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Carry-over unused budget amount to following months

Budget Flow💡 Feature Requests

Once you have setup your budgets for the month and track each of the transactions within the budget category, it would be great to be able to carry-over unused budget amounts from the current month to the next month (and so on).

For example if you have a budget (of $300) for Groceries in September 2023, you only use $250 in September, you can carry-over the additional $50 to the following month (Oct. 2023) giving you an increased budget of $350 for the month of October 2023.

This would therefore allow you to spend additional available funds in either the next month or the following month(s). This would be helpful for yearly budgeting if you are trying to save additional funds for months later on in the year.

Posted by Steven Hartmann ·
Status: Planned11 comments

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Comments11

  • norbertjoni

    ‱

    Apr 1, 2025

    And also if you over spend than rollover or cover from other budget.

    • JD

      ‱

      May 1, 2025

      Thissss

  • Null

    ‱

    May 3, 2025

    As long as this doesn’t affect reporting.

    Scenario:

    • Used $250 of $300 budget in 1st month

    • $50 rolls-forward to 2nd month

    • Used $250 of now $350 budget in 2nd month

    The 1st month used ~83% of the budget.

    The 2nd month technically was also ~83% of the budget, but the rolled-forward amount now makes it ~71%.

    That 17% of unused amount each month will continue to drive the percentage used down even though (if consistent) you are using 83% of the original budgeted amount.

    Two ways to look at it in my opinion

    1. The unused portion rolls forward to increase budget amount similar to the envelope method

    2. The unused portion are considered unallocated funds to be redistributed

    If we can have options for the reporting to show either would be great. Open to see what others think.

    • Derrick Berchie

      ‱

      Oct 20, 2025

      I like your idea

  • Nonamejas

    ‱

    Oct 14, 2025

    This is the only thing keeping me from using the budget feature

  • Rajul Singh Panwar

    ‱

    Oct 2

    It’s an irony that the app’s name is budget flow but the budget doesn’t flow :P

    • Fabian

      Team‱

      Oct 3

      Haha, yeah, you’re right. The budgeting feature is definitely something I want to improve significantly in one of the upcoming updates, so the app can live up to its name a bit better 😄

      Before that, though, I’m currently working on the big refactoring for version 4.0.0. There’s quite a lot coming, so stay tuned 👀

  • Yasmin Smith

    ‱

    May 4, 2025

    I use YNAB but am testing Budget Flow because it is seems to be a solid app with things that YNAB does not have (like the ability to scan receipts for transactions). YNAB is based on the envelope budgeting method which I find effective for keeping on top of our finances. The only thing stopping me from jumping fully into Budget Flow is the lack of rollover of the budgets. If you can add this option that would be a game changer!

  • GokartEnjoyer

    ‱

    Feb 9

    In my opinion, this should be a standalone feature. Separate from the “Budgets” menu, an “Envelopes” menu could be added.

    Envelopes simply hold balance, just like accounts. I imagine they could be associated to an account, making them appear under the linked account. The account balance would the sum of all associated envelopes, plus non-allocated.

    Another great convenience would be to be the ability to set the “money to put inside when paycheck comes” on the envelope. Add an income transaction on my main account, and the associated envelopes would get their desired amounts transferred into.

  • ZufĂ€lligerNutzername21

    ‱

    Feb 16

    Don’t we already kinda have this feature?

    You can select a wider time span (for example 3 months). Say, you got a budget of $100/month. It will calculate the budget for that period to $300 and sum up the transactions. Say you spend $130 in the first and $100 in the second, it will show you you’ve used $230 out of $300 for that 3 month period.

    This makes more sense because -in my thinking- I don’t want to spend double the amount this month because I’ve been frugal for the last few months, but I can zoom out and check if I am within the budget in the long run.

  • Houssame Riad

    ‱

    Jun 9

    we need this rollover budget monthly asap to be honest, its a great feature many more apps dont have. and it helps you with knowing how much you overspent or much you still got from the previous months. its great to have. but I guess its not planned for near future since this post created 3 years ago