Welcome to VACU Money Tracker

Click the name of a Money Tracker section below to get additional information on what is included in it and how to set it up.

• Accounts
• Savings Goals
• Income Statement
• Budget
• Cash Flow
• Top Expenses
• Highest Balances
  

Accounts

This section displays the closing balances for your selected accounts for the past 3 months. The 3 months shown in this section are based on the time period selected at the top of the page.

To select or remove accounts from this view:

1. Click the "Edit List" link on the right side of the Accounts title bar.
2. Select or deselect the accounts by clicking the checkboxes.
3. Click the "Update" button.

Please note:

• Only deposit accounts can be selected; loan and credit card accounts are not available for review in Money Tracker. You may include up to 15 accounts.
• The transactions of accounts selected in the “Edit List” screen will also show up in the Budget, Income Statement and Cash Flow sections of Money Tracker as aggregate totals or combined activity.

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Savings Goals

This section allows you to create savings goals. To get started,

1. Click the "Manage" link on the right side of the Savings Goals title bar.
2. Add a description for your savings goal.
3. Select an account where the money will be saved. The current balance of that account pre-fills the "Starting Savings Amount" field. You may change that amount to $0 if you prefer that to be your starting amount.
4. Add a goal amount. Set a goal start date and end date. The goal start date will pre-fill with the current date. Click the "Add" button.
5. Set up additional savings goals by following the above procedure for each goal. The list of goals you set up is listed in the "Savings Goals" section of this page. You can choose 2 goals to show on the Overview page by clicking the check boxes in the "Show" column.
6. After you have added all your savings goals, click the "Save" button.

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Income Statement

In this section, you can assign your spending into categories to help you see where you are spending money.

1. Click the "Manage Categories" link on the right side of the Income Statement title bar.
2. You will see 3 sections after clicking: "Add Custom Categories," "My Categories" and "Standard Categories." Standard Categories are the default categories and cannot be deleted.

Add a Custom Category:

1. Select a category type: expense or income.
2. Give the category a name and add a description if you would like one.
3. Click the "Add" button.
   
   
4. The categories you add here will show up in the "My Categories" section.
5. Click the "Done" button in the "My Categories" section after you finish adding categories.

Assign a transaction to a category:

Money Tracker will categorize some of your transactions automatically; other transactions will be assigned as "Uncategorized" transactions. You may assign your spending and income to either the standard categories or to your custom categories.

1. Make sure the Income Statement is in table view. Click on the amounts listed under a month (in blue) to display the transaction details for that category.
2. A new screen appears listing the transactions in that category
3. Select a category using the dropdown menu for each transaction.
   
4. Click the "Done" button to save your changes.

Apply a note to a transaction

1. Click on a transaction to highlight it.
2. Click the page icon in the first column.
   
3. Enter your comments in the text field that appears in the description field.
4. Click the "Done" button to save your comments.
   

Assign multiple categories to a transaction

You may want to split a transaction amount into more than one category

1. Click on a transaction to highlight it.
2. Click the arrows icon in the first column.
   
3. Enter the amount you would like to recategorize and select a category from the dropdown menu. Money Tracker will adjust the other amount for you.
   
4. If you want to make additional splits, click the "Split" link to the right of the last amount
5. When you're finished, click the "Save" button to return to the Transaction Details screen.
   

Please note:

• Click the "Chart" view radio button under the Income Statement title bar to see a chart showing your income and expenses in a bar chart.
• Switch back to table view by clicking the "Table" radio button.

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Budget

Once you have your expenses categorized correctly in the Income Statement section, you can set up a budget with specific goals for each category. To get started,

1. Click the “Manage” link on the right side of the Budget title bar.
2. Select the monthly budget you wish to view at the top of the screen.
3. You will be presented with your Income and Expenses, divided up into categories.
4. By default, you will only see categories that have some activity.  If you want to see all categories, click the “View Categories with a $0 Actual Balance” check box at the top of the page.
5. Money Tracker will assign dollar goals to each category by default.  To change these goals, change the numbers in the Budget column. Do not click enter after changing a number; either tab or use the mouse to move between budget numbers.
6. After you have changed your entire budget numbers, click the “Update” button at the bottom of the screen.

If you want to print your budget or export it to an Excel file, you may use the “Print” and “Export” links located above the “12 Mo Avg” column of Income chart.

The next time you click “Manage” in the Budget section of the Overview Page, your budget numbers will be updated, as will the “Month to Date” Column which shows the percentage of your budget used so far this month and the “Difference” column which shows the amount of your budget left after actual expenses.

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Cash Flow

The Cash Flow section shows your Net Income and transfers that occurred within your Virginia Credit Union accounts. Your Net Income is defined as your Total Income minus your Total Expenses.

1. Click on the monthly numbers (in blue) to see the individual transfers that comprise this number.
2. You may categorize a transfer using the dropdown menu for each transfer.
3. Click the “Done” button to save any changes.

Please note:

• All transfers within your Income Statement (Income and Expenses) categorized as either ‘Within Account Transfers’ or ‘Within FI Transfers’ will display here.  ‘Within Account Transfers’ are transfers between your deposit accounts and ‘Within FI transfers’ are transfers made to other members or financial institutions.

• If you create a custom category to track transfers to accounts outside Virginia Credit Union, that transfer data will not be captured in the Transfer section of Cash Flow.
  

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Top Expenses

This section displays a pie chart showing the percentage of your total expenses that is in each expense category. You may view the current month or a 3-month average by using the radio buttons under the blue title bar.

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Highest Balances

This section displays a pie chart showing the percentage of your total balances in each of your accounts.

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