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Cashflow: Understanding Income, Expenses, and Spending

Written by Taylor Stewart

The Cashflow tab lives under Profile in the client sidebar. It's where you capture the full picture of money in and money out: income sources, total spending, savings rates, debt payments, and (optionally) charitable giving. This data feeds directly into goal calculators, insurance calculators, and the cash flow visualizations you can add to Guides.

You'll find four sections on the page by default: Income (top left), Spending (top right), Savings (bottom left), and Debt Payments (bottom right). A fifth section, Giving, appears below the others when it's turned on for the household.

Income

The Income section is a table showing every income source for the client. Each row has four columns: Income Source (a name you type in), Type, Owner, and Amount (with a frequency dropdown).

The total annual income displays at the top right of the section.

Adding an income source

Click the Add button in the top right corner of the Income section. A dropdown appears with seven income types:

  • Wages — W-2 employment income

  • Self-Employment — 1099 or business income

  • Social Security — Social Security benefits

  • Ordinary Income — pensions, rental income, or other taxable income

  • Investment Income — dividends, interest, capital gains

  • Tax Exempt — municipal bond interest or other tax-exempt income

  • Not Taxable — gifts, inheritances, or other non-taxable sources

Pick a type and a modal opens where you enter the name, owner, amount, and frequency. After you click Add Income, it appears in the table.

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Pensions and rental income both go under Ordinary Income. If you're unsure which type to pick: Investment Income is for dividends, interest, and capital gains from financial accounts. Rental income from a property, pension payments, and similar recurring income streams are all Ordinary Income.

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Editing and deleting income

Every field in the table is editable inline. Click any cell to change the name, type, owner, or amount. The frequency dropdown next to the amount lets you set how often the income is received: weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly, quarterly, every 6 months, or yearly. Kerdora converts everything to an annual total automatically.

The Owner dropdown lists each adult in the household. If there are two or more adults, you'll also see a "Joint" option.

To delete an income source, hover over the row and click the trash icon on the right. You'll get a confirmation prompt before anything is removed.

Spending

The Spending section sits in the top right of the page. It has one input and two calculated fields:

  1. Total Spending (incl. Debt) — This is the only field you enter. It's the client's total annual spending, including debt payments. Think of it as everything going out the door each year.

  2. Current Debt Payments — This is read-only. Kerdora calculates it automatically by adding up all the annual debt payments from the Debt Payments section below.

  3. Annual Burn — Also read-only. This is Total Spending minus Current Debt Payments. It represents the client's living expenses (housing costs, food, insurance premiums, discretionary spending) without double-counting debt.

The math is simple:

Total Spending (incl. Debt)Current Debt Payments = Annual Burn

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The Annual Burn number is what flows into goal calculators. For example, the Retirement goal uses it as the default spending need, and the Liquidity goal uses it to calculate monthly expenses for the emergency fund target.

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Savings

The Savings section shows a table of accounts that have savings configured. These are Bank and Investment accounts from the Accounts tab that have a savings rate set up.

Each row shows the account name, balance, and monthly savings amount.

Configuring savings on an account

Click any row in the Savings table to open a detail drawer on the right side of the screen. Inside the drawer, you'll find a Savings section with two modes:

  • Flat Amount — Enter a dollar amount and frequency (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually). Kerdora converts it to a monthly number.

  • % of Income — Enter a percentage and pick an income source. You can choose "Total Household Income" or any individual income source from the dropdown. Kerdora calculates the monthly savings from there.

Toggle between the two modes depending on how the client thinks about their savings. Some people save a fixed dollar amount per paycheck; others contribute a percentage of their salary to a 401(k).

The total annual savings displays at the top of the section.

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Savings configuration happens per account. If a client contributes to a 401(k), a Roth IRA, and a savings account, you'd set up savings on each of those three accounts individually.

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For employer-sponsored accounts (401k, 403b, etc.), the savings section on the account also includes an Employer Match field where you can set up match tiers (e.g., "100% match up to 3% of income, then 50% up to 5%"). The match is calculated based on the savings rate you've entered. You configure this on the account itself under Profile \> Accounts, not on the Cashflow tab.

Debt Payments

The Debt Payments section shows a table of liabilities (loans and credit cards) from the Accounts tab. Each row displays the liability name, balance, and payment amount with a frequency dropdown.

Both the balance and payment fields are editable inline. The frequency dropdown works the same way as income: weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually. Kerdora annualizes everything and shows the total annual debt payments at the top of the section.

This total is the same number that appears as "Current Debt Payments" in the Spending section above.

Giving

The Giving section is off by default. Turn it on per household at Profile \> Household, under the Household Info card. Flip the Giving toggle and a new Giving section appears below Savings and Debt Payments on the Cashflow tab.

Giving is where you capture recurring charitable contributions: tithing, donor-advised fund contributions, regular gifts to a specific nonprofit, anything that shows up on the household's cash flow every year.

Adding a giving entry

Click Add in the top right of the Giving section. A drawer opens on the right where you enter:

  • Name — The recipient or label (e.g., "Church", "Local food bank", "Donor-Advised Fund").

  • Amount — Either a Flat Amount with a frequency (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually), or % of Income tied to Total Household Income or a specific income source.

  • Tax deductible — Check the box if the gift is deductible. This flag is used when tax scenarios are built on top of the household.

  • Notes — Free-form context, with an internal/client visibility toggle.

Entries show up in the Giving table with the monthly amount, and the section header displays the total annual giving. Every entry rolls into a givingRate metric that sits alongside income, savings, and debt payments for the household.

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Turn on Giving when charitable giving is material to the plan, either because the dollar amount is meaningful or because the client wants to plan around it (e.g., bunching gifts, qualified charitable distributions, donor-advised funds). For households where giving is negligible, leave it off and keep the Cashflow tab lean.

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How cashflow data connects to the rest of Kerdora

The data you enter on the Cashflow tab flows into several other parts of the platform:

  • Retirement Goal — The spending need defaults to the client's Annual Burn. If you change spending on this tab, the retirement calculator updates automatically.

  • Liquidity Goal — The monthly expense target is derived from total spending, which determines how large the emergency fund should be.

  • Insurance Calculators — Life and disability insurance calculators pull income data to calculate coverage needs. Personal income and total household income are both derived from what you enter here.

  • Tax Scenarios — Income sources feed into the tax scenario builder under Planning \> Taxes. Tax-deductible giving entries can inform itemized deductions.

  • Overview / Guides — The "Where Does Income Go?" component on the Overview page summarizes income, savings, debt, burn, taxes, giving, and surplus/deficit. The Cash Flow Sankey component provides a visual flow diagram showing how income splits across savings, debt payments, taxes, spending, giving, and any surplus or deficit.

A note on the Extractor

You don't have to enter all of this by hand. If you upload pay stubs, tax returns, or financial statements through the Extractor, it can pull income sources, account balances, and other cash flow data automatically. Review what it extracts on this tab and adjust as needed.

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