The Cash Coverage card on the Bills page answers one question by looking forward, not just at today: if your recurring income and bills land on schedule, will your spendable cash still cover every credit card when it comes due over the next 45 days? It starts from the balances you've entered on Assets and Debt, so it's only as accurate as your last update — but it's a genuine day-by-day forecast, not a same-day snapshot.

Forecasting cash flow

Cash Coverage runs a forward projection rather than comparing today's numbers alone. Starting from your designated spendable cash today, it walks forward one day at a time across a 45-day horizon, adding every recurring paycheck on the date it's expected and subtracting every recurring expense, non-card debt minimum (mortgage, auto loan, RV loan, and similar), annual event, and unpaid one-off bill on its own date. Each credit card is then graded against the projected cash on its own due date — not today's balance — so a paycheck landing before a card is due can rescue a status that would look short if you only checked today, and a large fixed cost drafting first can turn a card that looks fine today into a real risk.

Costs tied to a specific day (rent, a mortgage, a car payment) land on that day. But floating / unscheduled categories — groceries, gas, everyday spending you set to "Floating / Unscheduled" — aren't spent on any one day, so the forecast spreads them evenly across the month: each day carries its share of the monthly budget. Your cash then drains gradually the way it really does, instead of dropping off a cliff on the 1st. In the timeline hover, these show up as a single "Everyday spending" line per day.

The current month projects what's left of your plan. For every recurring category, the forecast takes this month's planned amount, treats anything dated on or before your cash balance's "as of" date as already in that balance, subtracts the transactions you've logged beyond that, and spreads whatever remains across the paydays or due dates still ahead — a paycheck you've already received doesn't get counted again, and one you haven't logged yet still shows up. If a dated payday or due date has already passed and the money hasn't posted, the remainder lands today: your plan said it was due by now, and the forecast takes your plan at its word rather than quietly dropping it (an unpaid bill past its day is still coming out). A category with no frequency or day set at all is different: the forecast can't say when that money moves, so what's left of its plan is spread evenly over the rest of the month and shows in the timeline hover as "Income (no pay date set)" or "Spending (no due date set)" — set a frequency and pay date on the category to put it on the right day. Floating categories work the same way, over the days still ahead. From next month on, the forecast follows the plan as written. Because it reads your logged transactions and your balance dates, the projection is only as honest as your ledger — log income and bills as they happen, and update balances when they move.

Green — Covered. Your projected cash on the card's due date is at least its full balance. You could pay it off completely, not just the minimum.
Amber — Minimums only. Your projected cash covers the minimum payment, but not the full balance. You're not going to miss a payment, but you'd be carrying a balance forward.
Red — Short. Your projected cash can't cover even the minimum payment — or the running balance goes negative at some point before then, whichever comes first. This is the state worth acting on.
Nothing due. No credit cards have a due date in the next 45 days — there's nothing to check yet.

Under the status, a projected-cash timeline charts your running balance for every day in the 45-day window, marking each card's due date (colored to match its status) and calling out the low point. It's the same projection driving the verdict, visualized.

The card also breaks down the numbers behind the status: the drivers behind the projection (your largest expected income and outflow), and a line for each card with its projected cash and full balance on its due date.

Cash Coverage projects your plan — the recurring income, expenses, and due dates you've set up — and, for the current month, what's left of it after the transactions you've logged. Spending outside your plan (a category with no recurring rule, or a one-off you never planned) isn't projected forward; it shows up in the forecast only through the balances you update on Assets.

What counts as "cash"

Cash Coverage only counts accounts you've explicitly marked as spendable — not your whole net worth, and not every account on Assets. Open an account on the Assets page, edit it, and toggle "Count as spendable cash" in the account editor.

Checking accounts count by default. Every checking account is flagged as spendable cash automatically when you add it — and any checking accounts you already had were switched on when Cash Coverage launched — so you get a useful number on day one without setting anything up. From there, toggle any account on or off: maybe your HYSA is really your safety net and shouldn't count, or maybe a checking account genuinely isn't spendable and you want it off. It's your call — if you turn everything off, Cash Coverage counts nothing, which shows up as a red status rather than a silently wrong number.

Which cards it looks at

Cash Coverage looks at every credit card account on the Debt page with a balance greater than zero, and checks whether its due date (based on the day-of-month you set when you added the card) falls within the next 45 days. Student loans, mortgages, auto loans, and other non-revolving debt aren't credit-card targets of the check — but their minimum payments are still subtracted from the projection on their own due dates, since they draw down the same cash a credit card would need. The balance it grades against is the current balance you've entered for the card, not an official statement balance from your card issuer — BudgetLabs doesn't fetch statements. For a card you've marked I pay this in full on the Debt page, the forecast instead debits the card's whole balance on its due date (statement plus tagged purchases, minus payments — the figure the Debt page shows) and grades it covered or short; every other card still debits its minimum.

Paying more than the minimum — link a bill to a debt

By default the forecast subtracts each card's minimum payment on its due date. But if you plan to pay more — your statement balance, or paying a card off in full — you can tell the forecast exactly what you'll pay. When you add a one-off bill on the Bills page (+ Add bill), choose a debt account under "Pay toward" and enter the amount you intend to pay. That bill becomes the planned payment for that debt this cycle: it's subtracted from your projected cash on its date, and it replaces the card's automatic minimum so the same payment isn't counted twice. For a credit card, the card is then graded on whether your projected cash covers that amount — Covered (green) or Short (red) — instead of its full balance, and its line shows "vs pay $X". This works for any debt account (mortgage, auto, and the rest), not just credit cards.

Balances are what you entered

Like the rest of Assets and Debt, there's no bank sync. Cash Coverage is built from the current balance you last saved for each cash account and each card. The card notes an "as of" date so you can see how fresh the numbers are — if it's been a while, update your balances on Assets and Debt before trusting the status.

When cash falls short

If your status goes red, BudgetLabs creates an in-app notification — "Cash may not cover your cards" — so you don't have to remember to check the Bills page. It fires at most once per calendar month, so you won't get paged every time you open the app while still in a red state. There's no push notification or email for this yet; the alert lives in your in-app notification feed today.

What's planned

The forecast doesn't yet project non-recurring categories you've planned for the month, or the pace you're actually spending at (burn rate) — it follows your recurring plan, net of what's posted this month. It doesn't let you pick specific cards in or out of the check, and it doesn't push or email you when the status turns red — only the in-app notification described above. Those are reasonable next steps we're considering — see the roadmap for what's shipped and what's next.

Bill Reminders — Cash Coverage lives on the same page but looks further ahead (45 days) than the Pay today / This week / Later buckets' 30-day window.
Debt Tracker — where your credit card balances, minimum payments, and due days come from.
Assets & Savings — where you designate which accounts count as spendable cash and keep their balances current.