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New Feature: Spending Limits on Categories!

1/21/2007 in ClearCheckbook Updates
The time has finally arrived... you can now set monthly limits on your spending categories! Members have been requesting this feature for quite some time and we're proud to announce it's finally here. This will be a great tool for helping you set budgets each month.

Spending Limits Manager Screenshot

Spending Limits Manager screenshot.


In the new Monthly Spending Limits manager you can quickly add, view, edit and remove limits for accounts and categories. Forget using envelopes to manage your money each month, let us do it for you automatically. Once you set up a limit for an account or category, as soon as you make a purchase in that account or category it deducts from your limit and shows you how much you've spent.

As you can see from the screenshot on the left, my budgeting could use a little work. Now that the limits manager has been set up, it'll be a lot easier to judge how much I can spend on different categories each month.

You really need to check it out and see how awesome and easy it is to use. You can check out the screenshots if you don't already have an account with us.

Try it out and let us know what you think by posting here in the comments!

Comments for this post:

error on spending limit's percent
** i tried to send this message by the "contact us" link, but it isn't working to me. never sends my message


Spending Limit: $700
100%
You have spent $697.85 this month.
This is 100% of your monthly limit.

isn't anything wrong with this math?
=p
everything is perfect at all.
great job, guys.
it's helping a lot on my finances ;)
thank you,
Pablo Dias
by pab on Jan 26, 2007
limits percentages
Hey,
Basically what it's doing is rounding just a little bit. Since that's 99.6% of your budget, it went ahead and rounded up to 100%.

I'm not sure why you aren't able to send contact messages, other people have been sending them in on a regular basis. Does it give you an error when you try to send one?
by Brandon on Jan 26, 2007
percentages and contact form
well.. i know it was rounded, but on Tools > Monthly Spending Limits the value is correct.
about the contact, maybe it's a problem right here.
it gives no error messages.. just stay "sending.." forever

thanks for reply ;)
by pab on Jan 27, 2007
Love it, Love it, Love it!
It's official . . . . with the addition of this feature, ClearCheckbook.com is EXACTLY what I've been looking for . . . I can't thank you guys enough for the great work. I'm estatic. I've Pay-Pal'd a dontation to help support the beautiful, well thought out app that is ClearCheckbook as well as the super-responsive team "behind the green curtain."

by FutureCodeDevStyle on Feb 15, 2007
query
Hello
Is it possible for Clearcheckbook to do a forecast ? I.e. as Quicken - in which you can make a forward looking line graph? I find this very useful for managing upcoming expenses. I would use Clearcheckbook full time if it also has this.
With many thanks
Simon
by simoncopleston on Mar 18, 2007
It would be nice to be able to see how I am doing against my spending limit each month. I can only see the current month and can't tell if I am improving. I think this could be done on the reports--show net spend in each category versus the limit.
by rrscha on Apr 9, 2007
One More Thought
It would be nice to be able to see net spend in each category. Right now if you spend money but get reimbursed, you only see the amount spent rather than the net total.
by rrscha on Apr 9, 2007
Love it!
I just ran across your site, looking for online personal finance tools. (I never end up using the same desktop computer for more than 6 months in a row - if I want to manage my finances, I'll need a little more continuity than that). LOVE the per-category spending limits, looks like I found you at just the right time!
by mechagrue on Apr 13, 2007
Spending Limits
Hi, I just started using this last night and I love it. It's fantastic. I need something to be able to keep track of my spending and I'm confident this'll help.

I do have a question though: is it possible to set a specific percentage of your monthly income for each spending category? This way my budget for each spending category will constantly mutate to reflect how much money I pull in that month!

I'm a student working bizarre hours and accepting random "I'm making sure you're alright" checks from my mother, so this ability to just decide how much of an uncertain income I want to devote to each category each month would be extremely helpful.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!
by chris.sabbatini on Apr 25, 2007
How about sub-accounts?
Hi,

How about having "virtual" sub accounts for say a main account along with spending limits on them? That will be a great way to implement the "envelope method" - Agree spending limit on categories provide something similar but this would be much neater.

Regards,

Prasanth
by pprasant on May 1, 2007
re:su-accounts
I just set up accounts for each catagory, then transfered money from my main account into the sub accounts. Then when I pay a bill or buy something, I just take the money from that particular account. Hope this helps.
by oneringer on May 5, 2007
WOW!!!
Over the last few weeks I had literally lost about $300.00 in overdraft fees because I've never balanced my checkbook in my entire life!!! Now I can do this over my cell phone? Hello??? Did my heart just skip a beat??? THIS IS FANTASTIC!!! You guys are outstanding!!! Can't wait to tell everyone at work. I got friends that balance their checkbooks the old fashion way. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. BOOOORING!!! With this program, combined with text messaging, finances will be fun for the very first time. Now how cool is that???
by henryconstante on May 28, 2007
Reports
It would be nice if there were more graphs about your expenses. Like a pie graph of all your spending for the months broken down by categories. Also, on the monthly reports I think there should be a line representing what your budget was. This can give you a visual on how much you went over/under. Also, a table where you could see your overall budget against your spending. Sometimes when I spend too much on something I try to go cheap on food or something else to even things out and this budgeting program doesn't allow me to see this. Overall the program is great!! I think with some additional touch ups it could be perfect!!!
by kovachcg on Aug 21, 2007
Add more categories?
Can I add more spending limit categories once I have already entered in the initial ones?
by colbypyle on Sep 18, 2007
calculate
can i do calculations other than by entering dataa in the accounts feature. also, how can i match up the total account with the current amunt. love the site but have much to learn before using it in the beast way
by rspring on Sep 19, 2007
New to ClearCheckbook
I love this. My fiance and I have separate accounts. Which is perfect because now we can keep track on both accounts and see how much we have together. I am so Happy I found this.
Thanks!
by Amber210 on Sep 26, 2007
compare
I am thinking of trying this out and my question is what is the difference from this Clearcheckbook and Quicken??
by notagain on Sep 30, 2007
text messages
Since the first day I have not been successful with the text msg feature. It does not respond to my messages
by marymc01 on Oct 22, 2007

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