Budget Tools New

Budget Tools let your budgets and funding templates change over time without losing what they were before. Raise a budget starting in March and January and February keep their old amounts. You can also keep as many funding templates as you like.

Everything lives on one new tab, Budget History, and you edit it from the Budget Tools menu. You don’t type into the Categories sheet for budgets or templates anymore.

Before you start: migrate your Categories sheet. Budget Tools only work after a one-time migration that copies your budgets and templates into Budget History. Migrate Your Categories Sheet →

Migrating is optional. If you don’t, the Sheet and the Companion App keep working as they do today, but you won’t get all of the features. Without it:

Budgets stay as one column per month on Categories, so they keep piling up over the years.
You’re limited to four funding templates, and their amounts have no history: changing one changes it for every month.
No Edit Budgets and Templates, Bulk Edit, Budget Settings, Rename Template, or Add Envelope in the Sheet’s menu.
In the Companion App: no Budget & Templates section in envelope details, and Payday is limited to the four templates, with no new, retired, or deleted templates.

Once you’ve migrated, manage budgets and funding templates only with Budget Tools. The budget and template amounts on Categories become read-only and fill in from Budget History, so anything typed there is replaced. Change them with:

Edit Budgets and Templates, for one envelope at a time
Bulk Edit, for many envelopes at once
Budget & Templates in the Companion App

What Changes

Your Categories sheet keeps its layout. Every column stays where it is, so your formulas, reports, and Tiller tools keep working.
The funding template columns and monthly budget columns become read-only. They fill in automatically from Budget History, and they’re shaded so you can tell at a glance.
Budget History records each change with the month it starts. The newest entry on or before a month is the one that applies.
More than four templates. The Sheet still shows four templates on Categories and the Envelope tab. You choose which four. The UE Companion App can use all of them.

What you can edit on Categories after migrating

Columns		How to change them
A–I: Category, Group, Type, Hide From Reports, Funding Account, Hide From Funding, Favorite, Sweep, Savings Target	✏️ Editable	Type in the sheet, as before
N: Emoji	✏️ Editable	Type in the sheet
J1–M1: the four template names (header row only)	✏️ Editable	Pick a template from each header’s dropdown
J–M, row 2 down: template amounts	🔒 Read-only (shaded)	Budget Tools → Edit Budgets and Templates or Bulk Edit, or the Companion App
O onward: monthly budget columns	🔒 Read-only (shaded)	Budget Tools → Edit Budgets and Templates or Bulk Edit, or the Companion App

The read-only columns are shaded so they’re easy to spot. They’re formulas that fill in from Budget History, so anything typed there is replaced the next time they refresh.

Categories sheet after migrating: filter buttons on Category through Savings Target, dropdown arrows on the Paycheck 1 to Template 4 headers, and the template and Sep 2026 onward budget columns shaded — After migrating, the template and monthly budget columns are shaded and fill in automatically. Each template header is a dropdown

Migrate Your Categories Sheet (One Time)

Before you can use Budget Tools, move your existing budgets and templates into Budget History.

Open the Budget Tools menu and choose Migrate Categories Sheet.
When asked where the Categories sheet is, click Yes if it’s in this spreadsheet. Click No to paste the link of a different spreadsheet.
Pick the tab you want to migrate from. Usually that’s Categories.
Click Migrate. The button shows its progress while it works.
When it says Success, click Close.

Migrate Categories dialog asking which tab is the Categories sheet, with Categories selected and Cancel and Migrate buttons — Pick the Categories tab

Migrate Categories dialog showing Success: migrated 25 envelopes, 30 budget changes and 33 template amounts — Done: a short summary of what moved

Your current Categories sheet is copied to a backup tab before anything changes. The migration copies your funding template amounts and monthly budgets into Budget History. Then it turns those columns on Categories into read-only formulas.

After migrating, the Budget Tools menu shows its full set of options. Before migrating, it only shows Migrate Categories Sheet.

UE menu showing Refresh Envelope List, Add Envelope, Budget Tools and UE Tools, with Budget Tools open: Edit Budgets and Templates, Bulk Edit, Budget Settings, Refresh Categories Columns, Rename Template — The Budget Tools menu after migrating

Use the latest version of the UE Companion App with a migrated sheet. It saves budget and template changes to Budget History for you.

