget disagree. Here, Dining out and Groceries both have nothing left this month, so spending less in them is mostly already what the envelopes ask of you: it is not extra money you can put somewhere else. A change that cannot happen at all, such as a bill moved past its next due date, is shown in red. The same notes show beside each change in Plans, and first in the apply confirm.

On Budget, each envelope the plan touches says so under its name, with how it is going. Open the envelope and the panel on the right shows the whole promise.

Applying a plan never takes money out of an envelope. The money stays where it is, and the plan's limit shows beside the envelope instead, so Ready to assign never looks like it has money to spare that the plan is counting on. Applying a different plan replaces your current one: the confirm says exactly what that undoes (the bills it moved go back), and the old plan stays saved for later.

Your envelopes say what your money is for, but your bank account can be short of it. A purchase you have not filed has left the bank but not an envelope. A bill for next month can come out before your pay arrives, when no envelope holds next month's money yet. Spending can run past what its envelope has left. Mintro checks every day until your next pay, taking each bill and each day of spending out of its envelope and your bank together, and tells you which of these it found.

On the Overview the check is one line, near the bottom: whether your envelopes and your bank agree, with a link to Budget. How Mintro checks this, step by step opens the full check in three parts, each with its figure. Today is what your envelopes hold against what your bank accounts hold, and why they differ when a transaction in To file explains it. A credit card purchase in To file is named but not counted there, because it has not left your bank yet. Before your pay is the money going out with no envelope money behind it: next month's bills due before the pay, with a count and the largest by name, bills this month that are more than their envelope holds, and spending past what its envelope has left. The last part is what that does to your bank balance: the lowest it gets and the first day it goes below zero. Mintro only says your pay puts money back when your balance stays above zero until the pay arrives. Under the parts, it lists what you can do with your envelopes: file what is in To file, give a short bill's envelope more, or set money aside for next month's bills. Paying a bill later and spending less are in Ways to fix it, so they are not listed twice. Credit cards are listed under it, each card that owes more than its payment envelope holds against that envelope.

On Budget, the same check runs across the top of the page, under the month, in a panel as wide as the budget. Its first line says the most important part; under it are the three figures: $478 of envelope money not in the bank today (Cashflow's step-by-step check gives the reasons: a $900 transaction in To file that has not been taken out of an envelope yet, and $62.40 spent past what its envelopes held), $3.01 of spending due before the October 30 pay with no envelope money behind it, and the lowest the bank balance gets, $26,776.13 on October 29. The panel is plain when everything is covered, yellow when something is short, and red when your balance would go below zero. When it is plain you can hide its figures for the month. The check follows the plan the chart shows: with a plan picked under Show, the line starts with the plan's name, counts its changes the way the chart draws them, and says what the amount would be without it.

Fix my envelopes, on the panel and in Cashflow's step-by-step check, does the moving for you. Mintro works out which envelopes will be short before your pay and where money can come from: Ready to assign first, then envelopes the chart does not expect you to spend from before the pay, then only what other envelopes have left after their own bills and spending, and savings last, marked as savings. It never moves more than an envelope needs, and it does not count on a plan's spending less until you apply that plan. You see each move, such as $3.01 from Ready to assign to Fun money, with why, and untick any you do not want. Nothing moves until you press Move this money, and the message that follows has Undo, which puts every envelope back as it was. If moving money cannot cover everything, it says how much is left and why. It only changes what your envelopes say your money is for: Mintro never moves money between your bank accounts.

Scheduled bills and income are always included. Everyday spending is included only for the envelopes you choose. In the Settings tab, the table called What the chart counts lists every envelope you spend from: what it spent last month and on average over three months, its target, the bills it still has this month, and how much it adds to the chart (the Chart adds column). For each envelope you choose how its spending is counted: Not counted, Last month, 3-month average, or Its target, each showing how much it would add.

