Getting Started: Tracking
The Tracking Section allows you to track actual income, expense, assets and debt values against your plan. You're able to add current as well as past data, and compare against both previous and new scenarios.
Selecting a Scenario to Track Against:
You can select any scenario, locked or unlocked, to compare your tracked values against. This can be done by clicking the drop down menu at the top of the screen and selecting a scenario.
Once the scenario is selected, click 'Recalculate' to load it in the charts and metrics.
You are able to change the selected scenario at anytime.
Charts
The charts can be viewed either monthly or annually by clicking the toggle in the top right corner of the charts.
Income
Use the income chart to see how your actual income and withdrawals stack up against your plan. To update your numbers, add progress points in the table below.
You'll notice a dotted line on the chart, this is the target for your chosen scenario. If you are looking at the Monthly view, this line gradually climbs from January to December (adding 1/12th of your annual goal each month). This makes it easy to see if you are on track with your plan at any given point in the year.
Expenses
Use the expenses chart to see how spending, debt payments and savings contributions compare to your plan. To update your numbers, add progress points in the table below.
You'll notice a dotted line on the chart, this is the target for your chosen scenario. If you are looking at the Monthly view, this line gradually climbs from January to December (adding 1/12th of your annual goal each month). This makes it easy to see if you are on track with your plan at any given point in the year.
Financial Assets
Use the Financial Asset chart to see how savings/investment balances change over time. Update your asset balances as often as you want: monthly, quarterly or annually with progress points.
The dotted line shows the planned growth for your chosen scenario. You can easily see whether you are keeping up with the plan or falling behind.
Progress Points
Progress points are how you add data to the Tracking Section. They let you track how ever you want: daily, weekly, monthly or only once a year.
Adding a Progress Point
Add a progress point to either income, spending or financial assets by clicking 'Add' in the table below the charts.
Editing a Progress Point
New progress points will automatically be today's date. If you would like to change it, you can edit it directly. Once the date is correct, click edit to open all the columns.
Adding Information to Income/Spending vs Financial Assets
The information to enter in income/spending is different than financial assets.
- Income & Spending (Enter the new amount): Only enter the new income earned or money spent for that specific progress point. You do not need to add up your total for the year.
- Example: If you just received your monthly paycheque of $4,000 and a monthly credit card bill of $2,500, you would add a progress point for $4,000 in income and $2,500 in spending.
- Financial Assets (Enter the total balance): For your accounts and investments, enter the current total balance as of that exact moment.
Deleting a Progress Point
Delete any progress point by clicking 'Delete' in the table. This will remove the data from your chart.
Advanced Options
Each area of the Tracking Section, income, spending, and financial assets, has it's own separate Advanced Options page.
The Advanced Options page allows you to show or hide income types, debt types, and account types. If you want to simplify the accounts your tracking or track something that's not currently there, you can customize the tracking table in Advanced Options
Metrics
There are customizable metrics for the Tracking Section. You can find more information about them here.