Zero-Based budgeting

This is the method YNAB users will recognize. The idea: every dollar you have right now belongs to a specific category. Nothing is unassigned. When you spend, you draw down that category's balance. Whatever you don't spend stays there, available next month, until you decide to move it.

Still deciding between modes? See Budgeting modes for the comparison and decision aid.

In the app, Left to Assign at the top tells you how much money hasn't been given a job yet. Your goal each month is to get that to $0. Each category row shows how much you've assigned, how much you've spent, and how much is left in the envelope.

The mental model

Think of each category as an envelope. You fill the envelopes at the start of the month. Throughout the month, you spend from them. If your Groceries envelope hits empty, Groceries is done. You either eat cheaper, or you move money from another envelope to cover it.

That last part matters. In Zero-Based, overspending isn't wrong. You're just out of that money, and you have to decide: borrow from another envelope, or cut that category for the rest of the month.

Setting up Zero-Based

Plan for about 15 minutes. Have a rough sense of what you spend monthly, and what bills come up over the year (insurance, registration, subscriptions, that kind of thing).

1Pick Zero-Based on the mode screen

On first launch, the app asks you to pick a mode. Tap Zero-Based.

2Review your default categories

Basis Budget comes with 16 default categories grouped into four buckets:

• Bills. Housing, Utilities, Insurance, Subscriptions
• Needs. Groceries, Transportation, Healthcare, Personal Care
• Wants. Dining Out, Entertainment, Shopping
• Savings & Goals. Savings, Vacation, Education

Plus Income (flagged as income-only) and Other (the catchall).

These exist so you're not staring at an empty screen. They're not sacred. Keep them, rename them, delete them, reorganize them, add your own.

3Customize for your life

In the Budget tab, tap the gear icon in the top-right, then choose Manage Categories. Tap any category to rename it, change its icon and color, move it to a different group, or delete it.

Think about what actually makes up your spending:

• Got pets? Add a Pets category.
• Save for holidays across the year? Add Gifts.
• Regular coffee shop visits? Add Coffee so you can track it separately from Dining Out.

4Assign your current money

Head to the Budget tab. Left to Assign at the top shows how much you have to work with right now (your cash minus what you owe on credit cards, plus or minus a few adjustments covered below).

Tap each category and give it a number. Keep going until Left to Assign hits $0.

What numbers to use:

• Fixed bills. Use the exact amount. Rent $1,800, Internet $70.
• Variable but regular. Use your usual amount, rounded slightly up. Groceries $400, Gas $150.
• Savings and goals. Whatever you want to set aside this month. Emergency Fund $200, Vacation $150.

5Let transactions flow

If your bank is connected, transactions import automatically. Each one reduces the balance in the category it belongs to. Review them in the Transactions tab, confirm the category is right, move on.

When money comes in (a paycheck, refund, gift), Left to Assign goes up. Head back to the Budget tab and decide where that new money goes.

At month-end, review. If you overspent Groceries by $40 and underspent Dining Out by $60, move $40 over. Done.

How rollover works in Zero-Based

Rollover is automatic in Zero-Based. There's no toggle. Whatever money you don't spend in a category stays in that envelope, available next month. If Groceries ends April with $38 left over, May starts with $38 already in Groceries before you assign anything new.

This is the opposite of Spending Limits, where caps reset each month unless you opt in with auto-carry. In Zero-Based, balance persistence is the default, and goals just shape how much the app suggests you assign each month on top of what's already in the envelope.

If you don't want a category to build up

Some categories shouldn't hoard money. Think Dining Out or Entertainment: if you underspend one month, you probably want that money pulled back to Left to Assign so you can decide fresh next month, not quietly saved toward an unplanned dinner blowout.

At month-end, just manually move the excess. Tap the category, reduce the assigned amount to match what you actually spent, and the leftover flows back to Left to Assign. Reassign it however you want for the coming month.

If you want it to build up toward something

For categories like Car Repair, Gifts, Emergency Fund, or annual insurance, you want the balance to build. Set a goal on the category (next section). The rollover behavior stays the same, but now the app tells you how much to add each month to stay on track.

The five goal types

Goals help you see if you're on track. They don't force anything. They're gentle nudges shown as progress indicators on the category row, and they power the Fund All Underfunded button (covered below).

You set goals in a category's settings. Pick one of these five types based on what the category is for.

No goal

The default. The balance rolls over from month to month with no target and no nudging. The app doesn't tell you how much to assign.

Use when: the category is flexible discretionary spending and you don't want the app suggesting a specific number each month.

Refill to Target

The app expects the category to contain a fixed amount each month. If you're below it, the app suggests topping up to the target. Once you're there, no more nudging.

Example. Groceries with Refill to $400. If April started with $50 rolled over from March, the app suggests you assign $350 to get to $400. If April started at $0, it suggests $400.

Use when: fixed categories with predictable monthly need. Rent, Groceries, Gas, Utilities.

Monthly Contribution

The app expects you to assign a fixed amount every month, no matter what the balance is. Unlike Refill, this keeps growing.

Example. Emergency Fund with Contribute $200/month. Whether you're at $500 or $50,000, the app expects another $200 this month.

Use when: long-running savings where you want to keep building. Retirement buffer, emergency fund, general savings.

Save by Date

You pick a target amount and a target date. The app calculates the monthly amount for you.

Example. Vacation with “Save $2,400 by December 31” in April. The app suggests $300/month for the remaining eight months.

Use when: known expenses with known dates. Weddings, vacations, annual registrations, planned big purchases.

