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Plan Budget
Budget & Cash Flow

Budget and track every dollar of your pay

Set your categories, import a statement, and see plan against actual line by line.

This section answers whether the plan holds. Set a budget, a savings goal or a scenario and PayLens works forward from your take-home pay, so you can see what a purchase, a rise or a change in hours does to the money left over each month before you commit to it.

Tools in this section
$
Category Planned Type
⋮⋮ Housing Rent · Strata
$
Essential
⋮⋮ Transport Fuel · Rego · Public transport
$
Essential
⋮⋮ Groceries
$
Essential
⋮⋮ Utilities Power · Internet
$
Essential
⋮⋮ Insurance & health
$
Essential
⋮⋮ Lifestyle Dining out
$
Lifestyle
⋮⋮ Subscriptions
$
Lifestyle
⋮⋮ Savings goals Deposit · Emergency
$
Savings
Total committed $7,900
Analysis
AU-2026.27-v1
Left over each month
$1,950
You are planned to earn more than you spend this month
Committed $7,900 of $9,850
Surplus $1,950$7,900 planned
Savings rate
15.2%
Annual surplus
$23,400
Where the pay goes
$9,850
Income
−$5,200
Essential
−$1,200
Lifestyle
−$1,500
Savings
$1,950
Remaining
50 / 30 / 20 guide
Essentials · 50% guide53%
Lifestyle · 30% guide12%
Savings · 20% guide15%
What stands out
Essentials take 53% of take-home against the 50% guide. Bringing them back to 50% would free $3,300 a year.
Savings sit at 15% of take-home. Lifting them to 20% adds $5,640 a year, and you have $1,950 a month spare to fund it.

Custom categories

Rename, regroup or switch off anything in the plan. Add subcategories for the detail you track, and the analysis follows automatically.

Statement import is parsed in your browser only — no bank connection, no upload to a server, and nothing is saved unless you choose to save the plan. Estimates only; not tax, legal or financial advice.
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The problem

Most people know what they earn and almost none know where it goes. Pay arrives fortnightly, bills fall monthly, and the two never line up.

Spreadsheets drift the moment a rate changes or a subscription renews. Bank apps categorise after the fact, on their own labels, and tell you nothing about the plan you meant to follow.

PayLens Budget holds both sides in one view: the plan you set and the money that actually moved, normalised to your pay cycle, reconciled category by category, and calculated in your browser.

One page to plan, track, reconcile and decide.

Three parts of the same tool, kept on one screen so a change in any of them updates the rest immediately.

Plan

Set what each category should take out of your pay, on the cycle you are actually paid.

Take-home$9,850
Committed$7,900
Left over$1,950
Track

Record what actually happened beside the plan and see the variance on every line.

Tracked spend$8,002
Against plan+$102
Categories8
Analyse

See where the pay goes, how the split compares with the 50/30/20 guide, and what to act on.

Savings rate15.2%
Essentials share53%
Annual surplus$23,400

Everything the planner does, in four parts

Categories, subcategories and groups you control, with every amount normalised to weekly, fortnightly, monthly or annual so nothing has to be converted by hand.

Categories you name

Rename, regroup, reorder by dragging, or switch a category off without losing its history.

Essential, lifestyle or savings

Every category carries a group, which is what drives the split and the 50/30/20 comparison.

One cycle, everywhere

Change the pay cycle and every figure on the page follows, including the analysis and the charts.

Built to be checked, not trusted blindly.

Every number on this page can be traced back to a published rule and a version reference.

2026–27
Tax year applied, with prior years kept available
0
Figures sent to a server — everything runs in your browser
4
Pay cycles supported: weekly, fortnightly, monthly, annual
21 Aug 2026
Date the applied rule set was last verified

Key Budget features

Everything below is included. Nothing is behind an upgrade, and nothing leaves your browser.

Budget structure
Build categories and subcategories that match how you actually spend.
Group every category as essential, lifestyle or savings.
Reorder by dragging, or switch a category off without deleting it.
Normalise every amount to a weekly, fortnightly, monthly or annual cycle.
Plan against actual
Record actual spending beside the planned amount for every category.
See variance per line, in dollars, with over-plan lines flagged.
Track total committed against total spent for the period.
Switch between plan-only and plan-versus-actual views.
Bank statement import
Paste CSV rows or drop a .csv file exported from your bank.
Automatic category matching on merchant keywords.
Preview every matched transaction before applying it.
Parsed in your browser — no bank connection and no upload.
Analysis and reporting
Left-over figure, savings rate and annual surplus for the cycle.
Waterfall, donut and stacked-bar views of where the pay goes.
A 50/30/20 guide with a target marker on each group.
Two ranked insights with the annual consequence of each.
Statement import reads files you provide. PayLens has no bank connection and no access to your accounts.

The rest of the planning suite

Each tool runs on the same rule set, so figures carry across without rework.

Frequently asked questions

Learn more about Budget.

Are my figures saved?

No. Everything is calculated in your browser as you type, and nothing is added to an account unless you choose to save the plan.

Why does the plan use take-home rather than salary?

Budgets are paid from what lands in your account. Salary figures hide tax, the Medicare levy and any HELP repayment, so a plan built on them overstates what you have to spend.

Which rules are applied?

The 2026–27 resident rule set: brackets of 0, 15, 30, 37 and 45%, LITO up to $700, the Medicare levy with its low-income shade-in, and employer super at 12%. The rule set version is shown on every result.

More resources
Guide How to build a budget that survives a pay rise Why fixed-dollar budgets drift, and how to set categories as a share of take-home instead. Read more › Rates 2026–27 tax rates and thresholds The brackets, Medicare levy, HELP thresholds and super rate behind every figure on this page. Read more › Tool Check your take-home first Run your salary through the pay calculator, then bring the net figure back into the planner. Read more ›
Ready to get started?

Set the plan once. Check it every pay.

Start with your take-home and the categories it has to cover, import a statement when you want to reconcile, and save the plan to pick it up next payday.

Start planning › Pay calculators ›
Always know the rules behind the number

Rule set AU-2026.27-v1. Estimates only — not tax, legal or financial advice.

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