Getting started: Step four - View and analyse the data using PocketSmith's reporting and forecasting features

Below is a quick look at some of the key insights you can look into with your PocketSmith data.

The Calendar page and forecast graph allow you to see upcoming budgets at a glance, as well as future forecast balances, based on budgeted earning and spending 📆📉

Each budget event assigned to an account is used to project the account's future balance or 'forecast'. To ensure that it reflects your current financial position, forecast balances are always calculated from the current actual balance of your accounts.

Tick the 'Show actuals in history' checkbox to compare past actual balances to historic forecast balances.

For more detail on using these features, check out: Using the Calendar and Forecast graph

PocketSmith has a number of reports to help analyse earning and spending and to uncover spending patterns or compare budgeted expenses compared to actual spending.

The Income & expense report is similar to a business Profit & Loss statement, but for personal finances. It shows a breakdown of a user's earning and spending categories for any chosen date range. You can generate a statement for individual accounts, or a selection of accounts and save custom configurations of the report to return to at any time. Choose to include or exclude transfers.

The Cashflows statement provides a monthly breakdown of your finances in the past and forecasted into the future, in a format similar to a spreadsheet. This report shows earning and spending per category, but also the surplus/deficit. Note that transfer categories and transactions are not automatically excluded from the cashflows statement.

Use the Trends page to quickly analyse individual categories and view actual vs budgeted spending broken down into weeks, months, years, or budget periods.

For a quick overview of recent activity and current finances, hop over to the Dashboard! The Dashboard features a net worth graph, an accounts list, a recent transactions list, and an Earning & spending chart, amongst other available widgets.

The Earning & Spending widget allows you to easily view a visual breakdown of earning and spending by category for a chosen date range. Total income and expense figures are also displayed.

The Transactions page shows all transactions imported into PocketSmith. From here, you can categorise, edit, split or delete transactions. You can also add labels and notes, and upload attachments for record-keeping.

You can view a full picture across all of your accounts, or view specific accounts by selecting the account from the side panel on the left of the Transactions page. Use PocketSmith's powerful Search to find and filter transactions based on specific criteria.

Editing and splitting transactions

On occasion, you may need to edit the details of a transaction or split it to categorise portions of an expense separately.

To learn how to do this, please see: Editing, deleting or splitting a transaction

Attaching files and photos to transactions

Store receipts, photos or important documents by attaching them to transactions! There are a few different ways this can be done, including via the transactions page, via the mobile app, or by emailing files to the attachment inbox.

For all the details, see: Attaching files and photos to transactions

Adding labels to transactions

Use labels to keep track of related transactions that span multiple categories. This is useful for tracking tax-deductible expenses or project-related expenses, such as a home renovation.

For details on using labels, see: Everything you need to know about using labels

The search panel is really handy for finding and analysing transactions based on specific criteria. You can create saved searches to quickly filter transactions with a single click.

A sum total of the search results will display, and you can further drill into the search results using the Transactions income & expense pie chart.

For an in-depth look at this feature, see: Transactions search: An overview

The Transactions page pie chart allows you to see a breakdown of your transactions into income and expense or categories based on the criteria applied to the transactions page at the time. You can also use the pie chart to drill down into parent categories.

Check out the Transactions income and expense pie chart for more information.

For a full picture of your finances, you can use the Net worth page to add any assets and debts not represented as bank accounts. This means you can add any assets, such as a house or car, as well as any debts, such as a car loan or a personal loan 🏡🚗💰

To learn how to add assets and liabilities, check out: Managing your assets and debts

For the full overview of getting started with PocketSmith and the next stages, please see: Getting started with PocketSmith.