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Goals & Obligations
Goals & Obligations let you earmark a slice of what you earn toward something specific — taxes, tithing, a mortgage or car payment, savings, or an emergency fund. You tell each goal what percentage of your earnings it should receive, and the app keeps a running total as you log work. On a schedule you choose, that total can reset so each period starts fresh.
Two common ways people use it:
- Per-paycheck percentages — set aside, say, 25% of everything you earn for taxes and 10% for tithing.
- Known recurring obligations — for a fixed bill like rent or a car payment, tell the app the amount and what you typically earn in a period, and it works out the percentage for you.
The aim is to keep it simple: each goal has a percentage, a running contributed amount, and a reset rhythm.
Creating a goal
- Open Goals & Obligations from the bottom navigation.
- Tap the + button (top right).
- The Add Goal or Obligation wizard walks you through:
- What are you saving for? — a name, and an optional picture from the preset gallery. (Want your own picture? Add it later by editing the goal.)
- What kind of goal is it? — pick one of three types (below).
- Funding — the questions change based on the type you picked.
- Tap Save.
The three types:
| Type | Examples | What you enter |
|---|---|---|
| Save toward a total | Vacation, emergency fund | A contribution % and the target amount you're building up to. Never resets. |
| An ongoing set-aside | Retirement, tithe, taxes | A contribution %, and what period the total should track (yearly for a tax bucket, or Never for one lifetime total). With a period and a schedule, you'll see a projected per-period amount as you type. |
| A recurring bill | Mortgage, car payment | How often it repeats, the amount each period, and what you typically earn in that period (prefilled from your schedule when possible — correct it if it's not realistic). The app derives the percentage and shows what that sets aside, e.g. "about $1,210 each period, with $10 left over." If the bill exceeds a typical period's earnings, it warns you. |
For the set-aside and recurring-bill types, the wizard also asks about automatic reset each period — on by default, since the next period's obligation starts accumulating right away. See Automatic vs. manual resets.
Salaried? Goals can set themselves up
When you add a salaried employer from a paycheck, the stub's withholding lines (federal and state income tax, Social Security, Medicare, retirement) can seed these buckets automatically — one combined Taxes bucket or one per line, your choice, each at that line's share of your gross pay.
Each goal appears as a card. The front shows its name and picture; flip the card to see the contributed amount so far, the percentage, and the reset cadence.
How contributions add up
A goal grows from your time entries. When you log a new entry, its amount is hours × bill rate. Each contributing goal receives its percentage of that amount.
For example, with these goals:
| Goal | Contribution % |
|---|---|
| Taxes | 25% |
| Tithe | 10% |
…a new time entry worth $400 would add $100 to Taxes and $40 to Tithe.
The "Apply to goals" toggle
When you add a new time entry, the entry dialog shows an Apply to goals switch:
- It's on by default, so logging work funds your goals automatically.
- Turn it off for any entry that shouldn't contribute (for example, non-billable or one-off work).
- It only appears when you have at least one goal with a contribution percentage.
Edits don't contribute
Contributions are applied only when you create a time entry. Editing an existing entry never adds to (or removes from) your goals — this keeps your totals from drifting if you adjust an entry later. If an edit needs to be reflected, adjust the goal's amount directly (see Reconciling).
Entries dated before the current period
A goal's running total covers its current reset period only. If you log time dated before the period started — a backdated entry, or old days in a batch — that time belongs to an earlier, already-closed period and doesn't fund the goal. The entry dialogs tell you when this applies: a single entry shows a note on the goal's row, and a batch seeds the goal from only its in-period days, spelling out the excluded amount. Goals with no reset schedule aren't affected — everything counts toward their one growing total.
Adjusting the amount (reconciling)
Open a goal and you'll see a Contributed field showing the current running total. You can type a new value and Save to correct it at any time — handy when:
- you edited or deleted a time entry after it contributed,
- you moved money in or out of the goal in real life, or
- you're setting a starting balance.
This is a simple, direct update — the app won't fight you on it.
