A big update has come to Weekly that changes how the app handles transactions.  With this update you will have the ability edit transactions in past weeks, search for transactions and manually add transactions to recurring items.  See below for descriptions and quick demos of these features.

Recent transaction search

You can now search for recent transactions directly from the global search page. Simply swipe down on the dashboard and type in the transaction name or amount.

Search results include transactions from the past month. You can also go to any previous week, then swipe down and the search results will include transactions for that week.

Add a manual transaction to a recurring budget item

We’ve redesigned the add transaction screen to allow creating recurring transactions manually. You can create a recurring transaction from the dashboard or from a recurring item directly.

Editing transactions for previous weeks

You can now edit transactions from previous weeks. If you edit a Safe-to-Spend or fund transaction, the corresponding balance will be recalculated.

Inline editing bank transactions

To edit the title, amount, or date of a bank transaction, simply tap the label and make your changes. You can reset your changes by tapping the three dots and selecting “Reset to original”

Transaction weeks

Previously Weekly would put Safe-to-Spend transactions in the week they were confirmed in. So if you started your week on Sunday but then had a transaction sync from the day before (Saturday), it would be added to the new week.

This update changes this to always use the transaction date regardless of when it was confirmed. This change may cause some transactions to be moved to a different week and Safe-to-Spend balances may have changed slightly. This is a one-time adjustment to bring transaction dates into alignment with week dates. We believe this will provide a intuitive experience moving forward.

Important Note

If you are using the same Weekly account across multiple devices, you will need to update both devices with the latest version of Weekly for the app to work as expected.

Conclusion

In addition to these new transaction features, this new release also positions Weekly for new features in the future such as new reporting on how your Safe-to-Spend has been spent historically in addition to supporting splitting transactions.

We hope you enjoy the new features and if you have any questions or concerns you can reach out to support@weeklybudgeting.com.

One of the problems couples can run into is conflict over how money is being spent.  In fact the origin story of Weekly has roots in helping two people getting on the same page with each other financially.  At Weekly we want to help couples budget well together.  Weekly is built in away that it can be used by couples at the same time to keep track of their finances.

How Weekly Helps Couples Budget Together

Weekly can provide a couple things that can help couples get on the same financial page.

• A clear view into how much money is coming in and going out. Just setting up Weekly and looking at your committed expenses and regular income can lead to conversations about what is most important to couples. 
• A real-time shared view of how much money is available to spend at any time.
  The data in Weekly can be shared across devices.  So you and your partner can login on separate phones and know what is available to spend on your day-to-day transactions like gas and groceries.  This helps reduce friction in the relationships and avoid end-of-the-month Doomsday meetings where you are frustrated wondering “Where did the money go?”.  Instead it is replaced with a sense in real-time you know where you are at.

Sharing Weekly with A Partner

How share your account is different based on how you created your account in the first place.

If created your account using an email address…

If you signed up with your email address you can simply share that email address login with your partner or spouse and presto you both have access to the account.

If created your account using Google, Facebook or Apple social logins…

With the social logins (Google, Facebook and Apple) it can be harder to share those so we have a feature that allows you to add an email address to your account which you can then share with your partner or spouse to allow them access to Weekly. 

Here’s how to do it. 

1. Sign in with your social login (Google, Facebook or Apple)  
2. Go to Account and then hit “Add Email Login”.  From there you can add an email and password.  
3. A success message will be displayed. Clicking “Done” shows the Profile page, the email icon next to the original social icon. 
4. You can login using the new email/password combination.  Send this login to your partner or spouse.

Conclusion

Getting on the same page with you spouse or partner not only helps your financial situation, it might also improve your relationship.  Because Weekly can be shared across multiple devices, it allows couples to manage their budget together.  

Weekly can set your mind at ease by giving you a view into your upcoming bills and income in the Upcoming Items report.  In this report, Weekly shows you the amount of your recurring bills and income as well as the next transaction date in a graph and easy-to-read grid so you can know what is happening in your personal finance world.

To find the report, you can tap on the Upcoming Items card on the Dashboard.  

Report Sections

The Upcoming Items report shows all bills and income that are going to happen over the next 30 days.

The report is divided into two sections: (1) the bar graph at the top of the page and (2) the actual items that are coming up on the bottom. 

The bar graph at the top shows the total money that is going out or coming in on a particular day.  Green means money coming in, red means money going out.  The graph goes forward 30 days in time. You can also scroll left and right to see the bar graph earlier and later in time.

Then you can tap any bar and see which items make up the upcoming items. This will turn the bar graph purple and show you the items that make up that amount.  So if you have say $42.99 coming out on the 15th, you can tap the $42.99 and see that it may be composed of one $30.01 bill and one $12.98 bill. 

Underneath the graph (2),  you will see items that are coming up in the next week.  It will show the item name, the emoji associated with the item and how many days until the item is happening.   

Weekly will tell you how many days until the bill is due.  It calculates this number just in the next transaction date.  The next transaction date is set in three ways.  First if you have mapped a transaction to a recurring expense or income item, Weekly will estimate the next transaction date.  So if you have a monthly rent payment of $1,400 and you map an incoming transaction for that $1,400 on say March 6th, Weekly will set the next transaction date at April 6th.  Second, you can set the transaction date when you first create the item.  Third, you can edit an item and set the next transaction date.