Monthly Until Target

You pick a monthly amount and a total target. The app tracks how many months you'll need to keep contributing.

Example. New Laptop with “$125/month until $1,500.” The app tracks that you'll need to contribute for 12 months, then stops nudging.

Use when: specific savings goals with no hard deadline. You already know how much per month, you just want the app to track progress.

Which goal type should I pick?

Quick actions on the Budget tab

A few buttons and row actions are worth calling out because they save real time once you know they're there.

Fund All Underfunded

If you've set goals on your categories, the Fund All Underfunded button appears at the top of the Budget tab whenever any goal is short. One tap assigns just enough to every underfunded category to close every gap at once. It respects each category's goal type, so Refill categories get topped up, Monthly Contribution categories get their contribution, and so on.

Shows only for the current month, because funding future or past months that way doesn't make sense.

Cover an overspent category

If a category goes negative, a red Cover $X button appears on its row. One tap pulls exactly enough from Left to Assign to get the category back to $0. Fast way to patch things up before moving on.

Skip a category this month

Sometimes a category doesn't apply this month. Maybe you don't have dentist appointments in March, or the car insurance already cleared in February. Skipping mutes the category just for this month: it's ignored from Left to Assign, goal math, and the Fund All Underfunded button. Next month it's back to normal.

To skip: long-press the category row, then tap Skip Month from the context menu. The row shows a gray Skipped badge. Long-press and choose Unskip Month to reverse it. You can also toggle skip from the category's edit sheet (tap the row to open it).

If you later assign money to a skipped category, it automatically unskips. No undo dance.

The Budget tab toolbar

Two buttons sit at the top of the Budget tab. The one on the left reorganizes your categories visually. The gear on the right opens a short menu for everything else.

Organize Budget (top-left button)

Tap the list icon in the top-left to open Organize Budget. This is a drag-to-reorder view for your groups and categories. Use it to:

• Reorder category groups (Bills, Needs, Wants, etc.)
• Reorder categories inside a group
• Move a category from one group to another
• Add, rename, or delete groups

The order you set here is the order you'll see on the Budget tab. No budget math changes. Just rearrangement.

The gear menu (top-right button)

Tap the gear icon for a short menu with three actions. The first two you'll use occasionally. The third you should understand before you touch it.

Manage Categories

Rename, reorder, regroup, delete, or add categories. This is the same place you went during setup. Category changes are non-destructive: renaming keeps all the transaction history attached, and moving a category between groups doesn't touch any assigned or spent amounts.

Include savings in budget

By default, the money in your savings accounts counts toward Left to Assign. That makes sense if your “savings” is really just a second checking account you treat as spendable.

If your savings is untouchable (emergency fund, down payment, a retirement cushion you'd rather forget about), toggle this off. The app will stop counting those balances in Left to Assign, so your budget reflects only money you're actually willing to deploy.

Reset Budget

Clears all your monthly assignments and starts the budget over from today's balances. Your transactions, accounts, category definitions, goals, and history all stay. Only the envelope amounts are reset.

Use when: your budget has drifted too far from reality to usefully adjust, or you want a clean restart of the Zero-Based cycle without losing any of your data.

Don't use when: you just want to fix one or two overspent categories. That's what the Cover button and manual moves are for.

Credit cards in Zero-Based

Credit cards are weird because they're liabilities that feel like cash. Basis Budget gives you two ways to handle them.

Pay in Full (default)

The simple case. You pay your card off every month. Balances on pay-in-full cards count as cash in your Left to Assign: if you have $1,000 in checking and a $200 credit card balance, you're effectively working with $800.

When you charge something on the card, it reduces the category it was assigned to (same as a debit transaction). When you pay the card off, the transfer between checking and the card cancels out, so nothing shifts in your budget.

Pay Over Time

If you're paying down a card over several months, switch it to Pay Over Time and set a monthly payoff target. The app earmarks money toward that target so you can't accidentally budget it away.

Example. A card with a $2,400 balance and a $400/month payoff target. Each month, the app reserves $400 from Left to Assign to cover the payment. You see the reserved amount in the Left to Assign breakdown.

When drift shows up

Sometimes your bank's reported balance and your transactions disagree. A pending charge hasn't posted yet. A card settled for a slightly different amount than it authorized. A sync ran half a day late. Basis Budget calls this drift.

Most of the time, drift resolves itself and you never see anything. Pending transactions post, syncs catch up, and the math lines up again within a day. The app only surfaces drift to you when it's more than $1 and has stuck around for at least three days. At that point a small caption appears under Left to Assign:

+$12.43 reconciling

Tap the reconciling line for a short explainer sheet with the exact difference and a link to the full diagnostic if you want to dig in.

The app fixes it automatically

If the drift is still unexplained after five days, Basis Budget auto-absorbs it on its own. Your reference balance silently re-anchors to match your bank, the reconciling caption goes away, and Left to Assign lines up with reality. Your envelope balances are not touched.

This happens in the background, no action needed. Expected compensations (pending transactions, pay-over-time credit card earmarks) are preserved, so they keep resolving naturally as they post. Only the unexplained remainder gets absorbed.

For most users, this is the entire drift story. Small gap appears, stays for a few days, app handles it. You'll see an “Anchor Event” entry in the Audit Log after it's absorbed if you want to verify.

Manual re-anchor (if you want to resolve it sooner)

If you'd rather not wait the five days, you can force the re-anchor yourself. Head to Settings › Drift Diagnostic, review the breakdown, and tap Re-anchor. Same result as the automatic version: Left to Assign corrects, envelopes stay put, expected compensations stay preserved.