Analytics: forecast, actuals, variance

This is where everything comes together.

You've set up accounts, built a forecast, and been logging transactions. The analytics view takes all of that — the plan you made and the reality you've recorded — and shows you the gap. Not as a historical curiosity, but as something actionable: the gap tells you whether you're on track for the things that actually matter to you, and by how much.

Three views, three questions

The analytics section has three views, each built around a different question.

Forecast — What does my financial future look like if my plan plays out? The forecast view shows your projected net worth trajectory, account balances over time, and expected cash flow month by month. Use this to see the big picture: is the line going up? Are there months with tight cash flow ahead? Does the plan get you where you want to go?

Past — What actually happened? The past view shows your real spending and income, broken down by category and period. Use this to understand patterns over time: where does your money actually go, month after month?

Variance — Where is reality drifting from the plan, and what does that mean for my goals? This is the view that changes decisions. Variance shows you, category by category and month by month, how actuals are comparing to the forecast — and, crucially, what the cumulative effect of that drift is on your long-term position.

Reading the forecast view

Open the forecast view when you want to think about the future. A few things to look for:

Net worth trajectory — the overall direction of the line is the most important signal. A consistently upward line means your plan accumulates. A flat or declining line means you're spending what you earn or drawing down. Neither is wrong in isolation — but you should know which it is.

Cash flow gaps — months where the projected cash flow is sharply negative are worth identifying in advance. They might be planned (a large one-off, an annual expense) or they might reveal an assumption that doesn't quite work. Seeing them three months out gives you time to prepare.

Reading the past view

Open the past view when you want to understand what has already happened. The most useful pattern to look for:

Category trends — is any category trending upward month over month? Lifestyle inflation tends to be invisible in the short term but obvious over a six-month chart.

Reading the variance view

This is the view most worth spending time on. It answers a single, uncomfortable question: if nothing changes from here, where do I actually land?

The chart shows three lines.

Actual (historical) — your real net worth, plotted through your most recent transaction. The hard data: where you've been.

Respect the budget — a projection forward to the end of the forecast window assuming you return to plan from now on. Every assumption holds. This line is fixed; the date filter at the top of the page doesn't change it.

Patterns continue — a projection forward to the end of the forecast window assuming your recent habits, not your plan, define the next few years. OutBudget takes your forecast and applies the per-category deviation learned from the months in the filtered window. If you've been overspending on dining and underspending on travel, the projection extrapolates that. The date filter matters here: a wider window smooths out one-off months, a narrower window emphasises recent behaviour.

The gap between the two projected lines is the headline number: the Cost of drift. It's either the price your recent habits are charging you against the plan, or — if patterns are better than forecast — the surplus they're generating.

Three KPIs at the top of the section make this concrete.

Projected if you respect the budget — where you land if every assumption holds from now until the end of the forecast. The "promise to yourself" number.

Cost of drift — the difference between the two projections. Positive means your habits are ahead of plan; negative means they're behind. Either way, it's the answer to: what are these habits actually worth, compounded out?

If your spending patterns continue — where you actually land if recent behaviour continues. The "honest" number. This one shifts when you change the date filter, because the patterns it's learning from change.

Why this changes the question

A €150/month overspend on dining looks manageable in a single month. Annualised, it's €1,800 — and once you see it pushed forward through the projection, it might be the difference between hitting a house deposit goal on time or four months late.

That framing changes what you're deciding. It's no longer "did I overspend on dining?" It's: "is dining worth four months?" If the answer is yes — if those dinners are genuinely a priority and you're comfortable adjusting the timeline — that's a valid decision, made with full information. If the answer is no, the variance view has just shown you exactly what to change and exactly what it's worth.

The same logic runs in the other direction. A salary increase produces a positive variance in income, the Patterns continue line lifts above Respect the budget, and the cost of drift turns into a benefit. The decision becomes whether to bank the surplus toward the existing goal, pull the goal forward, or redirect it somewhere else.

Three decisions

Every time you look at variance, you're choosing between three responses.

Adjust behavior — the plan was right; you drifted. Spending less in a category, or more intentionally, will close the gap without changing the plan or the goal.

Adjust the plan — the behavior was right; the plan was wrong. The original assumption was unrealistic. Update it to reflect what's actually happening and recalibrate from the new baseline.

Accept and recalibrate goals — neither behavior nor plan can or should close the gap. Something in life changed — a new priority, a different circumstance, a decision made consciously. Accept the variance, update the goal timeline, and move forward with a plan that reflects reality.

All three are valid. What isn't valid is ignoring the variance — letting the gap accumulate without a decision, which is the same as making a decision by default.

Common questions

My variance view shows persistent positive variance on income (I earn more than forecast). Is that a problem? It means your income assumption is too conservative. Update the forecast to reflect a more realistic figure, or keep the conservative assumption intentionally as a floor. Either is valid — but be aware that planning to a lower baseline produces a misleadingly positive variance. It can mask whether your actual spending behavior is on track.