Understand your dashboard

Your dashboard — Beyond Payday calls it The Big Picture — is the first thing you see after signing in. It pulls your income, bills, assets, and debts into one screen so you can check your finances without opening every page. Here's what each widget shows and how Beyond Payday calculates it.

Review reminders

When some of your numbers may need a refresh, a banner appears above the summary cards. Choose Review updates to open Simple view with saved amounts, review dates, and individual Update and Still accurate buttons. Choose Spreadsheet in the Simple / Spreadsheet toggle to edit Balance or tick Still accurate for several accounts, then save them together. Income and bills use individual Update and Still accurate actions. If the spreadsheet is unavailable, those actions work for every item. Remind me in a week hides the banner for your account and household across devices, without affecting other family members.

Balances are checked more often than income or bills; bills only appear after more than a year without review. The banner disappears when nothing eligible needs review. While the banner is snoozed, Review my numbers opens the same modal without cancelling the snooze and shows how many items need review. When nothing needs review, neither appears. See Review your financial data for the timing and household permission details.

How it works

• Money basics — once your Setup Guide is complete or dismissed, the owner and their partner see a checklist of nine money basics with a progress ring, right under the review banner. Each step is checked from your data and links to where you can finish it. See Use the money basics checklist.
• Income — your take-home pay for the period, with Gross pay and Deductions + Taxes listed below it. Click through to Income (opens in a new tab) for detail.
• Bills — your total bills, split into Needs (essential) and Wants (could cut) — whichever you marked as required when you added each bill.
• Bills vs Money left over — a comparison bar showing your total bills to what's left of your take-home pay after bills.
• Money left over — take-home pay minus every bill. It's what's left each month to save, invest, or spend freely.
• Net Worth — your assets minus your debts, using the Net Worth rules below.
• What You Own vs Owe — a comparison bar showing your total assets alongside your total debts. Assets are shown before subtracting debts; Net Worth shows the difference.
• Life insurance — what your life policies pay if the insured person dies, shown as "Pays $X" (minus any loan against a policy). A Cash value line shows the cash value built up in permanent policies. The card's note says: "What a policy pays is not money you hold, so it is not in your net worth. Cash value is." With no life policy it reads "No life insurance entered". HSAs are not on this card; they count in Net Worth and show on the Assets page.
• Current Financial Health (the insights card) — a score out of 100 built from six factors: your income compared to your household size, how much of your pay goes to must-have bills, your net worth compared to your income, how many years your safety net would cover, how much of your pay you save, and how much breathing room you keep after bills. Age-based comparisons use your age on today’s account date and update on your birthday in that time zone. This describes your current finances; retirement sustainability is assessed separately. Click the card for the full breakdown. Bills count the most (35%), then Saving (20%); income, net worth, safety net and breathing room make up the rest. The bills and saving parts follow the 50/30/20 budget rule: full marks when must-haves are 50% or less of your pay and you save at least 20%. "Pay" here is take-home plus what your paycheck puts into retirement, HSA and insurance, the way the rule measures it. Each point of must-haves over 50% costs 4 points; at 75% the bills part scores 0.
  • Saving counts your 401k and other paycheck savings, Retirement and Investment Contribution bills, must-have Savings Transfer bills, anything you pay on a debt above its minimum payment (enter the minimum on the debt), and money left over beyond your 15% breathing room. A Savings Transfer marked nice-to-have, like a vacation fund, is saving up to spend on a want, so it counts as a want. Your employer's retirement match shows as a bonus but doesn't count toward the 20%. Entering your savings never lowers the score.
  • Breathing room is money left over after all bills as a share of take-home. The goal is at least 15%, a buffer for price increases and surprises. This is our own guideline, not part of 50/30/20.
  • If groceries look missing from your bills, the breakdown says your real share for must-haves is likely higher. Add your grocery spending as a must-have Food bill to make it exact. If you chose to cover everyday spending from money left over, this note doesn't appear, and Saving and Breathing room read high because money left over also pays for those costs.
  • If no one in your household earns pay from work, Saving and Breathing room aren't scored and the other parts share their weight.
• Financial Goals — a preview of up to 2 of your savings or debt-payoff goals with their progress. Click View All to see every goal.
• Retirement Tracker — a free preview of your retirement outlook: your next future milestone (like retirement or Social Security), an estimated balance, and a progress bar from age 18 to 100. Once retired, it shows your retirement outlook. Its ages, countdowns and projection use today in your saved account time zone when available and refresh when that day changes. It honors each person’s selected retirement month and leaves out Social Security that is off or already being received. The balance uses the Steady-growth model, which can differ from a stress test on the Retirement page. Its projection fills in once you've entered a birthday. The full projection lives on the Pro Retirement (opens in a new tab) page.
• Historical Tracking — a chart of your Net Worth and Money left over over time, built from your Snapshots (saved automatically about a day after you update balances, or by you), with Milestones marked as pins. A reminder appears above it when your last snapshot is three months old. See Track your progress with snapshots and milestones to start building it. If you have a permanent life policy, a dashed line marks "Life insurance cash value counted from Oct 5, 2026". Net worth started counting that cash value that day, so a step up there is not new money.

Current income totals use enabled recurring income active today within any saved start/end dates. Future, ended and one-time entries do not increase the ongoing income used for your money left over or financial-health score. A bill with an end date counts through its last month, then drops out of your bill totals and money left over.

Use the Breakdown selector at the top of the dashboard to change how Income, Bills, and Money left over are shown — Daily, Weekly, Every 2 Weeks, Twice a Month, Monthly, or Yearly. Net Worth, Life insurance, and the comparison charts always reflect today's totals no matter what you pick. Beyond Payday remembers your last choice on your next visit.

Everyday spending

If your household chose Cover them from money left over for everyday spending, the Money left over card reads "After bills & taxes, before everyday spending", and the full card says everyday costs you don't enter as bills come out of it. Current Financial Health adds a note, "Excludes everyday spending you don't enter as bills."; its grade and score don't change.

An example with real numbers

Say your take-home pay is $6,000/month, your essential bills (Needs) are $2,500, and your optional bills (Wants) are $900. Your Money left over is $6,000 − $2,500 − $900 = $2,600/month. If you also have $300,000 in assets and $180,000 in debts, your Net Worth is $120,000. A term life policy that would pay $250,000 adds $0 to that $120,000, because what a policy pays when someone dies never counts toward Net Worth. A whole life policy that pays $100,000 and has $20,000 of cash value adds the $20,000, so your Net Worth becomes $140,000. The Life insurance card shows "Pays $350,000" (both policies) and a "Cash value" line of $20,000. A $4,000 HSA you own is already part of your $120,000 Net Worth. It is not on the Life insurance card.

Assumptions and limits

• Life insurance counts toward Net Worth only for its cash value. Whole, Universal, Variable Universal and Indexed Universal Life policies count what you enter as their cash value. Term Life has none. What a policy pays when someone dies (its coverage amount) never counts. The Life insurance card keeps the two apart: its big number is what the policies pay, and cash value sits on its own "Cash value" line.
• HSAs count toward Net Worth only if they're owned by you, your spouse, or nobody in particular (household). An HSA owned only by a child is left out of Net Worth.
• 529 accounts count toward Net Worth only if you or your spouse owns them — a 529 with no owner set, or owned only by a child, is excluded entirely.
• Each asset and debt keeps its own balance history. Every saved balance is recorded for that day; open it from the trend line under the item on the Assets or Debts page. The running history of your whole household comes from Snapshots.