Create a New Budget

The first thing that you'll need to do after installing MoneyWell is to set up your Budget. When MoneyWell launches, you'll see a "Welcome to MoneyWell" window giving you four options:

1. Create a Sample Budget
2. Start a New Budget
3. Import MoneyWell Document
4. Learn How to Use MoneyWell

Since you're already here learning how to use MoneyWell, you don't need to worry about the fourth choice and the Sample Budget is mainly for trying MoneyWell before subscribing, so let's click on Start a New Budget.

Buckets

The New Budget Wizard panel will appear.

The first step allows you to name your Budget. We recommend changing it from the default "My Budget," even if you currently only plan to have one Budget. In the future, you might want to create additional Budgets, so giving your Budget a unique name is a good idea.

Click Next

In this next section, you can customize how much assistance you need when setting up your Budget. There are three options:

1. Ask Questions - Choosing this option will prompt MoneyWell to ask some basic questions to determine what Buckets your Budget will need. You can modify the specific Buckets after the Budget is created.
2. Create a Simple Budget - This option will generate a Budget with a few basic Buckets that we believe are ideal for starting out, especially if you are new to budgeting.
3. Create an Empty Budget - This option will create a Budget with no pre-defined Buckets, allowing you to manually add any Buckets you may need.

Here's where what happens next depends on what option you selected.

Click Next

If you selected Ask Questions, you'll be asked the questions on the following, before being shown the Budget Currency screen:

1. Your living situation
2. Any debts you may have
3. Modes of transport you use
4. What you regularly spend your money on
5. Any subscriptions you may have
6. Future expenses that sneak up on you
7. Anything you may be saving for
8. Any other expenses you may have

If you selected either the Create a Simple Budget or the Create an Empty Budget option, you will be taken directly to the Budget Currency screen.

Here, you can change the currency of your Budget from the default currency of your Mac to whatever currency you need, if required.

Click Next

This section is where you can Enable Sync.

Sync enables you to share your Budget with other devices and keep your Budget on track with MoneyWell Express for iPhone. Sync is also required if you wish to share your Budget with another MoneyWell user.

Please see our articles, Sync - for more information on how MoneyWell Sync functions, as well as further instructions on how to enable, disable, and view your Budget on MoneyWell Express for iPhone, and Budget Sharing - for information and instructions on sharing your Budget with other MoneyWell users.

If you wish to enable sync, check the Enable Sync box.

Click Next

That's it! Your Budget is now ready to be created.

Click Create Budget and your new Budget will be created based on your answers and selected options.

If at any point in the process you need to go back and make changes to previous answers or options that you selected, simply click Back in any of the sections to return to the previous section. You can also cancel the entire process of creating a Budget by clicking Cancel at any time.

Each section does include more information on each section and certain sections do include additional help options. But if you do require any further assistance, please contact support.

Accounts

Now your newly created Budget needs an Account. We have an article, Accounts, that contains further instructions and information on creating and editing Accounts.

You can add a new account by clicking the + at the bottom under the Source List and selecting New Account. You can also use the File menu.

When you add an account, you will be shown the New Account Guide. If you have Direct Connect Banking enabled for your account, MoneyWell can discover your accounts automatically.

If your bank does not support Direct Connect or you just want to download transactions from your bank's website or manually enter them, you don't have to pick a financial institution.

To select your financial institution you can scroll through the list or type some part of the name to filter the list to a smaller subset, then follow the steps below.

Direct Connect:

1. Enter your username and password (skip this step to add an account manually)
2. Click Continue
3. When the account list appears, you can optionally click accounts to unselect ones you don't need
4. Click Continue to save your account(s) and download recent transactions

MoneyWell will download any available transactions from your bank. If there are transactions that are not available to be downloaded, MoneyWell will set an initial balance transaction to account for the older transactions.

Web Connect or Manual:

1. Click Continue without enter any username or password.
2. Click the "Type" pop-up to change the type.
3. Set the Name (it should be unique)
4. Set the Balance and As Of values (see below for details).
5. Set other account values (see the full list below).
6. Click Continue to save your account

You can set the following values while manually creating an account:

• Type - The choices are checking account, savings account, credit card, loan/line of credit, investment account, cash account, and money market account.
• Name - This is the name you give to the account. It should be descriptive enough for you to identify the account.
• Balance - You can enter the initial bank balance. Pick the balance prior to any transaction activity you will be adding to MoneyWell.
• As Of - You can enter the date of the initial bank balance. This date should be the day before any other transactions in your account.
• Memo - You can enter a note for informational purposes.
• Routing # - The routing number for your bank.
• Account # - The account number. The "Routing #" and "Account #" values are only necessary if you are using direct connect banking or if you download QFX or OFX files from your bank's web site.

Now that your Budget has an Account, it's time to add some transactions.

Transactions

MoneyWell supports a number of different methods for getting transactions into your Budget. The easiest and quickest is if your bank supports Direct Connect. Once the Account is created and has been successfully linked to your bank, simply clicking the Download or import new transactions button will prompt MoneyWell to import your recent bank activity.

If your bank does not support Direct Connect but you have linked the Account to your bank, clicking the Download or import new transactions button will launch a browser window to your banks website. Here you can then log in and follow the instructions to download your transactions. If your bank gives you a choice of download formats, you should use OFX/QFX if you can. The next best is QIF and then delimited or CSV is the final option.

Once you have either a OFX, QFX, QIF or CSV file:

1. Select the account you want to import to in MoneyWell
2. Drag and drop the downloaded file to the MoneyWell icon in the Dock or use File > Import to select the file
3. Adjust any settings that are displayed and click Continue to finish the import

Now your Budget has some transactions, it's time to set you starting balances and categorise your transactions.

Budget

We have the perfect article for setting Starting Bucket Balances, which includes full instructions and in-depth information on this step. We highly advise taking a look through that article.

Before you can begin using the Buckets in MoneyWell to manage your cash flow, you need to match up the balances in your Accounts with the balances in your Buckets. This step is necessary because very few of us start with a zero balance in our Accounts when we start to do our budgeting. If you started by just assigning your next paycheck to your Salary Bucket, the difference between what was available in that Bucket and the balance of your Account that holds that deposit would be confusing. You wouldn't know which to trust.

You can view or change your Starting Bucket Balances by clicking Cash Flow > Set Starting Bucket Balances.

The first thing to do is set your Cash Flow Start Date. This date tells MoneyWell when you want to start tracking your cash flow. The best date to put here is the first day of your current budget period. We suggest using the first of the current month as your start date.

Each account in the table will display the balance for that date and you simply need to specify a Bucket for each Account.

Follow these steps:

1. Select a Bucket in the pop-up to the right of the Account balance
2. Optionally, change the amount to split across multiple Buckets and repeat step 1
3. Click Save when all the Accounts are assigned to Buckets.

If you have a savings, credit card, loan, or investment account that you don't use as money for your day-to-day cash flow, then uncheck the checkbox in the Budget column next to the account and MoneyWell will ignore that account balance in your cash flow total.

You should now have a Budget with some Buckets, at least one Account with your Transactions, and the Starting Bucket Balances set.

The next step in your MoneyWell budgeting journey is creating Events and building your Spending Plan. We suggest taking a look through our article, Setting Up Your Budget, as it contains all the information and instructions you may need to get your Spending Plan up and running.

If you do require any further assistance, please contact Support.