Updating and Revising

No effective home budget is cast in stone from the outset.  Keeping a budget means continuously revising projections in the light of new information and updating changed amounts already entered.

Further, revising and updating needs to happen again when bank records catch up with deposits and expenses on their online account data, and finally when their monthly statements are issued and you reconcile the bank's finalized data against your physical checkbook.

As you check off items in bank statements, check them off also on your Pagemonth Budget or other budget you use, as well as checking them off in your checkbook, and reconcile your statements in a timely manner, taking into account such items as check printing fees, late charges or low balance fees if they occur. 

If any amounts from bank records need to be revised in a previous month of your computer budget, add extra income amounts in category 503 and extra fees or penalties in category 120 as other income and miscellaneous expenses, respectively. dating the entries on the dates the bank records indicate.

What these retroactive changes will do, of course, is change your previous months' balances and make any printing you have already done obsolete.  This is why I suggest a monthpage printout at each month's beginning and another at it's end, and a third printout of that month only after all its amounts are reconciled and no further revision will be necessary.  In that way your final. bound pages will accumulate through December accurately.  And keep in mind your final year Summary won't be finalized until mid-January of the following year when your bank statement data through December appears online.

Updating previous data is half the battle of accurate revision.  The other half is revising projected income, expenses and charges as new information becomes known.  Especially during January changed figures typically happen to force revised expenses.  Vendors who put off raising utility bills during late autumn tend to use January, the first of the year, as the time to spring them on you.  Government does the same, raising taxes as of January.  Employers often do the same, adjusting payrolls because the holiday buying season is over.  But often employers will use January as a time to issue promotions as well, and perhaps new hiring.

All of January's changes require revisions in budgeted amounts, perhaps throughout the year.  Another key time is when you prepare and file tax returns.  If you have kept your Pagemonth Budget updated vigilantly throughout the previous year, your tax preparation will be much easier, for you will have totals of deductible expenses available with no added calculations.

Revisions and updating also become frequent around vacation times as you try to free up money to take trips and try to anticipate charges you will incur on them, and when you'll be able to pay those off.  Back to school always has its costs to handle, as does moving to a new job or city, often as autumn begins.  And after that, of course, it's time to begin the holiday buying season planning again.

So there really is no time of the year when a home budget, whether it be ours or someone else's, can be unattended to "run on its own."  Every decent home budget must be closely monitored and continually updated and revised, daily, weekly, monthly, until at last you can put the previous year's final numbers behind you,