With Goodbudget’s Premium plan, you’re able to link your Goodbudget Accounts with your real-life ones.
After you create a link, your transactions from that account will automatically import into your budget, and all you’ll need to do is confirm that they’ve been imported correctly.
Here’s how you can confirm transactions on the web, and on your iPhone.
Confirm Your Transactions on the Web
If there are transactions ready to be confirmed, you’ll be directed to the Confirm page as soon as you log in on the web. If you navigate away from that page, you can get back to it by clicking on the purple ‘View Transactions’ button at the top of the Home page.
Expenses / Credits
If you’ve previously added an Expense or a Credit for a given Payee, Goodbudget will do its best to sort your automatically-imported transactions into the correct Envelopes for you. However, if the imported transaction is from a new Payee, or Goodbudget can’t make a guess, then you’ll need to assign the transaction to an Envelope yourself.
To assign an Envelope, click on the transaction line, and then use the ‘Envelope’ dropdown to select the appropriate Envelope.
Even if Goodbudget was able to assign an Envelope for you, you’ll still need to confirm that its guess was correct. If it looks correct, click on the purple ‘Confirm’ button to keep that Envelope assignment. Otherwise, click on the transaction and use the ‘Envelope’ dropdown to make the correction before clicking on ‘Save and Confirm.’
Incomes
Incomes will automatically import into Available. Because Income transactions don’t need Envelopes, they’ll always appear with the dark purple ‘Confirm’ button, indicating that you only need to approve the item.
Changing Transaction Type
Goodbudget imports all transactions as either Expenses or Incomes, so you may need to change the transaction type in Goodbudget so that it properly reflects the real-life transaction. For example, a transaction that Goodbudget imported as an Income might actually be a Credit.
To make this change, click on the confirmable transaction and then select the correct transaction Type at the top of the ‘Confirm Transaction’ box. You’ll see ‘Expense/Credit,’ ‘Transfer,’ and ‘Income’ as possible options.
Because Goodbudget doesn’t link to Debt Accounts, you won’t be able to change automatically imported expenses into Debt Transactions. Instead, you’ll delete the automatically-imported transaction and recreate it as a manually-added Debt Transaction.
Confirm Your Transactions on iPhone
If you have transactions that need confirming, you’ll see a “Confirm X imported Transactions” button at the top of your Envelopes tab. Tap on the button to go to the Confirm screen. Transactions that need to be confirmed appear with blue dots on the left side of the transaction. The way you confirm these transactions depends on their type.
Expenses / Credits
To confirm an Expense or Credit, first tap on the transaction. If an Envelope hasn’t been assigned by Goodbudget, you can assign one yourself by tapping on the ‘Envelope’ dropdown. Next, tap on the ‘Confirm’ button at the top right corner of the screen to keep your changes.
Incomes
Incomes will automatically import into Available. Income transactions don’t need Envelopes, so you just need to tap ‘Confirm’ to approve the item.
Changing Transaction Type
Goodbudget will import your transactions as either Expenses or Incomes, so you may need to change the transaction type in Goodbudget so it accurately reflects the real-life transaction. For example, a transaction that Goodbudget imported as an Income might actually be a Credit.
To make this change, tap on the confirmable transaction and then on the ‘Type’ field at the top. Select either the ‘Expense,’ ‘Income,’ or ‘Account Transfer’ option, and then fill out the appropriate fields.
Goodbudget Learns When You Confirm
Goodbudget gets smarter each time you assign Envelopes to your transactions, or confirm when it made a correct guess itself!
That means the next time you go to your favorite restaurant, Goodbudget will know that expense belongs in your Eating Out Envelope, so you won’t have to assign it yourself.
