Decide where your money goes before it goes

Set a limit on each category before the period starts, then watch what you actually spend fill it up. Free on every plan, including the free one.

Get 2Fin freeHow it works

The limit comes first. The spending fills it in.

Automatic tracking has a reputation to answer for. Sort every transaction perfectly and you can end up with a beautiful chart of a month you have already lost — all the information, none of the decision. Allocations put the decision back at the front: you set the number before the period starts, and the sorting that happens afterwards is what fills it in.

You choose the limit

Groceries $600, fuel $180, eating out $150. A slider per category, decided in advance rather than discovered at the end.

Fin keeps the score

Every transaction lands in a category on its own, so the bar moves without you entering anything or reconciling a thing.

Nothing sits unassigned

An unallocated meter shows income you have not given a job to yet — the money most likely to quietly disappear.

Setting it up takes one sitting

You do this once. After that the budget maintains itself, because the transactions are already being sorted.

  1. Step one

    Pick your cycle

    Weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or yearly, starting on the day you choose. If you are paid fortnightly, budget fortnightly — a monthly cycle never quite lines up with a fortnightly wage, and the mismatch is where budgets usually start to feel wrong.

  2. Step two

    Start from your own three months

    Rather than face an empty form, let Fin draft the limits from what you have actually been spending. Transfers between your own accounts are left out, so a credit-card payment does not become a five-figure category. Every drafted number is a starting point you can move.

  3. Step three

    Set the limits you actually want

    This is the part that makes it a budget rather than a report. Drag groceries down to what you intend to spend, not what you spent last time. Cap a whole group at once where the split does not matter — one ceiling across everything in Running the car, however it lands between fuel, tolls and servicing.

  4. Step four

    Give the rest a job

    Fin works out your income from your recurring pay deposits, and the unallocated meter shows what is left once your limits are covered. Send it to a savings goal and it stops being spare. Goals are funded in the priority order you set, so saving is the default rather than the leftover.

Through the period, without the nagging

A budget is only useful if you can trust what it tells you halfway through. Fin is deliberately restrained here — it would rather show you nothing than show you a number that is not yet real.

Green, amber, red

Every category carries a bar. It turns amber at 80 per cent of the limit and red at 100, so the state of a category reads at a glance without you doing arithmetic.

A projection that knows when to stay quiet

Fin extends your pace so far to the end of the period. Under four days elapsed it shows nothing at all, because one early purchase makes a straight line lie. Gaps inside five dollars or five per cent are treated as noise.

Drift, ranked

Rather than a wall of categories, a drift strip surfaces the few running ahead of where they should be for this point in the period. Usually it is one or two, and usually you already suspected which.

Burn rate with an honest band

What you are spending per day, carrying a volatility band rather than pretending to a precision it does not have. If your bank data has gone stale, Fin says so instead of quietly reporting a flat week.

What this is not

Worth saying plainly, because each of these is a place you could otherwise assume something that is not there.

Unspent money does not roll over

Each period starts fresh against the limit you set. If you spend $500 of a $600 grocery limit, next period is $600 again, not $700. That makes this lighter than strict envelope budgeting and also less exact — if carrying balances forward is central to how you think about money, a dedicated envelope app will serve you better, and that is a reasonable choice.

Nothing pings you

There is no email, push notification or text when a category gets close to its limit. The status is computed and waiting whenever you open Allocations, but Fin will not interrupt your day to tell you about it. If a budget only works for you when something buzzes, factor that in.

Irregular income is left out of the baseline

Fin builds your income figure from pay that arrives on a predictable cycle. One-off and ad-hoc deposits are deliberately excluded, so the baseline stays stable rather than jumping every time a large invoice lands. If your income is mostly lumpy freelance work, the income side will read low and you are better off setting it manually.

Everything on this page is on the free plan. Bank connections, statement imports and the tax tools are on the paid plans — compare them here.

Budgeting, answered

Questions about allocations and budgeting

Does AI2Fin do proactive budgeting, or only track spending after the fact?
Both, and the budgeting part comes first. In Allocations you set a limit on each category before the period starts — groceries $600, fuel $180 — and that limit is a decision you make in advance, not a summary of what already happened. As transactions land, each category fills against the limit you set. An unallocated meter shows any income you have not assigned to a category or a savings goal yet, so the money waiting for a decision is visible rather than quietly available. Allocations are free on every plan.
Can I set a budget before I spend anything?
Yes, and you can start from a blank slate or from your own history. Fin can build a first draft from your last three months, so each category opens with a limit that reflects what you actually spend rather than a number you guessed. Transfers between your own accounts and savings sweeps are left out of that calculation, because averaging them in produces a limit far larger than any real category. From there every limit is a slider you move.
Is this envelope or zero-based budgeting?
It borrows the useful half and skips the strict half. Like those methods, you assign money to categories in advance and the unallocated meter asks the zero-based question — is every dollar given a job. Unlike them, unspent money does not roll into next period: each period starts fresh against the limit you set. If carrying a leftover balance forward is central to how you budget, a dedicated envelope app will suit you better. If you want limits set in advance without the reconciling ritual, this is lighter.
Does AI2Fin work with fortnightly pay?
Yes. A budget can run weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or yearly, and you choose which day it starts on. Fortnightly matters in Australia, where a lot of pay lands on that cycle and a monthly budget never quite lines up with it. Categories can run on a different rhythm from the budget itself — a weekly grocery limit inside a fortnightly budget — and Fin reconciles the two so the figures still compare.
Will it warn me before I go over budget?
It shows you, on the page. Each category carries a progress bar that turns amber at 80 per cent and red at 100, and a drift strip surfaces the categories running ahead of pace for this point in the period. What Fin does not do today is contact you: there is no email, push or text when a limit gets close. If you want to know where you stand, open Allocations and the answer is already computed.
How does the end-of-period projection work?
It takes what you have spent so far in the period, divides by the days elapsed, and extends that pace to the end. The useful part is when it refuses. Under four days elapsed there is no projection at all, because a single early purchase turns a straight-line extrapolation into fiction. Differences smaller than five dollars or five per cent of the limit are treated as noise rather than a trend. A projection you can act on is worth more than one that is always there.
Can I cap a whole group of categories, not just one?
Yes. As well as a limit on a single category, you can put one cap across a whole set — a $900 ceiling on everything in Running the car, however it splits between fuel, tolls and servicing. Both kinds live in the same budget, so you can be precise where it matters and loose where it does not.
How do savings goals work?
A savings goal holds a balance and a target, and every contribution and withdrawal is recorded, so the number is auditable rather than a running estimate you have to trust. Goals can be ordered by priority and funded automatically from income left over once your category limits are covered, which turns saving into what happens by default rather than what happens if something is left at the end.
Does budgeting cost extra on AI2Fin?
No. Budget allocations and savings goals are on the free plan and every plan above it. Setting a limit and comparing it against what you actually spent is arithmetic over data you already own, so it is not something to charge for. The paid plans add bank connections, statement imports, tax analysis and reporting.
Does the budget know which spending is business and which is personal?
Not inside the budget. Fin separates business from personal for categorisation and tax, and your categories carry a tax treatment — but budget limits are set against categories without reading either. If you want them apart in your budget today, give business and personal spending their own categories and set limits on each.

Decide first. Spend second.

Set your limits once and Fin keeps the score from there — on the free plan, for as long as you like.

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