Kerdora does not currently provide a supported monthly budget screen with category targets, remaining-to-spend amounts, rollover rules, or budget alerts. The August 12 dev platform's Planning → Spending Beta is for actual transaction review and cash-flow analysis; use Profile → Cash Flow and Goals for forward-looking spending assumptions.
An advisor can still use Kerdora to answer “What is this household spending?” and “What spending assumption supports the plan?” The product does not yet manage a complete month-by-month household budget.
What can I do in Planning → Spending today?
Planning → Spending contains five current tabs:
Transactions for the account-level ledger, filters, search, categories, tags, and hidden status;
Cash Flow for transaction-derived income, spending, transfers, and savings by month, quarter, or year;
Categories for the household's income, spending, and transfer taxonomy;
Tags for flexible transaction labels; and
Rules for repeated categorization, rename, hide, or tag actions.
Use Planning → Spending to clean and understand actual activity. Transactions can come from linked accounts or supported statement imports. Categorization and transfer handling determine whether the Cash Flow view reflects the household accurately.
Where do I enter the household's planned spending amount?
Enter the forward-looking household spending assumption in Profile → Cash Flow, not in the Planning → Spending transaction ledger. Review whether the spending figure already includes debt payments so Kerdora does not add the same obligation twice.
Goal calculations can use the household's saved spending or a Goal-specific spending assumption, depending on the Goal and its settings. When a retirement or other Goal has its own spending inputs, document why they differ from the current household cash-flow assumption.
The advisor should distinguish three different numbers:
Actual transaction spending from Planning → Spending.
Current recurring spending saved in Profile → Cash Flow.
Goal-specific future spending used by an applicable Goal calculation.
These values can differ for valid reasons. Kerdora does not automatically overwrite the planning assumption whenever new transactions arrive.
How can I use actual transactions to set a planning assumption?
Use a clean transaction period as evidence, then set the planning assumption deliberately:
Open Planning → Spending → Transactions.
Filter to the authoritative accounts and date range.
Classify transfers and credit-card payments correctly.
Categorize or hide transactions that should not affect effective spending.
Open Cash Flow and review the applicable monthly, quarterly, or yearly period.
Separate recurring living costs from one-time purchases, reimbursements, transfers, and known anomalies.
Update Profile → Cash Flow with the forward-looking amount the plan should use.
Reopen the relevant Goal or Financials view and confirm the derived result changed as expected.
Use enough history to represent the household's normal pattern. A single unusual month can be useful evidence, but it is rarely a complete budget or long-term spending assumption.
Can I set category targets or remaining-to-spend amounts?
No supported user interface in the current Planning → Spending Beta lets an advisor or client assign monthly category budgets, see remaining-to-spend amounts, carry balances forward, or receive budget alerts.
If the household maintains a detailed budget in another system, keep that system as the operational budget. Store only the summarized and supportable spending assumptions Kerdora needs for cash-flow and Goal planning. Use Tags or Categories to analyze actual spending patterns, but do not present them as budget controls.
Can a client manage a budget in the Kerdora portal?
Clients can access applicable Spending transaction and cash-flow surfaces in the portal, but they do not receive a separate Kerdora budget manager. An advisor should not promise category limits, rollover behavior, alerts, or remaining-to-spend tracking through the client portal.
Clients can help review transactions and update applicable Profile cash-flow information. The advisor remains responsible for selecting the planning assumption and explaining how it was derived.
What about duplicate or overlapping transactions?
Duplicate handling is separate from budgeting. Similar merchant, date, and amount values do not automatically prove that one transaction is safe to exclude.
Before hiding a suspected duplicate, compare the source account, account mask, posting date, amount and sign, merchant or original description, import batch or connection source, and whether the entries are two sides of a transfer. Use the hidden control when a source record should remain available but should not count in effective Spending analysis.
Choose one authoritative transaction source for each account and date range, and avoid importing a statement period already covered by aggregation. Consistent transfer classification and import boundaries prevent many apparent duplicates.
Why does actual Spending not match Profile → Cash Flow?
Planning → Spending and Profile → Cash Flow serve different jobs. Planning → Spending totals actual transactions for the selected period. Profile → Cash Flow stores recurring planning inputs.
When the values differ, check:
transaction date range and period mode;
accounts included in the filter;
hidden transactions;
uncategorized items;
transfer and credit-card payment classification;
one-time purchases or reimbursements;
whether Profile spending includes debt payments; and
whether the planning assumption is monthly or annual.
After the reconciliation, decide whether the Profile assumption should change. Do not force the two figures to match when the actual period is incomplete or not representative.
What should I do if a complete budget workflow is required?
Keep the detailed operating budget in the household's existing budgeting tool or spreadsheet and use Kerdora for the planning summary. Document the monthly or annual spending assumption, important one-time adjustments, and the source period used to estimate it.
If a repeatable Spending problem prevents an accurate planning assumption, contact Kerdora Support with the household, account mask, date range, filters, example transactions, and expected total. Do not send credentials or full account numbers.