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[GH-ISSUE #7692] [Feedback]: Budget automation UI #80599
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Originally created by @matt-fidd on GitHub (May 3, 2026).
Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/issues/7692
@shall0pass commented on GitHub (May 3, 2026):
UI Notification: Percent automations total 200% of income. Your percent automations add up to more than 100% and will be capped at 100%
I have two templates in this category:
#template 100% of previous Income-HSA
#template 100% of Interest-HSA
Both of these categories being referenced are separate Income categories. It just assigns last months income and this months interest to the budgeted cell. Because they are both unique income categories, I need to assign 100% of both. I feel the UI message is improper here and I am block from saving this in the UI.
@youngcw commented on GitHub (May 4, 2026):
Maybe cleanup templates should get ignored for now instead of causing an error.
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 4, 2026):
There is only one source of truth for the templates at the moment, you can't split them across UI and text based so I don't believe they'd even work if you migrated to UI and left them in the text. I'm aiming to do another "sprint" this month and get the rest of the template types supported as well as cleaning up anything people find during the month.
#goaldirectives need some real thinking about, I've still not worked out a good way to support them@youngcw commented on GitHub (May 4, 2026):
Do cleanup templates even look at the pref for where to run from? I guess if the notes are never parsed, then that would cause problems. I would have to look at the cleanup process
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 4, 2026):
I think my preferred philosophy for this feature is not to build any in-between processes, aside from the migration/unmigration layer. If we'd like support for a specific thing we should just add it to the UI instead of trying to work a way to run from both UI and text in the meantime.
That being said:
I've just had a look at the code and the cleanup templates are read directly from the notes when the button is pressed, and aren't actually persisted anywhere (!), which would not have been my guess as to how that worked. Given it works like that I don't mind allowing them to work in parallel.
Any ideas for how to implement the cleanup stuff in the UI would be welcome. From memory we need methods to support:
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 4, 2026):
My thought is that they are an
up totemplate that adds $0 and causes just a change in color variable based on the goal instead of the budget and a different tooltip. So, perhaps anup totemplate can have a checkbox to indicate if this is a goal? Only oneup toper anyway, so this would work.@youngcw commented on GitHub (May 4, 2026):
If the limit value was moved into it own thing, and not in the list of automations, then there could also be a long term goal option with it. Both of those exists outside the regular templates. Something in the sidebar could work. So in addition to the add an automation button, there could be add limits and add long term goal buttons.
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 9, 2026):
Here's an interesting case. I am paying off my mortgage early:
These are just simple budgets. 1800 monthly starting 05-01 and an additional 3200 monthly starting 06-01. There is 1800 in May's To Budget and >= 5000 in June. June's Budgeted is ZERO.
The **really** interesting thing is that they all budget the correct amount when the button is pressed!
@totallynotjon commented on GitHub (May 10, 2026):
A UI to manage automation order across categories would be really useful. With a lot of priorities it gets cumbersome to figure out when something is running without opening each template individually. The new UI will actually make this harder to see at a glance than the notes version which you could hover.
If we make this change now, we could potentially simplify the UI to not even show the priority number and just have it a backend thing.
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 11, 2026):
This is something we've been looking at adding as a stage here, something like the below?
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 11, 2026):
I'd put money on this being a priority based issue. The first couple of screenshots show priority
0, with the others showing150. The dry run engine runs all templates and returns the amount based on how much would be assigned based on priority (taking into account the money taken by higher priority templates). It makes sense if you were just applying single categories that the amount budgeted would be fixed.Thinking about it in this context though, does taking priorities into account actually make sense? The system revolves around the amount of money in "To Budget", which we'd expect to be zero in future months, so looking at priorities would always skew it unless there was money available.
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 11, 2026):
In the case of May - there was exactly 1800 in To Budget and all other templates had been run when I hit the category button. When I pressed the category button, 1800 was added. Even now, it still shows a projected number of $825.08 and To Budget is now ZERO. It just feels very random. I sure don't want to explain the math to new users! It adds an amount different from what it seems to say it's going to.
I think the average user will assume that it takes into account that they will be able to fund the category fully - that's the way I read the word "Projected". I project I can fund it fully! They may use that to pre-fund a checking account in the case where there are multiple templates (subs, etc.).
Maybe two amounts will make more sense to the end user? "Intended amount" and "Calculated amount"? Calculated amount should take To Budget into consideration. Personally, I want to see Intended amount so I know I built the budget correctly.
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 11, 2026):
Yes! Except, order within a group DOES matter!