Pro tip – you can tap and hold any of the items in this report to get a quick actions sheet.  Here’s an example form

Some of these items may be labeled “Past due”.  What this means is that Weekly expects that a bill has already happened, but no transaction has been downloaded into Weekly to match it.  

Finally at the bottom of the page you will see items that are missing a next transaction.  These are any income or bills that were not given a next transaction date when added to Weekly or have not had a recurring transaction mapped to them.

The final thing to know about the Upcoming Items report is that this is also a handy way to see all the income or expenses that have been assigned to that item.  So if you have an item for Netflix, you can hit “Netflix” and see all the charges that have been made to Netflix.

Conclusion

Instead of logging into different vendor accounts to figure out what bills are due and when they are due, Weekly gives you an easy way to see all your bills that are upcoming.  This can help you be at peace with your personal finances at at a glance know what is happening next in your financial world.

The fun of budgeting is to see your funds grow and feeling more confident and secure in your spending habits and lifestyle.  As you move through your weeks you may want to transfer between Funds, out of your Safe-to-Spend to a Fund or from a Fund to your Safe-to-Spend to keep everything in order.  You can do that with Weekly’s transfer functionality.  

To find the transfer money functionality go to the Dashboard then hit the plus sign in the circle (+).  On the next screen select “Transfer” at the top.

Let’s examine three use cases for using transferring: transferring from fund to fund, transferring from Safe-to-Spend to a Fund, and then transferring from a Fund to your Safe-to-Spend.

Fund to Fund Transfer

Transferring money from one Fund to another can be useful if you find you have saved enough in one fund and want to add extra money into another.  For example, let’s say you had $298.66 saved up in a fund called “Dan’s cash” and $614.00 in a fund called “Birthday party” but wanted to add an additional $200 from your cash to pay for the party (it’s going to be NICE party!)  You could do that.  You would go to the main Dashboard screen and hit the plus (+) sign that is in the circle, then select transfer at the top of the next screen.  Enter in the “From” (which in this case is “Dan’s cash”) and the “To” (which in this case is “Birthday party”) and the amount you want to transfer and tap “Create”.

After the transfer. the balance in the Birthday Party fund would be $814.00 and the balance in Dan’s cash would be $98.66.

Safe-to-Spend to Fund Transfer

Sometimes you might be doing great in your Safe-to-Spend and want to make a one-time contribution to a fund.  You don’t have to wait until the week ends; you can do this at any time using the same transfer method.

So let’s say it was a good week and you had $542.48 in your Safe-to-Spend and wanted to add $300 of that into a saving fund called “Savings”.  You could create a transfer transaction using the same method described above (hit the circle with the + sign and then select “Transfer” as your transaction type), select money from “Safe-to-Spend” to “Savings” then put in the Amount ($300) and a description.

Fund to Safe-to-Spend Transfer

The final use case for transfers is to transfer from your Safe-to-Spend from a fund.  So let’s say for example, you were negative in your Safe-to-Spend balance and wanted to zero out that negative balance using money from a rainy day fund you had created.  You would create a transfer transaction but this time you would select from “Rainy Day Fund” and to “Safe-to-Spend”.

What transfers look like after they are added

Once a transfer is added to your account it will appear with a description and a “two arrows” icon.  Below is a screenshot of what would appear after you transferred money from a Rainy Day fund to your Safe-to-Spend.

You can edit them after you make them my tapping on them and updating the transaction.

Summary

Transferring money between Funds and between your Safe-to-Spend and funds allows you to adjust the balances in the app based on what is going on in your personal finances.  Growing your fund balances from positive Safe-to-Spend is one of the joys of budgeting but it can also be necessary sometime to adjust your fund balances or cover Safe-to-Spend shortfalls.  Using Weekly’s transfer functionality allows flexibility to adjust your balances to keep on top of your priorities.

Who loves spreadsheets? In our latest release (version 2.5.0) we have added the ability to export your transactions to a .csv file to use with your favorite spreadsheet program. Having an export of the data you put into Weekly can unlock your ability to do your own analysis.  For example, you could use your export to do monthly reconciliations, build your own reports, and filter or categorize data to your heart’s desire.  The export includes lots of data including the transaction date, amount, how it was categorized (Safe-to-Spend, Recurring, etc.), which bank account it was linked to, and a category assigned by your financial institution (see below for a full breakdown of all data).

What you can do with exported transaction file

Here are a few ideas of things you could do with the exported file from Weekly.

• Category reports – Create a report to help you see how much you have spent in each of the bank categories.
• Monthly reconciliations – Create a report that shows all your income and expenses over a month.
• Searching transactions – Search through all transactions and see how they have been categorized within Weekly
• Filtering transactions – Ever wanted to see all your recurring transactions in one place? Add filters on your spreadsheet to see just your recurring transactions, fund transactions, or any other grouping.

How you get the CSV file

On the Dashboard you will see an export / download icon.

