Budget Rollover: Carry Surplus and Deficit Forward

You budget £200 for clothing in January and spend £50. February arrives and the budget resets to £200 again. That £150 you did not spend? Gone. Not rolled over, not acknowledged. As far as your budget is concerned, January never happened.

The same thing works in reverse. You budget £300 for groceries but spend £420. Next month the slate is clean, the budget shows £300 again, and nothing reminds you that you are already £120 in the hole from last month.

Budget rollover fixes both of these. When enabled, surplus and deficit accumulate from month to month, giving you an effective budget that reflects your actual spending history. It is now available on web and mobile.

How rollover works

On the Budget page, you will find a new Rollover toggle in the header. Switch it on and the system starts tracking the difference between what you budgeted and what you actually spent for each expense category, starting from the current month.

Each category then shows two numbers: its base budgeted amount (the number you set) and its rollover amount (the accumulated surplus or deficit from prior months). These combine into an effective budget, which is what the progress bars and reports use.

A quick example. You budget £400 per month for groceries. In March you spend £350, leaving a £50 surplus. In April you spend £430, creating a £20 effective deficit (the £30 overspend minus the £50 carried in). By May, your effective grocery budget is £380: the £400 base minus the £20 accumulated deficit. The progress bar and budget vs actuals report both reflect this adjusted figure.

Rollover only applies to expense categories. Income categories are unaffected, because carrying forward "surplus income" does not map to a useful budgeting concept (you do not owe yourself extra earnings next month because you earned more this month).

When rollover helps

The most common use case is irregular spending. You budget £100 a month for clothing but only buy clothes every few months. Without rollover, the budget resets monthly and your progress bar shows 0% used most months, then spikes to 300% when you actually shop. With rollover, the unspent months accumulate, and a £280 shopping trip in month four sits within your effective budget of £400 (four months at £100). The progress bar stays green.

Seasonal expenses work the same way. If you know Christmas costs you £600 but you budget £50 a month for gifts all year, rollover lets the surplus build to £550 by November, so December's spending does not blow the budget.

Rollover is also honest about overspending. If you go £80 over on dining out this month, next month's effective budget is reduced by £80. You can see exactly how far behind you are and plan accordingly, rather than pretending each month is a fresh start.

When to leave it off

Rollover is not for everyone, and we built it as an opt-in feature for good reason.

If you prefer a zero-based approach where every month stands on its own, rollover adds complexity you do not need. The whole point of zero-based budgeting is that you allocate every pound from scratch each month based on current priorities, not based on what happened previously.

If you tend to adjust your budget when circumstances change (a pay rise, a new expense, a change in priorities), rollover can feel like carrying baggage from a budget that no longer reflects your life. You spent £200 more on food three months ago when you were hosting visitors, and now that deficit is sitting in your effective budget even though the situation has passed.

Some people also find the simplicity of a clean slate each month motivating. A fresh start feels like a new opportunity rather than a continuation of last month's mistakes. That is a perfectly valid way to budget, and the default behaviour in Endute still works exactly this way.

The reset button

If you have been using rollover for several months and the accumulated numbers no longer feel relevant, you do not have to turn it off. Hit the Reset button next to the toggle and all surplus and deficit clears instantly. Rollover stays enabled, but it starts counting from the current month as though you just turned it on.

This is useful at the start of a new year, after a major life change, or whenever the accumulated history stops being helpful. Think of it as keeping the feature on but clearing the scoreboard.

Where rollover shows up

When rollover is enabled, the effective budget (base amount plus accumulated rollover) is used everywhere budgets appear:

Budget page — each expense category shows its rollover amount as a secondary label (green for surplus, amber for deficit) and the progress bar uses the effective budget. The base budgeted amount in the input field stays unchanged; rollover is shown alongside it, not mixed into it. You always know what you set versus what has accumulated.

Budget vs Actuals report — the budgeted column reflects effective budgets, so the over/under calculation accounts for rollover. If you are reviewing a multi-month period, each month's rollover is computed independently.

Dashboard summary card — the budget snapshot on your dashboard uses effective budgets, so it stays consistent with the budget page.

Needs, Wants, and Savings breakdown — the budgeted totals for needs and wants include rollover amounts from their respective expense categories.

Spending reports (by category, by payee, by tag) are unaffected. Those reports show what you actually spent, not what you budgeted. The same applies to the forecast, insights, and net worth calculations.

Available on web and mobile

The rollover toggle and reset button are available on both the web and mobile budget screens. The setting syncs across platforms, so turning it on from your phone applies it everywhere. Rollover amounts and effective budgets display on both platforms, with the same green (surplus) and amber (deficit) colour treatment.

Toggling on and off

You can turn rollover on and off freely. When you switch it off, the budget page goes back to showing flat monthly amounts with no rollover data. Nothing is deleted. If you switch it back on later, the accumulated history from before is still there. Your spending happened whether rollover was enabled or not, so the numbers pick up where they left off.

If you want to turn it back on without the old history, use Reset first to clear the slate, then the toggle only tracks from the current month forward.

Budget rollover is a tool, not a philosophy. Some months you will find it clarifying. Other times a clean slate will feel more motivating. The toggle is there so you can use whichever approach fits where you are right now.