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Forecast

Forecast (in the sidebar, after Recurring) answers where is this account heading? It projects one account's balance day by day from its recurring items, starting from today's actual balance. It comes from the bundled plugin wickermoney.forecast (plugins/forecast), which is read-only, holds the recurring_items and accounts grants, and has no server code of its own. It reads core's forecast endpoint through the plugin SDK client.

Added in 0.2.1.

Choosing what to look at​

  • Account: any active account. The page opens on your first checking account that counts toward safe to spend, then any checking account, then any account that counts toward safe to spend, then the first account by name.
  • How far ahead: 30 days, 60 days, 90 days (the default), 6 months, or end of year. Day counts start tomorrow, so 30 days covers 30 projected days. End of year on December 31 means the whole of next year rather than an empty chart.

Reading the chart​

  • It's a step chart. A balance jumps when money moves and is flat in between, so a smooth line would invent balances that never existed.
  • Each day's outflows are drawn before its inflows, like Until payday. A bill due on payday shows as a dip on that day.
  • Zero is a solid line and the account's buffer a dashed one. Time below zero is shaded.
  • Hover, or focus the chart and use the arrow keys (Page Up and Page Down jump a week), for each day's end balance and low point.

For checking and savings, a banner above the chart gives the bad news first: the day the balance first drops below the buffer (only when that comes before it goes below zero), the day it first goes below zero, and the lowest point if that falls on a later day. If the account is already below either today, it says so. If the account stays clear, there's no banner.

The stat tiles show the balance now, at the end of the horizon, the lowest point and its date, days below zero, and days below the buffer. Days are counted from each day's low, not its closing balance.

What moves the line​

The table under the chart lists every occurrence with a leg on this account, in date order, with the amount this account sees. Transfers are shown in a neutral colour with their direction ("to Savings", "from Checking"), because they move money between your accounts rather than spend it. A split paycheck names its other accounts ("also to Savings").

Cards and loans​

A credit card or loan gets the chart and the table, but no banner, no zero or buffer lines, and no below-zero counts. A negative balance there is just what you owe.

What it doesn't do​

The forecast covers recurring items only. Everyday purchases that aren't recurring items aren't in the line, and the page says so. What you've matched is taken into account: a matched occurrence is already in today's balance, skipped and moved occurrences follow your change, and on an item you track, a late occurrence is drawn on the first projected day.

For the endpoint, see API reference.