BudgetSnapshot Help

A complete guide to the budget tracker, from the first income line to a year of monthly snapshots.

Last Updated: October 6, 2026

1. Getting Started

1.1 What you need

• A modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari or Opera) with JavaScript enabled
• Site data allowed for zerodataupload.com, so the figures are kept between visits
• Your income and expense figures for the month, from payslips, receipts or a bank statement

1.2 The layout

The tool is one page. The toolbar at the top holds the month and year, and the Settings, Import, Export, Print and Shortcuts buttons. Beneath it the dashboard shows four tiles: Total Income, Total Expenses, Net Balance and Savings Rate. Then come the Income Sources and Expenses cards with their Add buttons, the Expense Breakdown donut chart and the Category Comparison bars, and finally the Three-Month Comparison and the Budget Targets. On tablets the cards sit in pairs; on phones everything stacks and the dashboard shows two tiles per row.

2. Choosing the Month

The two drop-downs in the toolbar select the month and the year. The page opens on the current month. Every month has its own income, expenses and budget targets; switching months changes the whole page. The year list covers five years either side of the current one and grows to include any year that has data. The month you were looking at is remembered for the next visit.

3. Adding Income

1. Click + Add Income in the Income Sources card, or press Ctrl+N.
2. Type the source name, for example Salary, Freelance or Rent received, and press Enter to move to the amount.
3. Type the amount and press Enter, or click Save Income.

Each source is its own line, so two salaries or a salary and a side income are shown separately and added up in the Total Income tile. Enter every source for the month: the savings rate is worked out from the total.

4. Adding Expenses

1. Click + Add Expense in the Expenses card, or press Ctrl+Shift+N.
2. Click one of the fourteen quick categories, or type your own in the Category field. Enter moves to the amount.
3. Type the amount.
4. For a new category, pick a colour from the seventeen swatches; the chart and the bars use it. The next free colour is already suggested.
5. Press Enter or click Save Expense.

Categories combine. Adding an expense to a category that already has a line this month adds the amount to that line, so receipts can be entered one by one and the category stays a single figure. Category names are matched without regard to case, so "food" and "Food" are the same line. The quick categories are Housing, Food, Transportation, Utilities, Healthcare, Insurance, Entertainment, Shopping, Education, Savings, Debt Payment, Personal Care, Subscriptions and Other.

If the category has a budget target and the new amount takes it over the limit, a warning appears at once (see section 8).

5. Editing and Deleting

Every income and expense line has two round buttons on the right: the pencil opens a window to change the name or the amount, the bin deletes the line after a confirmation that names the entry and its amount. Renaming an expense to a category that already exists this month is refused, because two lines for one category would defeat the combining; delete one and add its amount to the other instead.

6. The Dashboard

• Total Income and Total Expenses are the sums of the two lists. When the previous month has entries, a note shows the change against it: an arrow and a percentage, green when it is good news (more income, less spending) and red when it is not.
• Net Balance is income minus expenses, green when positive and red when negative, with a one-line verdict.
• Savings Rate is the net balance as a percentage of income: 20 percent or more is excellent, 10 to 20 good, anything above zero room to improve, zero or less no savings this month. Without income the tile asks for income first.

7. The Charts and the Comparison

The Expense Breakdown is a donut chart: one segment per category in its colour, the month's total in the middle, a legend beneath, and the top three categories listed with their share of the total, the largest highlighted. The Category Comparison shows every category as a bar, largest first, with the amount on the bar or beside it. Both redraw as soon as an entry changes, and the donut follows the width of its card and the page theme.

The Three-Month Comparison shows total expenses for the selected month and the two before it, with the percentage change between neighbouring months when both have data. The selected month is highlighted; a month without entries shows a dash.

8. Budget Targets

1. Click Manage Budgets in the Budget Targets card.
2. Choose a category from the list (every quick category plus any you have used this month) and type the most you want to spend on it this month.
3. Click Add or press Enter. Adding a target for a category that already has one replaces the limit.

Each target appears in the Budget Targets card with a progress bar: green under 75 percent of the limit, amber from 75 percent, red at 100 percent, with the amount spent and the limit beneath. When spending passes the limit the card and the expense line both show an over-budget note with the amount, and a warning pops up the moment the expense that crosses the line is saved. Remove a target with its Remove button in Manage Budgets. Targets belong to the month, like entries, so set them afresh in a new month.

9. Settings and Currency

Settings (the toolbar button or Ctrl+,) holds the currency symbol, a theme switch and the two clearing buttons. The currency symbol can be the dollar, euro, pound, yen, rupee, won, Canadian dollar or Australian dollar; it changes the symbol in front of every amount and converts nothing, so keep one budget in one currency. The theme switch does the same as the moon and sun button at the top right of the page and as Ctrl+D; the choice applies to the whole site.

10. Export, Import and Clearing

• Export (Ctrl+E) writes one file, budget-snapshot-date.json, with every month, the currency and the selected month. Keep it as a backup or carry it to another device.
• Import (Ctrl+I) reads such a file, checks it, says how many months it holds and, after your confirmation, replaces the figures in this browser with it. Files from the earlier version of the tool import too.
• Clear current month and Clear all data, in Settings, remove the selected month or every month. Both ask first and neither can be undone except by importing an earlier export.

11. Printing

Print (or Ctrl+P) opens the browser's print window with a page that holds only the month: the four tiles across the top, then the lists, the charts, the comparison and the targets in two columns. The toolbar, the buttons, the notes below the tool and the site's header and footer are left out. Choose "Save as PDF" as the printer for a monthly record.

12. Keyboard Shortcuts

• Ctrl+N (Cmd+N on a Mac): new income; Ctrl+Shift+N: new expense
• Ctrl+E: export; Ctrl+I: import; Ctrl+P: print
• Ctrl+,: settings; Ctrl+D: switch the page theme
• Enter in a form: from the name to the amount, and save from the amount
• Escape: close a window; ?: show the shortcuts

13. What Is Remembered

Entries, budget targets, the currency and the selected month are kept in your browser's storage on this device and come back on the next visit. They are not shared with other browsers or devices and never leave the computer unless you export them. Clearing the site's data removes them.

14. Troubleshooting

• "Could not save": the browser blocks site data (a private window, a clear-on-exit setting) or its storage is full. Use a normal window and allow site data for zerodataupload.com.
• "Enter an amount greater than 0": the amount is empty, zero, negative or not a number. Type digits with an optional decimal point; thousands separators are ignored.
• "There is already a ... line this month": an expense was renamed to a category that exists. Delete one line and add its amount to the other.
• "That is not a BudgetSnapshot file": Import was given a file that Export did not write, or one that was edited. Use the .json file as saved.
• The savings rate shows 0% with no verdict: there is no income this month; add it first.
• The chart looks wrong after a resize or a theme change: it redraws on both; reload the page if it does not.
• Figures vanished: cleared browsing data, a new profile or a different browser. Import your last export.