Budget windows
The Budgets page (bundled plugin wickermoney.budgets) plans one line per
category per calendar month (see Monthly budgets). A window is the exception: one amount for
one category across a date range, spent down to zero. Holiday gifts are the
typical case: the money lands on October 1 and is spent until December 25, and
what you want to see is "spent so far, and what's left", not a new amount every
month.
Added in 0.3.0.
Adding one
Use the Windows section of the Budgets page: pick a category, the first and last day (both included), the amount, and an optional note. A window row shows its dates and "spent so far of funded", with Edit and Remove window.
A category can't have two lines on the same day, window or monthly. The database enforces it, and saving a window whose dates overlap another line for that category is refused with a message saying so.
How a window reads month by month
In each month a window touches, its line shows what a hand-built rollover chain would:
| First month | Later months | |
|---|---|---|
| Planned | The full amount | 0 |
| Carried in | 0 | What was left at the end of the month before |
| Spent | That month's spending in the category | That month's spending in the category |
| Left | Funded minus spent so far | Funded minus spent so far |
The full amount counts as planned only once, in the first month, so totals never fund the window twice.
What's different from a monthly line
- No "at risk" for pace. Pace is measured across the whole window, but bunched-up spending is the point of a window, so it's never flagged as at risk. Only an overdrawn window is marked over.
- Spending outside the window's dates in that category shows as unbudgeted, the same as any category without a line.
- Starting a month from last month's lines skips categories a window covers that month.
- Rollover between monthly lines ignores windows.
- What's left after the window ends isn't carried anywhere. Move it by hand if you want it in a monthly line.
Amounts
A window's amount, like a monthly line's, is a decimal amount with at most four decimal places. Since 0.3.0 a fifth decimal place is refused rather than quietly cut off, the same as the rest of the API.
For the endpoints, see API reference.