Budget
The Budget page is where you allocate money for the current view period and monitor what’s been assigned, spent, and still available. Alto supports a paycheck-based view (your configured pay period) and a monthly view.
What you'll see
- Expense categories with Assigned, Spent, and Available
- Savings categories (optional) with period assignment + withdrawals
- A right sidebar that summarizes income sources, accounts/net worth, and credit card activity (spent, paid, balance per card)
Core actions
Assigning increases the envelope’s assigned amount for the selected occurrence/period. Available updates as assigned - spent.
If a category has extra available (e.g. refunds), Alto can move money back to Ready to Assign by adjusting assignments.
Create a one-time expense or income for a specific date or month (helpful for unusual bills or irregular income).
Use the filter menu to control which expenses are displayed. View mode switches between pay period and monthly perspectives.
Pay period vs monthly view
Alto’s default budgeting mindset is “what needs to be funded before I get paid again?”. The pay period view uses your configured pay period settings (Settings → Pay Period) to compute a start and end window. The monthly view shows the calendar month.
- If your pay frequency is already monthly, there’s nothing to toggle—monthly is the pay period.
- The selector supports going back/forward and “jump to today” to quickly return to the current window.
Understanding Assigned / Spent / Available
available = assigned - spent- Outflows increase
spent. - Inflows categorized to an expense category reduce
spent(refunds/returns). - Transfers are ignored for category spending because they’re just money moving between accounts.
Grouped categories (multiple occurrences)
Weekly, biweekly, and 1st & 15th categories can have multiple occurrences inside a single viewing window. Alto can group these in the UI so you can assign per occurrence (or review each one’s available balance).
- Each occurrence is identified by a canonical start date (often the due date).
- Assignments can target a specific occurrence index when grouped.
- Grouping is for display; the underlying envelopes are still stored per occurrence.
Income sidebar and expected income
The right sidebar lists income categories and summarizes how much income has been collected in the current window. Alto can also track an expected income value so you can compare what you planned to receive vs what has arrived.
- Expected income can be overridden per period (useful for irregular paychecks, bonuses, or commission-based income).
- Collected income is derived from transactions assigned to income categories in the current view window.
Filtering expenses
The expense filter menu lets you control which categories are displayed. You can combine multiple filters to focus on what matters.
- All Expenses: Show all expense categories, including those without due dates.
- Due This Period: Show only expenses with due dates that fall within the current viewing window.
- Paid: Category is fully funded and spent.
- Overspent: Spending exceeds available amount.
- Funded: Category has been assigned its target.
- Late: Due date has passed without full funding.
- Due: Due date is approaching.
- Needs Funds: Category needs more money assigned.
- Negative: Available balance is below zero.
- Zero: Available balance is exactly zero.
- Positive: Available balance is above zero.
Needs Attention
The "Needs Attention" section appears at the top of your expense list when there are categories with negative available amounts that require action. This ensures overspending doesn't go unnoticed, even if those categories are hidden by your current filters or are from past periods.
- Filtered-out current period items: Expenses from the current period that have negative available but are hidden by your active filters.
- Past period items: Expenses from previous periods that still have negative available amounts (unresolved overspending).
- Edit Due or Assigned: Click on the Due or Assigned amount to adjust it inline.
- Quick assign: Click on the negative Available amount to instantly assign enough money to cover the shortfall.
- View details: Click on the item to open the category detail view for that specific period.
Once an item's available amount reaches zero or above, it shows a success indicator and then disappears from the list. Items are sorted by most negative first, so the most urgent issues appear at the top.
Preferences (saved automatically)
Alto saves a few display preferences so the Budget page feels consistent across sessions, including collapsed sections and the expense filter mode.
Quick math in amount fields
Many amount inputs accept simple arithmetic expressions (for example 300 + 200 - 50) and will show the evaluated result before saving. This is handy when you’re splitting a total across categories.