How Budget History Works

Each row on Budget History is one amount that starts in a given month:

Category	Type	Template	Effective Month	Amount
Groceries	Budget		Jan 2026	600
Groceries	Budget		Mar 2026	650
Groceries	Funding	Paycheck 1	Jan 2026	300

Type is Budget for monthly budgets or Funding for funding templates.
The amount stays in effect until a later row changes it. Here, Groceries is $600 for January and February, then $650 from March on.
Setting an amount to $0 only adds a row when it ends an earlier amount. If an envelope never had a budget, there’s nothing to record.

You rarely need to open Budget History yourself. The Budget Tools forms and the Companion App keep it up to date.

Edit Budgets and Templates

The main editor, one envelope at a time.

Choose Budget Tools → Edit Budgets and Templates.
Use the ‹ › arrows or the month box to pick the month the change starts.
Pick an envelope. Tick Show hidden to include hidden envelopes.
Make your change on either tab, then save.

Edit Budgets and Templates dialog on the Funding Templates tab: Paycheck 1 and Paycheck 2 at $83.33 each, with remove buttons, Save Funding and Add Template — Funding Templates tab

Budget tab

Shows the budget in effect for the month you picked.
Enter a New Amount and click Save Budget.

Funding Templates tab

Lists the templates this envelope has an amount for in that month.
Change an amount and click Save Funding.
Click × next to a template to remove it from that month on.
Click + Add Template to give the envelope an amount for another template. Start typing to pick an existing template or enter a new name.

A ⏱ next to an amount means it changes again in a later month. Hover over it to see when.

The ✏️ button next to the envelope opens its details (Funding Account, Group, Type, Savings Target, the checkboxes, and Emoji) so you can edit them in the same place.

Save buttons stay greyed out until you’ve changed something.

Bulk Edit

Change many envelopes at once.

Choose Budget Tools → Bulk Edit.
Pick the month the changes start.
Use the Budgets tab to see every envelope’s current budget and enter new amounts.
Use the Funding Templates tab to see every envelope’s amount for each template, side by side, with a Total row for each template. To start a new template, type its name and click + Add Template.
Click Save Changes. Only the amounts you changed are written.

Bulk Edit dialog, Budgets tab, listing each category's current budget and a New Amount box — Budgets tab

Bulk Edit dialog, Funding Templates tab, with Paycheck 1 and Paycheck 2 amounts per category, totals, and a New template name box — Funding Templates tab

Choose Which Four Templates the Sheet Shows

The Sheet has four template columns on Categories, used by the Envelope tab and its template dropdown. On a migrated sheet, the header cells of those four columns are dropdowns. Pick any template there to show it in that column.

Swapping a template out of a column doesn’t delete it. Its amounts stay in Budget History, and the Companion App can still use it.

Rename a Template

Choose Budget Tools → Rename Template.
Pick the template and enter its new name.
Click Rename.

The name changes everywhere: every Budget History row, and the Categories column header if it’s one of your four.

Set How Many Future Months to Show

The monthly budget columns on Categories (column O onward) show a run of months so you can plan ahead. Choose how many:

Choose Budget Tools → Budget Settings.
Pick the Number of future months: 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, or 24. The default is 12.
Click Save. The month columns on Categories update straight away.

Budget Settings dialog with Number of Future Months set to 12 and a Save button — Budget Settings

The columns start one month before your budget month, so you can see last month alongside this one. The setting is saved on the Budget History tab (cell J1).

Fixing the Read-Only Columns

If the shaded template or budget columns on Categories get typed over or stop filling in, choose Budget Tools → Refresh Categories Columns. It puts their formulas and shading back.

Typing into the shaded columns shows a warning, because anything you type there is replaced the next time they refresh. Use the forms above instead.

➕ Add Envelope (top of the UE menu, after migrating) creates a new envelope with a form. Funding Account is a dropdown of your accounts. The envelope list refreshes automatically when you save.
Emoji: Categories has an Emoji column. The UE Companion App shows each envelope’s emoji in place of the envelope icon.
UE Tools → Admin Tools → Refresh Data Validation rebuilds the sheet’s dropdowns and checkboxes and tidies up old values (for example, old “Visible” entries in Hide From Funding become blank).
The UE menu now groups Setup Tools and Admin Tools under UE Tools. Reset All Sheets!!! sits at the very bottom.