Spending Plan (Income, Expenses, and Savings Goals)

The Spending Plan Tab allows you to document, track and plan a customer’s monthly cash flow. Accurately tracking income and expenses can be really helpful for understanding spending habits and patterns. It’s also a great way to begin to think about how to plan for saving.

Entering Income:

1. In the Income section, click on the blue Plus (+) sign icon to the far right.
   • You can also click on the Quick Entry button and skip to Step #3. You will have a drop down menu titled Income Type will the same choices in Step #2. 
     
     
2. From the Plus (+) sign icon, you have two (2) choices to enter Income line items:
   • Income: Includes income received from a job, retirement, pension, and more.
   • Benefit: Includes income received as a gift, unemployment, TANF, SNAP/WIC, and more. The total must be calculated for the entire month. 
     
     
3. From the Plus (+) sign icon, will see a screen to enter information about the Income.
   • Initial Take Home Amount: The dollar amount of income earned after taxes and withholdings.
   • Income Frequency: The frequency in which the income is received.
   • Income Category: The source of where the income comes from.
   • Industry: The industry in which the income was earned. 
   • Income Term: The terms under which the income is earned. Includes at-will/permanent employment, seasonal or contract work.
   • End Date: If applicable, the date when this income will be stopped.
     
     
4. Click Save to save this Income to the Customer record.
   
   
5. Repeat these steps to add additional Income that you Customer has.
   
   
6. After adding and editing your Customer's Income, you can click Baseline. By selecting Baseline, you are indicating all the Income have been entered and progress can start being tracked over time. In this way, when you enter any new Income in the future, you can compare them to the Initial or Baselined Total of Income.

Entering Expenses:

Tip: Your customer is entrusting you with what is often perceived as sensitive information. Support your customer by having non-judgmental conversations. Every individual has different values; often, your personal values may differ from your customer's.

1. In the Expenses section, click on the blue Plus (+) sign icon to the far right.
   • You can also click on the Quick Entry button.
     
     
2. From the Plus (+) sign icon, you can find Expenses that match your Customer's spending and add the total amount that they have spent for the month. You can add multiple Expenses at one time during this step. 
   
   
3. After clicking on an Expense listed, you can enter in name of the Expense, how much was actually spent, and how much was expected to be spent. 
   
   
4. Click Save All & Close to save this Income to the Customer record.
   
   
5. You can now visually see if the Customer spent more or less than expected for each expense. 
   
   
6. After adding and editing your Customer's Expenses, you can click Baseline. By selecting Baseline, you are indicating all the Expenses have been entered and progress can start being tracked over time. In this way, when you enter any new Expenses in the future, you can compare them to the Initial or Baselined Total of Expenses.

NOTE: If you click "Elevate Common Expenses" on the screen to add Expenses, the system will automatically raise the common expenses to the top of the list for your convenience.

Tip: Talk with the customer about how they can track their expenses through the month.

Entering Savings Goals:

A Savings Goal is where the customer can allocate a monetary amount to the goals they outlined in the Action Plan. If a Customer has a goal to purchase a house, a Savings Goal can be used to save an amount for the downpayment of the house. We can tie this to Taxes later on, which we’ll discuss later, but it’s important to note the importance of this section.

1. In the Savings Goals section, click on the blue Plus (+) sign icon to the far right.
   
   
2. From the Plus (+) sign icon, you can choose to enter two (2) types of Savings Goals:
   • Target Savings: The Goal will generate an Estimated Date of how much should be saved per month to reach the Savings Goal Amount entered.
   • Target Date: The Goal will generate the amount of money needed to be saved each month to have the total Savings Goal Amount reached. 
     
     
3. After choosing a Savings Goal, you can fill out the following fields:
   • Budget Name: The name that describes the customer’s Savings Goal.
   • Savings Goal Category: The category that best fits your Savings Goal type.
   • Savings Goal Term: A general 
   • Savings Goal Status: a drop down that allows you to make note of whether the customer is actively saving, has achieved a goal status, or is not actively working on this goal
   • Savings Goal Amount: in this box you’ll enter the amount of the savings goal
   • Initial Amount Saved for Goal: here, you’ll enter any savings the customer has already put aside towards this goal
   • Savings Goal Target Monthly Savings: in this box you’ll enter the target amount to be saved each month
   • Savings Goal Description: this box allows you to include any details about the savings goal that may be helpful or useful to make note of
     
     
4. Click Save to save the Goal to your Customer's record.
   
   
5. You can edit Savings Goals at any time by clicking on the white circle with an x in the center at the far right of the Savings Goal you’d like to adjust. Two icons will pop up beneath the white circle, one indicating that you can edit the goal by month and the other indicating you can delete the month.