Quickstart

This is the shortest path from a fresh account to a working budget for the current month.

When you sign up

When you first sign up, BudgetLabs asks two things and then gets out of the way: roughly what you take home each month, and one real thing you spent. That's it. You land on your dashboard with that transaction already in your budget.

Income is take-home, not salary. The income step asks what actually lands in your account each month, after tax, insurance, and retirement, because money withheld before you see it isn't yours to assign. Don't add a category for taxes; just enter the net figure. Paid weekly or every two weeks? Tap Set your pay schedule to enter your take-home per paycheck and a recent payday, and BudgetLabs counts the real paydays in each month from there, so a three-paycheck month plans for three without you doing anything. You can change any of it later from the Paycheck category; see Categories for how Amount History records a raise.

Then one real transaction. Type in the last thing you bought, snap a receipt and check what was read from it, or import a statement with Smart Import (free accounts get one import a day). A budget with nothing in it can't tell you anything yet. You won't start from a blank list either: BudgetLabs seeds a set of common categories for you.

Both questions are optional. Everything else, like giving every dollar a job, your goals, your debts and your savings, waits on a short Finish setting up checklist on your dashboard, along with one quick "how did you hear about BudgetLabs?" question. Do them whenever you like, or hide the checklist.

1) Create your account

1. Go to budgetlabs.io and tap Start free. On an iPhone or iPad you can tap Get the App instead.
2. Sign up with email or Apple.
3. Accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy on the one-step onboarding screen.
4. Enter your take-home pay and add one transaction (or skip either).

You'll land on the Dashboard with your first budget already started.

2) Add your categories

A category is anything you plan or spend money on. Most people end up with 8–15. Setup already created a starter set for you, so this step is usually just renaming a few and adding the ones specific to your life.

1. Go to Categories (left nav on web, bottom nav on mobile).
2. Tap Add Category.
3. For each category, set:
   • Name (e.g., Groceries, Rent, Salary).
   • Type — income, expense, or savings.
   • Recurrence — monthly, biweekly, weekly, or annual. Leave it as one-off if it's a single-month category.
   • Default amount — the amount you typically plan, used as a starting value each month.
   • Icon — optional, helps you scan the dashboard at a glance.

You don't need to be perfect. Categories are easy to rename, archive, and adjust later.

3) Plan the month

1. Go back to Dashboard.
2. Tap any category row, then Edit plan, and set its planned amount for the current month.
3. Adjust until total planned income − planned expenses − planned savings = 0. That's the "zero-based" part.

If you don't get to zero on day one, that's fine. Plan what you know; refine as the month goes on.

4) Log your first transaction

1. Tap the + floating action button on the Dashboard or open Transactions > Add Transaction.
2. Enter the amount, date, description, and category.
3. Save.

The Dashboard updates immediately. The category's progress bar moves; the remaining amount drops.

5) Make it a habit

The whole point is the loop. Open the app once a day for sixty seconds and log what you spent. By the end of the first month, you'll have a real picture of where your money goes — not an estimate, not a feed, the actual answer.

What to do next

• Read The dashboard to understand the numbers you're looking at.
• Read Categories to learn about recurrence and active months.
• If you have a CSV from your bank, see CSV import to bulk-load history.
• If you want shortcuts, see Meet Hank — the AI assistant that can add transactions for you in plain English.