Tap that icon and then decide if you want to get transactions for “This month”, “Last month”, “This year” or “All transactions”. 

Make your selection then tap “Export transactions (.csv)”.  After the file is downloaded you’ll have the option to share the file using all your native iOS sharing options (Airdrop, google drive, iMessage, etc.) For example, you can Airdrop it to your computer, email it, text it, save it to your files, or save it to another cloud drive (Dropbox or iCloud for example).

Data that is in the CSV

The data that comes in the CSV includes lots of information about each transaction including the category the bank associated with the transaction and how the transaction was handled in Weekly. Here is an explanation of the different types of data in the CSV.

Column Heading	Column Description
Title	The title given by you to the transaction when the transaction was filed in Weekly.  If the transaction was imported from the bank, this title will match  the title given by the bank unless you have renamed it.  In a manually entered transaction, this is the title given when you write in what the transaction is for.
Date	The date you gave the transaction in Weekly.  In the case of manually entered transactions this is the date entered as the date of the transaction.  In the case of imported bank transactions, this usually matches the transaction date given by the bank unless the user has changed it manually.
Year Month	This is the same information as the date field but only has the month and year. This makes it easier to filter based on the month to create a monthly report.
Amount	The amount of the transaction. This can be modified from the bank transaction amount. The amount of the bank transaction can be seen in the Bank Amount column.
Target	Where the transaction was “filed” in Weekly.  I can be one of:  Initial Hasn’t been reviewed and filed  Safe-to-Spend Transaction has been mapped to Safe-to-Spend. Ignored This transaction has been ignored. Fund The transaction has been added to or taken out of a fund. You can see the fund details under “Linked Item Name” Recurring This transaction as been associated with a recurring income/expense
Linked Item Name	If the “Target” is a Fund or Recurring, this column will give the name of the item the transaction was associated with.
Original Transaction Amount	Occasionally, posted transactions have a different amount from the previous pending transaction. If this happens, Weekly will update the Safe-to-Spend or Fund transaction with the posted amount and the original amount will appear in this column.
Linked To Bank Transaction	This will be TRUE if the transaction is associated with a bank transaction and there will be data in the columns to the right. For manually entered transactions this field will be FALSE and there will not be additional data in the columns to the right.
Bank Title	This is the title of the transaction given by the Bank.
Bank Amount	The amount for the bank transaction.
Institution Name	The name of the financial institution the transaction was downloaded from.
Account Name	The name of the bank account or credit card that the transaction was downloaded from.
Bank Category	The spending category the bank gave to the transaction.
Posted Date	The data the transaction posted to the bank or credit card.
Bank Pending	TRUE or FALSE.  TRUE means the amount might be updated to reflect final charges.
Merchant Name	The name of the merchant where the transaction was processed
Id	The unique ID given to the transaction by the bank.

Summary

Exporting a .csv file from Weekly gives you the ability to see all of the transactions that have come into Weekly and then analyze them in your favorite spreadsheet program. Weekly is an excellent tool for helping managing your day-to-day spending habits. Exporting transactions for further analysis helps extend the usefulness of the app by allowing our users to do analysis that looks back to see how and where their money was spent.

Special Note

Have you created a cool spreadsheet report using the exported Weekly data?  Would you like to share?  Let us know; we would love to be able to post it and have other Weekly users use it!

So you are all setup with Weekly, and you have determined your Safe-to-Spend amount and started your first week.  Congrats!

On the main tracker page you will see your Safe-to-Spend amount, all there is do to now is to start adding in your day-to-day purchases.

There are two ways to add in your day-to-day purchases:

1. Manually
2. Downloading them from your bank or credit card.

Here’s how to do both.

Manually adding a transaction

To manually add a transaction to Weekly, hit the (+) button next to the Transactions heading.

This will bring up the where you add the transaction. Then enter the following:

• Amount
• Description
• Date – It defaults to today but you can choose a date in the past and, if you want to schedule a transaction, a date in the future.

Note: You can also enter an income transaction by clicking “Income” at the top.

Automatically Downloading Transactions from Bank or Credit Cards

The first step to having Weekly download transactions for you is to connect your bank.  You can link new bank or credit card accounts by clicking on the left side top menu, then select Accounts, and then tap the plus (+) button on the top right corner.

Once your accounts are linked, Weekly will automatically download your transaction. For large institutions you should see a sync at least daily (often multiple times a day).  Other institutions syncs are more sporadic.

Once a transaction comes it, you get a notification on your tracker page at the top of the screen.

Click and review the transaction and you get to decide what it is and how to handle it.  Some transactions may be recurring items that are already factored into your Safe-to-Spend.  In that case you would label it as recurring a pick the matching recurring item.  It could also be a purchase you want to withdrawn from a fund, or it could come out of your Safe-to-Spend.

Your Tracker Page

Once you add in transactions, if they come out of your Safe-t0-Spend, you will see them on your Tracker page.  This is the main number to keep track of for keep your weekly finances in order.

You can also see the balance of any funds by clicking the three lines at the top left and then hitting funds.

Conclusion

Getting your daily transactions into Weekly is an important habit to develop to keep you in track with your Safe-to-Spend.