Nice-to-have spend
Some costs are worth having but easy to let creep — team lunches, client dinners, gifts, staff refreshments. The Nice-to-have spend card on the Dashboard shows each of them for the current month, against a monthly budget.
Reading the card
Each row is one category, for example Meals & entertainment:
- The monthly budget, marked one of three ways:
- Budget — a monthly budget someone set for this category.
- Budget (from Budget page) — nobody set one here, so Plutus uses the figure for these accounts on your Budget page.
- Recommended — neither exists, so Plutus suggests one: the middle value (median) of what you spent in each of the last six full months, rounded to the nearest R500. If the spending is irregular — nothing in most months, then a big month — Plutus uses the average of those six months instead. Hover the label to see which months it used.
- Spent so far this month, before VAT.
- A bar filling up as you spend. The thin line across it marks how far through the month you are — on the 15th of a 30-day month it sits halfway.
- A status:
- On track — you have spent no more than your share of the budget for this point in the month.
- Ahead of pace — you are spending faster than the month is passing.
- Over budget — you have spent more than the month's budget.
- What is left for the month, or how far over you are.
If there was no spend at all in the last six months, the row says so and shows no budget or status.
Newest transaction at the top is the date of the newest transaction Plutus has received. Figures arrive from your accounting system in batches, so if that date is more than a week old and this month is not booked yet, the stamp turns amber: this month's figure is lower than the real one until the next import.
If you belong to a group, the card shows the group's combined figure by default; switch to your own company with the toggle.
Looking closer
Click a row to open the category. You can:
- move between months;
- see every transaction in the month — date, payee, description, amount and which account it was paid from — and open it in Spending → Bank transactions;
- see the biggest payees for the month;
- see the last twelve months as bars against the budget line.
A month your bookkeeper has not finished yet shows the transactions received so far, marked not yet booked. Once the month is booked, the booked figure is used instead.
Setting the budget (owners and finance)
- On the card, press Set … /month as the budget to accept a recommendation, or Clear budget to remove one.
- On the category page, type any monthly amount and press Set, or Clear.
The budget belongs to the category and applies from this month on. It does not change anything on the Budget page, and earlier months keep the budget they had.
Choosing the categories (owners and finance)
Plutus starts with Meals & entertainment, and adds Gifts and Staff welfare (staff welfare or refreshments accounts) where your chart of accounts has them. On a category's page, open Category settings to rename it or choose which accounts it adds up, or remove it from the card. Each account can be in one category only. Add category at the bottom of the card creates a new one.