Click any column heading to sort by it. The filters show how many envelopes are in each: All, Spending without bills, Has bills, and Counted. Spending without bills is the one that matters most: it shows which envelopes take money every month without a bill to remind you. For the Reyes household there are nine, from Groceries at $1,001.74 last month down to the vet. Household, Kids, Clothes, Car repairs, and Vet are not included yet; one choice on each adds them to the projection. Mintro remembers how you sorted and filtered.

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1. 1The filters, each with a count. Spending without bills is the everyday spending that no bill warns you about.
2. 2Click a column heading to sort by it; click it again to reverse the order.
3. 3Find an envelope or a category by name.

Scheduled bills are never counted twice. Streaming has one bill, Netflix, and the projection already takes Netflix out on its day, so including Streaming's spending adds nothing more. Targets work the same way: Utilities has a $320 target and a $142 ENMAX bill, so it adds $178.00 a month, not $320 on top of the ENMAX bill. Projected spending is taken from the account that envelope's purchases are usually paid from: groceries, gas, and dining out are paid with the Visa, so on chequing they show Another account.

A buffer is a cushion of money you always keep in your account, counted from $0, described the way people usually put it: keep one month of bills in hand. It is set up as a goal on the Goals screen, sized from your scheduled bills (a number of weeks or months of them, or an amount you type), for All cash or for one account. The Reyes household keeps a month of bills in hand across All cash: $4,165.99.

Under the chart, the buffer shows where it stands: safe, because the lowest balance ahead is $25,019.84 above Alarm, and their cash would cover 188 days of bills. The toolbar shows the buffer beside the Alarm and Warning amounts. By default, safe to spend holds the buffer back, which is why All cash says keeping your $4,165.99 buffer. When a balance would drop into its buffer, a faint band shows the cushion between $0 and the top of the buffer, and safe to spend says so.

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1. 1The buffer, beside the Alarm and Warning amounts. Click it to change it on the Goals screen.
2. 2Where the buffer stands, and how many days of bills the cash above Alarm would pay for.

You set a Warning amount and an Alarm amount for each account, and for All cash, under Alarm and Warning in the Settings tab. The chart turns yellow when the balance is at or below Warning, and red at or below Alarm. The Reyes household keeps chequing's Alarm at $3,000 because the Visa is paid from it, and its Warning at $3,500. All cash has its own pair, $1,000 and $5,000, or it can add up each account's amounts. Check both. A total can sit comfortably above its amounts while one account drops below, which is exactly what happens here: savings holds the money, but chequing pays the bills. Alerts are set up beside them, and the cashflow alerts guide explains those.

Owing money on a card is not the same as running out of money, so cards are not included in the All cash balance. Instead, on All cash each card gets its own row: how much you owe out of its limit, the most you will owe in the period shown, and the day it gets close to the limit or goes over. They are in Details, under the chart. With groceries included, the Visa climbs from $3,710.05 to $8,288.87 by January 28, still under its $12,000 limit. Pick a card in Which balance, and its chart is drawn against the limit rather than against zero.

The same answer and chart also appear on Accounts, for whichever account the register is showing: pick chequing at the top, and the chart shows chequing’s balance. The Alarm and Warning amounts and the envelope choices are one click away, on Cashflow.

The Budget screen shows a smaller version, the answer strip and the chart, above the envelopes. If you want the budget on its own, press Hide this chart, and turn it back on in Settings, under Account, with Cashflow on Budget. Mintro remembers your choice on every device, and while the chart is hidden, Mintro doesn't even load its data.

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1. 1Hide this chart shows the budget on its own, the way YNAB does. You can bring the chart back in Settings.
2. 2Open the Cashflow page for the full screen, with the ways to fix it, your plan, Plans and Settings.

On a phone, the screen shows the same things in the same order, one under the other: the tabs, Show and the account, the answer card with its four figures in two rows, then the chart with its toolbar. Ways to fix it and your plan follow under the chart.