When you are getting started with a new cash plan, you enter descriptions for the items that comprise your household finances. You Need A Cash Plan uses your descriptions to initialize the spreadsheet rows (except for credit card payments which depend on charging activity).
1 Incomes - Automatically calculated paychecks, from the incomes that you have added, that are expected to be deposited into the cash plan's checking account.
2 Allowance set asides - Automatically calculated amounts to be set aside for your weekly allowance. In this example, the allowance is $250.00 on Thursday with money being set aside on the 1st. The set-aside amount on the 1st is the number of Thursdays in the coming month times $250.00.
3 Bill payments - Automatically scheduled payments for the bills and pseudo bills that you have added.
4 Credit card payments - Payments you have scheduled to pay for charges you have made that will appear on future credit card statements.
5 Sinking fund set asides - Automatically calculated set-asides to sinking fund ledgers for the sinking funds that you have added.
6 Saving set asides - Automatically scheduled set-asides to saving ledgers for the short-term savings that you have added.
Each of these rows as shown are summarized to one row. Right-clicking on any of these rows expands the row to show the underlying detail.
The remaining rows in your Cash Plan spreadsheet are calculated by You Need A Cash Plan whenever you do updates or make changes to your cash plan.
Unallocated balance - The beginning balance in the Unallocated ledger on the column date.
From bills & credit cards - The total amount in bill and credit card ledgers, including money from linked sinking fund and saving ledgers, that will be used when you pay bills on the column date. Right-click on this row to see the details.
Expected to be available - The total amount that is expected to be available on the column date for paying bills and doing set asides.
Cash payments & set asides - The total amount of bill payments and set asides made with cash on the column date.
Net cashflow - Your net cashflow on the column date. Right-click on this row to display a chart.
Chg in unallocated balance - How much the balance in the Unallocated ledger changes when you pay bills on the column date. Right-click on this row to display a chart.
Credit card payments - The total amount of bill payments on the column date that are paid with a credit card. You will add these amounts to scheduled credit card payments as the last step in paying bills on the column date. Right-click on this row to see the details.