Knowledge base articles for every step of the wizard, plus a glossary of financial terminology you'll see in the app.
37 terms explained in plain language with examples.
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Payday Audit is a zero-sum budgeting wizard. You plan each income deposit until the "Left to assign" counter hits $0 — meaning every dollar has a job.
Walk through the 12-step wizard from income entry to fully-allocated plan.
Step 9 lets you choose Snowball or Avalanche. Both use the same monthly budget — only the order of attack differs.
The Safety Net step sets your emergency fund target and tells Payday Audit how much to allocate each income deposit.
Step 8 helps you track workplace investing and employer match amounts that are already handled before your take-home income arrives.
Step 1 is the foundation of every calculation. Enter your net income, income frequency, and next income date so the rest of the wizard knows what it's working with.
Step 2 is where you list every debt. The minimums you enter here flow straight into Debt Destroyer and the zero-sum counter.
Step 3 covers rent/mortgage and utilities. Toggle renter vs owner and choose per-deposit or monthly frequency for each line.
Step 4 captures every way you move: car payment, insurance, fuel, transit, parking. The benchmark bar flags overspending.
Step 5 is the third survival budget sub-step. Groceries, dining, custom expenses, and the account buffer go here.
Step 6 lets you pull existing cash sitting in checking into the zero-sum plan so every dollar gets a job.
Step 10 is your investment plan. Split contributions between tax-advantaged and taxable accounts, set your retirement age and risk profile, and watch the Wealth Savings Rate panel respond.
Step 11 is for side-hustle income and discretionary spending. Enter gross hustle income, set a tax holdback, then plan guilt-free categories.
Step 12 is where you close out the zero-sum. Hit Smart Allocate, drop remaining cash into goal pills, or nudge a category manually.
The Summary screen is the review step at the end of the wizard. Check your 50/30/20 health bars, scan the allocation chart, toggle between monthly and per-deposit views, and export.
Smart Allocate auto-distributes your remaining income across priorities using a waterfall — emergency fund → debt → investments → lifestyle.
Wizard Mode walks you through every step. Quick Mode shows every section on one page — faster for returning users.
Start your next income deposit from the shape of your last one. "Start from last" copies all your recurring numbers so you only update what changed.
The /goals page is a standalone tracker for saving goals, debt payoff targets, and investment milestones. Goals surface as pills in the Finish Line step.
The /net-worth page lets you log monthly snapshots of assets minus liabilities so you can watch the line go up over years.
The /trends page shows every budget you've saved side by side so you can spot lifestyle creep before it compounds.
The /annual page rolls up all 12 months of a calendar year into a single view. Useful for tax season and year-end review.
The /team page lets you invite a partner and share budgets across a household workspace. Team tier only.
If "Amount Left to Assign" is negative, you've allocated more than you earn. If it's positive, you still have unassigned dollars.
Yes. Payday Audit auto-saves to the cloud as you work. Look for the save indicator in the wizard header.
If your minimum payment is lower than the monthly interest, the debt grows every month even when you pay on time. Here's what to do.