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Step-by-step guides
27 guidesLonger walkthroughs that teach the method — from your first envelope to advanced wealth-building strategies.
Credit Cards in Purpose Budget
Learn how Purpose Budget automatically protects your credit card payments. Understand Total Debt mode, the underfunded indicator, and how to budget confidently with credit cards.
Your First Envelope Budget
Learn how to create your very first envelope budget from scratch, including setting up categories and making your first allocations.
Dashboard & Widgets
Customize your dashboard with widgets for budget alerts, spending trends, net worth tracking, and more. See your finances at a glance.
Setting Up Categories That Work
Discover how to organize your budget categories in a way that matches your lifestyle and makes managing money simple.
Transaction Basics
Master the fundamentals of transactions - from manual entry to imports, categorization, transfers, and splits. Your complete transaction guide.
Understanding Accounts
Learn about account types, budget vs. tracking mode, account groups, and how accounts contribute to your net worth.
Importing Transactions
Import transactions from CSV, OFX, or QIF files. Migrate from other apps, import historical data, or supplement bank sync.
Connecting Your Bank Accounts
Learn how to securely connect your bank accounts with Plaid for automatic transaction imports. Premium feature with bank-level security.
Bank Connection Statuses
Understanding your bank connection health and what to do when issues arise. Learn what each status means and how to reconnect if needed.
Recurring Transactions
Automate regular bills and income with recurring transactions. Set them up once and let Purpose Budget handle the rest.
Tracking Accounts
Use tracking accounts for investments, retirement, and assets that contribute to net worth without participating in your budget categories.
Mastering Money Movement
Learn when and how to move money between envelopes to keep your budget flexible and responsive to life's changes.
Category Targets & Auto-Assign
Learn how to set funding targets for your categories and use intelligent auto-assign to automate your monthly budget allocation.
Monthly Plan Check
A budget-page check that compares the month's category targets against your expected paychecks so you know up front whether your plan fits. Built on targets and a short list of expected paychecks you maintain.
Forecast
Project your plan's funding cadence across the months ahead. Set up recurring pay schedules and see where your envelope targets run ahead of your paychecks — paycheck gaps, holiday-shifted paydays, and cumulative timing pressure.
Scheduled Transactions
Plan ahead with scheduled transactions that appear in your list but stay budget-inert until their date arrives or you enter them manually.
Recurring Bills & Auto-Detection
Track recurring bills with manual recurring items, auto-detection from bank sync, smart matching, and Upcoming views. Essential and Premium features explained.
Budgeting with Irregular Income
Special strategies for freelancers, contractors, and anyone whose income varies from month to month.
Handling Debt in Your Budget
Integrate debt repayment into your envelope budget while still maintaining balance in other areas of your life.
Debt Payoff Tracker
Track your debts, compare payoff strategies (snowball, avalanche, custom), and visualize your debt-free date with the Debt Payoff Tracker.
Managing Multiple Spaces
Keep personal and business finances separate using Spaces. Learn when and how to use multiple budgets within one account.
Reports & Analytics
Unlock insights from your budget with powerful reports. Track spending trends, net worth over time, cash flow, tags, and category analysis.
Transaction Rules
Automate transaction categorization with smart rules. Save time and ensure consistency when importing transactions from your bank.
Managing Payees
Clean up payee names with rename rules, merge duplicates, and let the app remember your preferred categories for each payee.
Reconciliation
Keep your budget in sync with your bank. Learn how to reconcile accounts monthly and catch discrepancies before they become problems.
Organizing with Tags
Use tags to track spending themes across categories — vacations, projects, habits, and more.
Browse help by topic
13 help articlesFocused answers for a specific screen, a fix, or a question about your account.
Budget Mechanics
Ready to Assign, Assigned/Activity/Available, and what changes month-to-month.
Targets
How targets work, what the inspector labels mean, and how to fund them confidently.
Credit Cards
Total Debt mode, payment categories, and what "Underfunded" means.
Debt Payoff
Payoff strategies, tracking debts, and getting to debt-free faster.
Transactions
Transfers vs spending, splits, and rules that automate categorization.
Accounts & Reconciliation
How to keep your accounts accurate and what to do when something doesn’t match.
Reports
What each report shows and how to interpret the numbers.
Glossary
Definitions for the most common Purpose Budget terms.
Try envelope budgeting
See how envelope budgeting works with your actual numbers. Enter your income and expenses to build your first budget.
Your monthly budget
Your envelope budget
Fill in your income and expenses, then select “Calculate my budget” to see your personalized envelope breakdown.
You'll see:
- • Percentage allocation per category
- • Visual progress bars
- • Remaining money to assign
- • Recommendations for improvement