Spend Overview
Budgeting Tools → Spend Overview
Your budget history — a permanent record of every cycle, exactly as it was when it closed.
The screen opens with: "See exactly what you spent each cycle and how your reserves moved. A saved record
of every cycle, just as it was."
That last part matters. Adjusting your budget today does not rewrite your history. Each closed cycle stays
as it was.
Choosing a cycle
The cycle picker at the top opens a list grouped by year. Pick the cycle you want to look at.
If you have not completed a cycle yet you will see No Spend Overview cycles yet — come back after your
first rollover.
Reading a cycle
Each category gets a row, with three columns:
| Column | Means |
|---|---|
| Category | The category, within its group |
| Reserve | What is sitting in this category's reserve |
| Spent | What actually left your account this cycle |
A Total row sums it all.
The full breakdown
Each row carries a coloured status dot. Select it — or hover over it — and the whole picture for that
category opens:
| Figure | Means |
|---|---|
| Status | How the category went (below) |
| Reason | Why it ended in that state |
| Target | Your per-cycle target for the category |
| Opening reserve | What was already set aside at the start |
| Added to reserve | What you put in during the cycle |
| Spent from reserve | What you spent |
| Freed up | Money released because the reserve hit its limit |
| Closing reserve | What was left at the end — this becomes next cycle's opening |
| Shared group reserve | Shown when the category draws on its group's reserve |
| Reserve limit | The cap on this category's reserve |
| Funding bucket | Which account or bucket backs this reserve |
Statuses
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| On track | Nothing to look at. The reserve covered the spending |
| Over limit | Cash spend was not fully covered by the reserve allocated to it |
| Over reserve limit | Spending went past the category's reserve limit |
| Shared reserve used | Spending exceeded this category's own reserve, so the group's reserve covered the difference |
| Underfunded | The account behind this reserve does not hold enough to back what has been claimed |
| Skipped | The reserve calculation passed this row over |
On track shows no reason — there is nothing to explain. The others each say what happened in a
sentence, so you rarely have to reconstruct it yourself.
Following the money
The arithmetic reads left to right:
Opening reserve + Added − Spent = Closing reserve
And closing becomes next cycle's opening. That is the carry-forward that makes Swish's budget work.
It is also why a big bill does not have to look like a disaster. A category can spend far more than its
target in one cycle and still be on track, because the reserve had already covered it — see
Reserves and lumpy bills.
Freed up appears when a reserve hits its limit. Rather than accumulating past the cap, the extra is
released for other categories or goals.
The transactions panel
Select a category and its transactions for that cycle appear on the right, grouped by date.
From here you can still change a transaction's category, open Details on any of them, and use
Cover with goal — or see Goal coverage $X where a goal is already covering it. See
Goals and account allocation.
Occasionally a row is read-only for a moment while Swish is refreshing history or a change is still being
saved. It clears itself.
Using it well
Compare cycles. Step back through a few and look at which categories are consistently over or under.
That tells you which targets are wrong.
Watch your reserves build. Occasional categories — insurance, rates, car, health, gifts — should show a
climbing closing reserve between bills, then drop when the bill lands. If one never builds, the target is
too low. See Reserves and lumpy bills.
Look at Freed up. A category freeing money up every cycle is over-funded. Lower the target and point
the difference at a goal.
Open the status dots. The reason line explains what happened without you having to reconstruct it.
What to do with what you find
| You see | Consider |
|---|---|
| A category always overspent | Check its reserve first — if the reserve covers it, nothing is wrong. Otherwise raise the target or genuinely cut the spending |
| A category always underspent | Lower the target and redirect the money |
| A reserve that never grows | The target is not covering the real cost |
| Money freed up every cycle | Reserve limit reached — lower the target |
| A surprising total | Select the category and read the transactions |
Then make the changes in My Budgets.
Common questions
Can I edit a past cycle? Not the record itself — that is the point. You can still recategorise a
transaction, which updates where the spending sits.
Why is a cycle missing? Cycles appear once they close. The current one is live on your dashboard and
in Transactions.
What is a funding bucket? Where a reserve's money actually lives — the account backing it. See
Account Allocation.
Why is a closing reserve negative? You spent more than was set aside and there was nothing to absorb
it. It carries as a deficit into the next cycle.
What does "shared group reserve" mean? The category shares a reserve with others in its group rather
than holding its own.