Budget iQ is about helping individuals
stay in tune with their personal discretionary spending
goals. It is about providing easy to grasp and act on
stats that can influence future spending decisions.
It is about breaking down longer budget periods into
easy to manage daily goals. It is about avoiding that
unexpected late month crunch where expenses creep above
budget without clearly identifyable cause. It is about
encouraging users to delay gratification until they
have reached under budget levels that can support larger
purchases. It is about making expense management easy,
unobtrusive, and fun. It is about replacing the satisfaction
one gets from buying stuff with the satisfaction one
gets from meeting or exceeding one's financial goals.
2)
What is Budget iQ not about?
It is not about managing complex
projects that require a detailed plan to be executed
successfully. It is not about expense management for
billing or reimbursement purposes. It is not for expense
management activities that require a detailed record.
For these type of activities go with one of the standard
expense/budgeting tools available. There are plenty
of them.
3)
I just launched the app for the
first time. What should I do?
Click Settings and set your budget
(default is $ 0) and budget period (default is Month).
Note, if you are opening the app for the first time
mid-month all calculations assume that you are already
a number of days into the budget period but have not
spent any money yet.
4)
How are the Under/Over Budget
and Forecast lines calculated?
The under/over budget line in the
new expense entry section is based
on your per day budget. For example,
if your per day budget is $ 71.43
(see budget section of the dashboard)
and you have spent $ 345 four days
into the budget cycle you are over
budget by $ 59.28.
Allowance
after day 4:
$
285.72 (4 x $ 71.43)
Spent
after day 4:
$
345
Difference:
-
$ 59.28
The forecast
is based on your per day spending
history in the current budget cycle.
For example, if your per day spent
is $ 86.25 after four days your forecast
for February is 28 x $ 86.25 = $ 2,415.00.
5)
Why does Budget iQ not support
expense categorization?
While having a detailed understanding
of expense preferences (categories) may be interesting
to some (at least during the first budget cycle), it
rarely influences future spending practices. When it
comes to discretionary spending it does not really matter
if one enjoys making daily Starbucks runs, buying videogames,
using restaurants, or whatever else. Furthermore, categorizing
expenses, if done right, is incrementally time consuming
and requires an additional level of ongoing emotional
involvement from the user. Budget iQ focuses on information
that matters, accessibility, and making it easy if not
fun for users to stay with it.
6)
What expenses should I track
with Budget iQ?
Discretionary expenses. Budget
iQ helps the user make sensible purchasing decisions
over the course of a budget period. Every type of expense,
that can be easily avoided or minimized, should be managed
through Budget iQ. That means don't worry about the
cable bill, gas bill, electricity bill, etc. These expenses
are somewhat structural/fixed and should be reviewed
and managed separately.
7)
I am returning something and
am getting my money back.
How do I let Budget iQ know?
Simply click into the Past Expense area on the dashboard to open up the list of all expenses that make up your total. Identify the expense that you need to reverse by looking at the amount, day, date, & time of the posting and delete it.
8)
Should I enter decimals when
entering expenses?
If you like but consider keeping it simple by rounding
to the nearest dollar when entering expenses. You
won't lose much if any in terms of accuracy and the
easier you make your interaction with Budget iQ the
more likely you will stay committed to using it.
9)
How do I simulate a purchase?
Enter the amount you want to simulate
as if you already made the purchase. Review the resulting
stats on the home screen. If you don't like what you
see you can always decide to forgo or delay the purchase.
Simply click 'Delete Last Expense' on the home screen
to remove the expense.
10)
How do I start a fresh budget
cycle?
Budget iQ resets all variables and starts a new budget
cycle automatically based on user settings at the
end of each budget cycle. You don't need to do anything.
To manually start a new budget cycle simply go to
settings and select/save your budget period. That
will automatically reset your Past Spent to $ 0 since
you indicated the start of a new cycle.
