In TidyOne Personal, start by recording the money coming in and going out. Next, set a monthly budget for a category you want to manage, and create one concrete savings goal. My Money holds transactions, Budgets & Goals compares recorded spending with your monthly limit, and your goal shows the savings progress you enter. These features work together, but they do not transfer money between your bank accounts. Unused budget and a goal marked as saved are not automatically money you have available in the bank.
Why connect income, spending, monthly budgets and a savings goal?
You can receive a steady salary and still have no clear idea what remains at month-end. You may keep every receipt but overlook the gradual rise in subscriptions. Or you might plan to save 600 RON every month and record that progress in an app without actually setting the money aside. These are different problems. First, record what happened; second, set an informed spending limit; third, verify that your savings have really increased.
This tutorial is for the Personal workspace. You do not need a nonprofit workspace, fundraising projects or a bank integration. Start with two income sources, a few spending categories, one monthly budget and one savings goal. If you have debt repayments, annual bills or other irregular commitments, account for them before deciding how much money you can set aside.
Before you start: choose the right currency and period
Sign in and select the Personal workspace. Check the primary currency in your profile. If you mostly work in Romanian lei, for example, choose RON. Keep any euro transactions in EUR instead of silently converting them with an assumed exchange rate. TidyOne can display figures by currency; a category budget matches expenses recorded in that budget's own currency.
Choose the month you want to review. If you join halfway through, use bank records, receipts and invoices to reconstruct transactions that you can verify. Do not guess missing amounts just to fill a dashboard. Note gaps and reconcile them when you have the evidence. Your starting figures will become more useful as your records grow more complete.
My Money records income and expenses. Budgets compares Personal expenses for the current calendar month, using the same category name and currency. Savings Goals stores your target and the saved amount you enter. Analysis & Savings summarizes the month's recorded activity. None of these screens independently proves your real bank balance.
Step 1 — Record income you can verify
Open My Money (the page is titled Banii mei in parts of the current interface) and choose + Venit / Add Income. Enter the source or description, amount, currency, category and date in the Adaugă venit form. The current category list includes Salariu (salary), Muncă / servicii (freelance) (freelance work), Vânzare (sale), and Bani primiți / cadou (money received or gifts). Some category labels remain in Romanian; use the actual label shown in your account.
If you received a 4,500 RON salary and 700 RON for freelance work, add them as two transactions with their actual receipt dates. Do not treat an invoice that a client has not yet paid as money currently available. Keep refunds and reimbursements distinct from regular earnings so that your recurring-income plan does not become misleading. Record a payment received in EUR as EUR rather than inventing a lei amount.
After saving, use the Venituri / Income filter to review the list. If an income transaction appears twice, correct the duplicate before planning savings. If earnings vary considerably, avoid relying on the highest recent month when committing yourself to a fixed contribution.
Step 2 — Capture expenses without double-counting receipts
On the same screen, choose + Cheltuială / Add Expense. Enter the merchant, amount, currency, category and date. You can also add a note and, where available, supporting evidence. For shopping receipts you can follow the Receipt → AI → Expense → Monthly Budget tutorial: upload a receipt, review the AI proposal and confirm once. If you already entered the purchase manually, do not allow the same receipt to create an additional financial expense.
Use consistent categories: the existing list includes Alimente (food), Casă / chirie (home and rent), Facturi & utilități (bills and utilities), Transport / combustibil, and others. These Romanian names matter because the budget matcher uses the category saved on your transaction. A mixed grocery receipt may contain food and household products. Review AI line items if you want to allocate them to more than one category.
Do not overlook small fees, recurring subscriptions, cash purchases, loan payments and annual charges when they occur. A payment that you expect next month is a planning commitment, not yet an expense recorded in this month's budget. If you have to plan for it, keep the amount in mind when calculating how much you can actually save.
Step 3 — Review one month's income and expenses on the same basis
In My Money, review the relevant month's entries and correct dates, amounts, categories and currencies. Recorded income less recorded expenses can offer a useful starting point, but that difference is not automatically spare cash. You may have transactions you have not entered, invoices that remain unpaid, or upcoming commitments you must still cover.
