How to work with periodical budgets

Periodical budget is a budget for a period divided to the months in the period. For example one might allocated $6,000 annually for family vacations (the period can be annually or quarterly - it is set in the advanced settings). It means that each month $500 should be reserved, but the budget follow up should be done on an annually base i.e. compare the total annual expenses to the total annual budget. This is exactly what the application does for you.

The first step is to define a specific expense category as periodical category:

The next step will be to allocate budget. It is done using the same way as regular budget, but when the application identify it as a periodical category there are two options:

when the periodical checkbox in the budget input screen is unchecked - the number you put in is the amount per one month in the period ($500 in the example above) and the application will automatically allocate similar sums to the rest of the months in the period.
when the periodical checkbox in the budget input screen is checked - the number refer to the whole period ($6,000 per the example above) and the application will divide it into the months.

Then you can follow the status in the budget allocation screen. For periodical budgets, there are two columns - monthly and periodically so you can follow the progress, how much is left to use etc. both on monthly view and on periodically view.

The total budget for the period is presented either as the full periodical amount or the proportional amount for the time we are in the period. In the example above, lets say we are in the end of September and has $6,000 annually, the total proportionate budget will be $4,500 as three quarters of the year passed already (the calculation is actually done based on the exact date). To control this please use the lengthy button marked below