Reset schedules
A reset returns a goal's contributed amount to $0 so the next period starts clean. Pick a cadence from the Reset dropdown:
| Choice | When it resets |
|---|---|
| Never | Never resets automatically — the total just keeps growing until you reset it yourself. |
| Daily | Every day. |
| Weekly · (day) | Every week on the day you choose (e.g. Weekly · Tuesday). |
| Monthly · 1st | The 1st of every month. |
| Monthly · 15th | The 15th of every month. |
| Yearly · January 1 | Once a year, on January 1. |
Resets take effect at the start of the day for the chosen date.
Which schedule should I pick?
Match the reset to how you'll use the money. Taxes you pay quarterly or yearly might use Yearly; a monthly tithe or bill fits Monthly; a weekly "fun money" envelope fits Weekly.
Automatic vs. manual resets
A goal with a reset schedule has an Auto reset switch controlling whether the app resets the goal for you. The wizard asks this while creating a set-aside or recurring-bill goal (on by default there); in the edit dialog the switch appears once a reset schedule is chosen.
Auto reset OFF (the default when enabling in the edit dialog)
The goal will not reset on its own. When a reset date passes, the goal becomes pending — the dialog shows a note like:
Reset pending since Jan 1, 2026 — use Reset to apply it.
You then apply it whenever you're ready by pressing the Reset button (next to the Contributed field). This gives you full control — useful when you want to record or move the money before zeroing it out.
While a reset is pending
If new time entries contribute before you apply a pending reset, their amounts add to the existing total. Applying the reset later zeroes everything; nothing is lost or double-counted — the reset simply waits for you.
Auto reset ON
The goal resets by itself as soon as a reset date passes (the next time you open the app). When you switch Auto reset on in the edit dialog, the app asks you to confirm, spelling out the cadence — for example:
The contributed amount will automatically reset to $0 every Tuesday.
Press OK to keep it on, or Cancel to leave it off. (The creation wizard skips this confirmation — there you're answering the question directly.)
The Reset button
Inside a goal's dialog, the Reset button (beside the Contributed amount) immediately sets the total back to $0 and records the moment as the last reset. You'll be asked to confirm first. Use it to:
- apply a pending reset, or
- manually start a fresh period any time, regardless of schedule.
Projected contribution
If a goal has a reset schedule and your clients have work schedules, the dialog shows a Projected amount — an estimate of how much the goal will receive over the current reset period:
Projected: $400 / period
Hover the ⓘ icon to see the date range the estimate covers.
It's an estimate
The projection multiplies a full period of your currently-known scheduled work by the goal's percentage. It can't know about future raises, schedule changes you haven't entered, or unplanned work — so treat it as a helpful ballpark, not a promise. Your real total always comes from the actual time entries you log.
Last reset
The dialog shows Last reset: the date and time the goal was last zeroed (manually or on schedule). A goal that has never reset — for example one with no schedule — shows Never.
Editing and archiving goals
- Edit a goal by tapping its card — the Edit Goal or Obligation dialog exposes every field directly: name, description, contribution %, reset schedule and auto reset, target amount, the contributed total, and the image (including uploading your own picture, which the creation wizard doesn't offer). Change anything and Save.
- Archive a goal you no longer need with the Archive button. Archived goals are hidden from the Goals page but kept; you can restore or permanently delete them later. See Archiving & deleting.
Worked example
Say you want to set aside money for taxes and giving:
- Create Taxes — Contribution 25%, Reset Yearly · January 1, Auto reset off (you'll move the money to a savings account yourself, then reset).
- Create Tithe — Contribution 10%, Reset Monthly · 1st, Auto reset on (it can zero itself each month).
- Log your work as usual, leaving Apply to goals on.
Now every billable entry quietly funds both. At month-end, Tithe shows what you owe and resets automatically. At year-end, Taxes shows your set-aside; you move it, then press Reset.
Quick reference
- Contributions come from new time entries (percentage × amount), only when Apply to goals is on.
- Edits never contribute — reconcile by editing the Contributed amount.
- Time dated before the current reset period doesn't contribute — it belongs to a closed period; the entry dialogs point it out when it happens.
- Reset schedule decides when the total zeroes; Auto reset decides whether the app does it for you.
- Auto reset defaults on for wizard-created set-asides and recurring bills, and off when enabled later from the edit dialog; while it's off, resets wait as pending until you apply them with Reset.
- Projected is a best-effort estimate based on your client work schedules.