Compare amounts within the same currency. If you withdraw cash and later log purchases made with that cash, be consistent so you do not record the withdrawal as final consumption and then count the same spending again. If you use both cards and cash, compare your records against the original account statements and receipts before drawing conclusions.
Step 4 — Create a monthly budget from real spending
Go to Budgets & Goals and select the Bugete / Budgets tab, then + Buget. Enter a name, category, monthly limit and currency. Suppose your food spending is normally around 950 RON. You might test a 1,100 RON monthly limit for Alimente and review it after gathering another month of data. The point is to make a manageable plan, not to set a limit that makes necessary spending impossible.
The budget category is a text input. Enter the exact saved transaction category, such as Alimente. The current budget screen matches Personal expenses by category name and currency for the current calendar month. A budget called “Food” that tracks a category named “Alimente” may not match those expenses; neither will an EUR budget for purchases recorded in RON.
A budget card shows its limit, recorded spending in the current calendar month and the amount remaining or exceeded. It does not reserve that amount in your bank. If you create both an overall Toate cheltuielile (all expenses) budget and category budgets, they are overlapping views of the same underlying transactions. Do not add their spending figures together as though they were separate purchases.
Reopen or refresh the page after entering new expenses to see updated progress. If a category regularly exceeds its limit, validate the data before changing the plan. A useful spending limit is one you can follow without excluding transactions that actually happened.
Step 5 — Set one specific savings goal
Within Budgets & Goals, open Obiective de economisire / Savings Goals and choose + Obiectiv. Enter what you want to achieve, your target amount, any money already saved, an optional target date, currency and optional notes. A practical first example is an emergency fund with a 6,000 RON target. If your income is irregular, you can leave the target date blank instead of creating unrealistic pressure.
Only enter money you have actually set aside in the field Ai deja economisit (“Already saved”). Start at zero if you have not allocated any money yet. If you already have 1,200 RON genuinely reserved for that purpose, use that amount. Do not treat an estimated income-minus-expenses difference as savings that already exist; future bills and incomplete records could absorb it.
Your goal displays its target, recorded saved amount and progress percentage. The target date is your planning reference; it is not a guarantee that the app will collect money by the deadline. If you mis-enter a figure, edit the goal and reconcile it to the amount truly reserved.
Step 6 — Set the money aside, then use + Economii
After checking what you can afford, actually transfer money to a separate account or set it aside using your normal method. Only then, on the goal's card, press + Economii (Add Savings), enter Sumă de adăugat (amount to add) and confirm Adaugă la obiectiv. This increases the saved amount stored for your goal. It does not send a bank transfer or automatically create an expense or transfer transaction in My Money.
For example, if you have genuinely set aside 600 RON and your emergency-fund goal showed zero, add 600 RON. Against a 6,000 RON target, the progress indicator shows 10%. If you intended to save 600 RON but had to use the money to meet another obligation, leave your goal unchanged until the savings are real.
Moving money between your own accounts is not automatically a consumption expense. Avoid entering it as an ordinary expense solely to make the + Economii button seem connected; that can distort spending and budget figures. For precise bank-account or cash reconciliation, use the original statements and your own consistent recording approach.
Worked example: one month, one budget and a 6,000 RON savings goal
Assume that every entry below is real, verified, and dated within the same calendar month, and that all amounts are in RON. Income comprises a 4,500 RON salary and 700 RON from freelance work. You have ordinary home, food, utility, transport and other expenses. Your food budget is 1,100 RON and your emergency-fund goal is 6,000 RON.
| Entry / decision | Amount | Where to track it |
|---|---|---|
| Salary | 4,500 RON | My Money · Income |
| Freelance work | 700 RON | My Money · Income |
| Home and rent | 1,250 RON | My Money · Expense |
| Food | 950 RON | My Money + Alimente budget |
| Bills and utilities | 350 RON | My Money · Expense |
| Transport | 250 RON | My Money · Expense |
| Other expenses | 300 RON | My Money · Expense |
| Monthly food budget | 1,100 RON | Budgets · Planned limit |
| Amount actually saved | 600 RON | Goals · + Economii |
From the 2,100 RON difference, you have actually set aside 600 RON. On paper, that leaves 1,500 RON for further commitments, missing expenses or an additional reserve. That is not your confirmed bank balance. The unused 150 RON within the food budget is already part of the overall picture, not a new 150 RON of savings that can be counted again.
