Using the app

The Budget tab gets its own chapters (see Zero-Based and Spending Limits). This chapter covers everything else you'll use day-to-day: the Dashboard, the Transactions tab, the review flow, splits, categorization, transfers, and reports.

The Dashboard

The Dashboard is the home screen. It's designed to answer two questions at a glance: “how's my money doing?” and “is there anything I need to take care of right now?”

Net worth card

The big card at the top shows your total net worth across every visible account, with a 30-day sparkline underneath. A small eye icon in the corner toggles number masking on and off. When masked, every number in the app shows as bullets, which is handy when someone's looking over your shoulder.

Sync status

If a sync is in progress, you'll see a small spinner and Syncing your accounts… below the net worth card. If it's been more than four hours since the last successful sync, you'll see a Last checked [time ago] line with a Check Now button. Tap it to trigger an immediate sync.

Review Transactions card

When new transactions have arrived and haven't been reviewed yet, an orange card appears: Review Transactions with a count of how many are waiting. Tap it to open the review flow (more on that below).

Accounts

Your accounts are grouped into five collapsible sections with color coding:

• Checking (blue)
• Savings (teal)
• Investments (green)
• Assets (orange)
• Credit & Loans (red)

Each group shows the total balance and expands to show the individual accounts. Hidden accounts appear dimmed and don't contribute to the totals. At the bottom of the card is an Add account row for adding a new bank or manual account.

Recent activity

The last card shows your five most recent transactions. Pending ones have a small clock icon. Tap a row to go straight to that transaction.

The Transactions tab

The Transactions tab is where you view and edit everything that's moved through your accounts. Transactions group by date, newest first, with pending ones called out at the top.

Search and filters

The search bar at the top filters by payee name, notes, category, or amount. The filter icon opens account and category filters as chips you can toggle. Active filters show below the search bar as removable pills, with a Clear all when you want to reset.

Tapping a transaction

For bank-imported transactions, tapping opens a quick category picker so you can reassign fast. For manual transactions, tapping opens the full edit sheet so you can change payee, amount, date, notes, and category.

Bulk editing

Tap Edit in the top corner to enter selection mode. Check the transactions you want to edit together, then tap the floating Categorize (N) button to assign the same category to all of them. Good for catching up on a week of uncategorized spending in one pass.

The review flow

When new transactions come in from your bank, they land in a review queue instead of going straight to their category. The review flow is a dedicated screen that walks you through them one at a time. Fast, focused, done in a minute.

Open it from the orange Review Transactions card on the Dashboard.

How it works

The top of the screen shows a progress bar and how many transactions are left. The middle shows one transaction at a time (payee, amount, account, date). The bottom is a grid of category tiles.

Tap a category tile. The transaction is categorized, marked reviewed, and the next one slides in. Special tiles at the top handle Transfer, Income, and CC Payment for things that aren't regular spending.

What counts as “needs review”

New imported transactions are flagged for review on arrival. Manual entries and historical backfill skip the queue because you were already intentional about those. You'll only see the review card on the Dashboard when new transactions are actually waiting.

If reviewing every one feels like overkill

By default, every new imported transaction goes through the review queue. Once the app has learned your common payees, that can feel like extra work for transactions that are obviously Starbucks or the same grocery store as always.

Go to Settings and turn off Review every transaction. With the toggle off, transactions from payees the app already recognizes are categorized automatically and skip the review queue. Only new or unfamiliar payees will land in review.

Turn it back on any time. The choice is non-destructive; it just affects what future imports do.

Splitting a transaction

Sometimes one charge covers multiple categories. A Target run with groceries + household items + a birthday gift. A gas station visit with gas + a snack. You can split any transaction across multiple categories so your budget reflects what you actually bought.

How to split

Tap Split in the review flow, or Split Transaction in the transaction editor. You'll get a screen with an allocation bar at the top and a list of split lines below.

Add a line, pick a category, type an amount. Repeat until the allocation bar reads Balanced (it shows Remaining: $X in orange if you're short or Over by: $X in red if you've assigned too much). You need at least two lines and every line needs a category.

The Split Evenly button divides the total across your current lines. Handy when you're splitting roughly in half or thirds.

In the transactions list

Split transactions show a pie-chart icon and a label like Split · 3 categories where a single category name would normally go. Tap the transaction to see the individual lines.

Un-splitting

Opening a split transaction and tapping Remove Split collapses it back to a single-category transaction. You pick the one category to apply.

How categorization learns

Categorization in Basis Budget is a mix of automatic and learned. New transactions get a starting category from two sources:

1. Your own history. If you've categorized a transaction from this payee before, the app uses that same category automatically. This is the primary path once you've been using the app for a while.
2. Our categorization algorithm. If there's no history for a payee, the app takes a best guess using merchant data and similar past transactions. Not always right the first time, but usually close.

Every time you review a transaction and pick a category, the app remembers it for next time. Within a few weeks, most of your recurring spending categorizes itself.

Transfers between your accounts

When you move money from one of your accounts to another (checking to savings, paying a credit card), two transactions show up: an outflow from the source and an inflow to the destination. If you categorize both as spending, your budget will think you spent that money twice.

To prevent that, the app auto-detects likely transfer pairs: matching amounts, opposite directions, close in time. When it finds one, both sides get the Transfer category and are linked together. They show a blue double-arrow icon in the list.

Transfers don't count as spending or income in reports or budget math. They're just your money moving between your own accounts.

If the app missed a transfer (unusual amounts, weird timing, accounts from different banks), you can mark it manually. Tap the transaction, choose Transfer in the category picker, and the app will try to find the matching pair on the other side.

The Reports tab

Reports is where you step back and see patterns. Four sections, each answering a different question.

Net worth over time

A line chart of your net worth with period toggles for 1M, 3M, 6M, and 1Y. Drag across the chart to inspect a specific day. Covered below in more detail.

Monthly summary

Two tiles for the selected month: Income (green) and Expenses (red, outflows minus refunds). A month navigator at the top lets you look back at previous months.

Spending by category

A donut chart with percentage breakdowns. Tap a slice to highlight it. The top eight categories each get their own slice; the rest group as Other so the chart stays readable.

Budget vs actual

A bar chart showing each category's planned amount against what you actually spent. In Zero-Based mode this is Assigned vs Spent. In Spending Limits it's Budget vs Actual. Color coding: green up to 80%, orange through 100%, red over.

Net worth over time

The app takes a daily snapshot of your net worth and stores it. Over weeks and months, you build up a genuine trend line.

The full chart lives in Reports. Tap the period toggles to switch between 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year. Drag your finger along the chart to inspect a specific day: the app shows the date and the exact net worth in a small tooltip.

That's the day-to-day. For account management questions, see Your accounts. For budget setup, head to the mode-specific chapters linked at the top of this page.