Budget-Time User Guide

Everything you need to go from a blank spreadsheet to a self-updating view of your money. Ten minutes, start to finish.

1. First-time setup

Install Budget-Time from the Google Workspace Marketplace, then open a Google Sheet - a fresh, empty spreadsheet is best - and choose Extensions → Budget-Time → Open Budget-Time…

The first run asks for permissions. Budget-Time deliberately requests the minimum: access to this spreadsheet only (never your Drive or other files), permission to contact our service, and your email address. Approve once per Google account - you won't be asked again on this or future spreadsheets.

2. Linking your banks

In the sidebar, click Link New Bank Account. A small secure window opens on budget-time.com where Plaid - the same connection service used by Venmo, Chime, and thousands of financial apps - connects you to your bank. Your credentials go to Plaid and your bank only; Budget-Time never sees them.

One linking session connects one institution, including all the accounts you select at that institution (checking + savings + the credit card, in one go). If you've used Plaid in other apps before, it may recognize your phone number and pre-fill your linked institutions to make this faster - but each app you use, including Budget-Time, gets its own authorization from you. No app can see what you linked in another app.

When the window says Bank connected! it closes itself and your initial import begins - full available history, which for most banks is somewhere between 90 days and 2 years (your bank decides, not us).

3. Fetching & Autofetch

Fetch Latest Transactions pulls everything new since last time. Every fetch reconciles exactly: new transactions are added, pending ones update when they post, and removals are honored - you will not get duplicates, even if you fetch twice in a row. Your category rules re-apply automatically after every import.

Autofetch does this for you once a day at the hour you pick. Changing the hour saves immediately. It runs under your Google account even with the sheet closed.

4. Your sheets, explained

• Transactions - your ledger. Columns: Transaction ID and Account ID (stable identifiers - useful when a replacement card gets the same name), Account, Date, Business (clean merchant name), Description (full bank descriptor), Category, Amount (income positive/green fill, spending negative in red parentheses - flip this in the sidebar if you prefer), Pending, and Notes. Edit Notes and add your own columns from K rightward freely; the importer won't touch them.
• Accounts and Balances - one row per account: balance (credit cards and loans show as negatives - they're money owed), available credit, limit, utilization, and the interest rate (APR) where your bank reports it through Plaid.
• Balance History - one row per account per month. Each fetch updates the current month, so the last fetch of a month becomes that month's end-of-month snapshot - this feeds the Dashboard's Monthly Account Balances. Fetch (or leave Autofetch on) near month-end for the most accurate snapshots.
• Rate History - every time an account's APR changes, a dated row is recorded, so you can compute what interest rate applied in any given month.
• Category Rules / COA - your chart of accounts and rules (next section).
• Logs - a plain-language activity log. Include it when contacting support; it contains no account numbers or credentials.
• Investment Holdings / Investment Transactions (Full Service) - positions with cost basis and live GOOGLEFINANCE prices; buys/sells/fees by date range.

5. Categories & rules

Every imported transaction is auto-categorized. Take control in Category Rules / COA:

• Match Patterns - comma-separated text or regular expressions matched against the merchant/description. First match wins. Example: put home depot, lowes, ace hardware on your "Home Improvement" row.
• Map To Category - remap Plaid's built-in categories to your names, e.g. FOOD_AND_DRINK on your "Dining Out" row.

Rules run automatically after every import. To re-apply them right now - for example, after editing patterns or adding rows by hand - use Extensions → Budget-Time → Run Category Rules. Rows no pattern claims keep whatever category they have, so your manual edits survive.

6. Dashboard, Budget & Budget Builder

Install these from Extensions → Budget-Time → Templates:

• Dashboard - pick a year from the dropdown and everything updates: income vs. expenses by month with a chart, spending by category, live balances, and Monthly Account Balances (end-of-month snapshots per account, from Balance History).
• Budget Builder - the fast way to write a budget: one column per month, one row per category. Type January's number and drag it across the year, then fine-tune individual months.
• Budget-Time - the full budget-vs-actual grid. Budgeted numbers come from Budget Builder automatically; Actual, Diff, and % Used compute live from your transactions for the selected year.

7. Themes

Extensions → Budget-Time → Themes restyles every Budget-Time sheet in one click - colored tabs, styled headers, and alternating row shading for readability. Six looks: Sunset, Forest, Ocean, Slate, Plum, Midnight. All themes keep the money rules: income gets a soft green fill; negative amounts stay red in parentheses.

8. Bank connections: what to expect

A few realities of bank data - these apply to every app built on bank connections (Mint did, Monarch, Simplifi, and Tiller do), not just Budget-Time:

• A few large institutions are still unlocking. Most banks connect instantly. A handful of major institutions (for example Bank of America, Charles Schwab, PNC, and U.S. Bank) require an additional partner review before new apps can connect - ours is in progress. If your bank doesn''t appear or won''t finish connecting yet, that''s usually why; check back soon or email support and we''ll tell you exactly where it stands.
• Connections occasionally reset. Banks periodically require you to re-authenticate - after a password change, a security review, or simply on a schedule they control. When that happens your account shows Needs re-link in the sidebar; click Reconnect, sign in again, and syncing resumes exactly where it left off. Nothing is lost, and no app on any platform can prevent this - it's your bank protecting you.
• History depth varies. On first import, most banks provide 90 days to 2 years. That's a bank-side limit.
• Timing varies. New transactions usually appear within hours of posting; pending items show quickly and update when they settle. Some smaller institutions refresh once daily.
• Interest rates aren't universal. APRs come through only where the institution reports them; the Interest Rate column stays blank otherwise.

9. Privacy & disconnecting

Budget-Time never stores your transactions, balances, or account numbers - data flows from your bank through our server's memory straight into your sheet (Privacy Policy). Manage Accounts… shows connection health and lets you disconnect any bank instantly; disconnecting revokes our access at Plaid and deletes the connection's token. Everything already in your spreadsheet stays - it's yours.