If you truly managed to contribute 600 RON every month, starting from zero, ten such contributions would reach a 6,000 RON target. This is a simple illustrative calculation rather than a guaranteed timeline. Your income, expenses and priorities may change.
Step 7 — Review the month in Analysis & Savings
Open Analysis & Savings and review the displayed monthly income, expenses and spending categories. Compare them with the entries in My Money and the limits in Budgets. Analysis can help reveal patterns, but it cannot magically recover purchases you never entered or money you only planned to save.
Once a week, check receipts or payments you have not logged. At month-end, review categories, over-budget areas, upcoming bills and the amount you genuinely added to your goal. Adjust next month's budget when you have evidence of recurring spending, but do not delete legitimate expenses just to make a progress indicator look better.
What if you have transactions in multiple currencies?
Store each transaction in the currency in which it occurred. Keep each budget and goal in its own currency. A RON food budget only follows matching RON expense transactions. A EUR goal does not automatically receive money from an apparent RON surplus or perform currency conversion. If you need a consolidated figure, use documented exchange rates and the real amounts shown in your bank records.
You may see amounts such as “5,200 RON · 300 EUR” for the same month. That is two currency totals, not one cash balance. If a transaction was assigned an incorrect currency, fix it before relying on its budget category or goal planning implications.
When figures do not match: practical checks
| What you notice | Possible reason | What to verify |
|---|---|---|
| The category budget shows zero. | The category, date or currency does not match. | Compare the exact saved category name, budget currency and transaction month. |
| Monthly income looks inflated. | A payment, refund or transfer was entered twice. | Filter the Income list and correct the confirmed duplicate. |
| Spending jumped after an AI receipt scan. | New AI expense lines were added on top of a manual entry. | Check financial impact and reconcile against the original receipt. |
| Goal progress exceeds the savings account. | Planned money was recorded as money actually set aside. | Use real account evidence, then edit the goal to the correct saved amount. |
| Food budget has money left, but cash is tight. | Other expenses and commitments are not part of that one category. | Review all expenses and coming obligations, not just the food budget. |
Data quality, AI and sensible financial boundaries
TidyOne is a personal organization tool. It does not guarantee your bank balance, a particular savings rate or any investment outcome. Review AI-suggested categories and extracted receipt amounts against original documents. If your finances involve tax obligations, unusual debt terms or other specialized requirements, verify the underlying evidence and seek qualified advice when appropriate.
Some AI features use your plan's available quota. You can still add an expense manually if you prefer not to scan a receipt or if the AI reading is incomplete. Reminders can prompt you to carry out a weekly check, but they do not execute bank transfers or pay invoices for you.
Monthly checklist: eight checks before updating your savings goal
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to enter each income payment manually?
For this workflow, use Add Income for the amounts you can verify. Do not assume that your bank account automatically syncs with your records.
Can I have an overall budget and a separate food budget?
Yes. They are overlapping ways to view the same expense transactions. Do not add the two budget views together as though they represent additional spending.
Why does receiving my salary not increase my category budget?
Category budgets measure recorded expenses by category, currency and current calendar month. Income informs your overall plan, but it is not an expense and does not change the amount spent from a budget.
Does + Economii move money into a savings account?
No. It only increases the saved amount stored for your TidyOne goal. Carry out any real bank transfer separately.
Can I add unused food-budget money to my goal?
Only after reviewing your other obligations and actually setting the money aside. An unused category allowance does not prove the cash is available.
Can I track a EUR goal while spending mostly in RON?
Yes, but amounts are not automatically converted or assigned to the goal. Use your real exchanged or reserved amount and documented rates when recording a contribution.
Does a savings goal tell me what to invest in?
No. It tracks the target you choose and the progress you enter. It does not provide an investment recommendation or guarantee a result.
Continue with Personal guides
Record income and expenses you can verify, test one category budget and set one meaningful goal. Your first full month of real data will be more useful than a polished plan built entirely from estimates.