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 11, 2026):
I imagine you get the "correct" numbers when you set the priority to 0. I agree with you though, try https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/pull/7790 when it builds and see if it's working for you.
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 11, 2026):
Yes, it works great. The tooltip explains it well, also. 💯
@totallynotjon commented on GitHub (May 11, 2026):
This is really cool. I do like the idea of being able to group the automations and notate on them. Really glad this will hopefully be a part of the UI eventually.
Personal opinion but I do think getting rid of the priority messaging might make it easier to understand/use. Where before I would put something at the same priority to classify it to like needs or something, the group now covers that. And very few things would I actually want a random order to be taken between a few automations.
For instance each group could be orderable, and the priority is just managed underneath. Then the way things are seen are the order they are run.
There might be exceptions for this though, like the percentage of available funds might want to be on the same priority level.
@youngcw commented on GitHub (May 11, 2026):
One benefit of text templates is that its easy to add a description of what the template is for in the note. We should add some description or note field to each automation entry.
@iceita78 commented on GitHub (May 12, 2026):
Hey guys, wonderful job with the automation UI.
I'm playing with the features on https://edge.actualbudget.org/budget, but i noted something strange: when i put #goal 1000 for example on a category (on note field) this doesn't seems to work anymore when i press overwrite with templates.
Another question with automations "save by date", it seems that isn't possibile to set a single non recursive by date (i tried to put 0 on repeat every but it reset to 1), i'm missing something? Thank you again for the wonderful work
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 12, 2026):
There is only one source of truth for automations, either the UI or notes. You can't run from both at the same time. I'll detail this in the docs before release, but if you'd like to use
goaldirectives, you'll need to unmigrate that category back to notes until goals are added to the UI. They should be added soon by https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/pull/7792Good catch! Thank you. Addressed in https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/pull/7810
@iceita78 commented on GitHub (May 12, 2026):
Hi Matt, ok thank you for the info and it's my pleasure in helping you with testing!
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 12, 2026):
Please change pageTextSubdued to pageTextLight. I think subdued should only be used for disabled text.
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 12, 2026):
Good call! https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/pull/7819 :)
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
Note: The descriptions in the sidebar are usually never complete and there's no way to see the rest of the words! I expected to see them all on hover, but nope. Either the boxes should expand to hold all the words instead of cutting them off or there should be a tooltip with all of the words.
Also, The balance cap is now "below".
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
Are these types going to be included?
#template schedule {SCHEDULE NAME} [{increase/decrease} {number|number%}]#template average {number} months [{increase/decrease} {number|number%}]@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
It is a bit clunky to change the default amount. Clicking on the field should select the entire amount as it's the default behavior throughout the rest of the app.
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
If this is implemented, it would be cool to show the note(s) when you hover the clock icon.
@Juulz commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
Should Balance cap be allowed without an automation to accompany it? I don't think it does anything?
@totallynotjon commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
A problem with the parsing from the notes:
#template 0 up to 1000
This gets parsed as a refill to balance cap, when it is actually a balance cap and then fixed amount of 0 in the old system.
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
@Juulz I've addressed your comments listed above in https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/pull/7832
I'll get the notes and increase/decrease ones in another. Thanks for your testing!
@totallynotjon great catch, thank you for reporting, that should be fixed in the PR above too
@youngcw commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
@totallynotjon Are you sure that is incorrect? The only use I can see of adding a
#template 0 up to Xline is to add a limit cap to a category with templates that don't include a limit already.Splitting that into a limit cap and then a periodic template budgeting 0 still doesn't do anything, just the same as a single limit cap.
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
Agreed, but it's currently acting as if it was
#template up to xby adding a refill automation@youngcw commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
I guess as a single line it is more accurate to parse to two templates. The best thing probably would be to parse to two templates it it is the only line, then just a limit if there are others.
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
It's kind of a weird edge case, because you'd almost always be better off just tacking
up to xon the end of another template. Capping if others exist makes sense, but I might leave it for another time. We'll see if anyone is really using these once this is out in 26.6@totallynotjon commented on GitHub (May 13, 2026):
@youngcw @matt-fidd
Yah, it is a result of not all the template features having the "up to" syntax available. Percent type, schedule type etc. So the simplest way to set a limit was to just have a "0 up to y" as the first template line. I think this recommendation has been repeated in the discord so I wouldn't be surprised if at least a few others used it like this.
The only immediate need would be to at least respect it as "x up to y" and set a balance cap and a fixed. And the nicety is if x=0 then adding the fixed is unnecessary, because it really is just a standalone definition of a balance cap.
@matt-fidd commented on GitHub (May 17, 2026):
Done! https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/pull/7881