Pay Period & Settings
Your pay period settings define how Alto calculates the default paycheck-based budget window (the “pay period view”). You can change your pay frequency and next pay date to match your real paycheck schedule.
Pay period settings
- Pay frequency: weekly, biweekly, 1st & 15th, or monthly.
- Start day: day-of-week for weekly/biweekly, or a day-of-month for monthly schedules.
- Next pay date: anchor date used to compute the current pay period.
How the pay period window is computed
Alto treats Next Pay Date as the end anchor: the pay period ends the day before your pay date, and starts a fixed number of days earlier based on the pay frequency.
Why this is helpful
- You can budget to “cover everything until the next check”, even if you set up the app mid-cycle.
- Jumping forward/backward remains consistent because it’s based on the frequency’s day count.
Timezone notes
Alto normalizes many stored “period” dates to UTC noon to avoid timezone shifts that can change the visible calendar day. This is especially important for due dates and envelope keys.