Jabiru Software

Once your email address is verified, you’ll need to set up your pay period. This is as simple as selecting your pay frequency from the drop-down and entering your next pay date. A couple tips on this:

• It is easiest if you start using Pay Day Planning (PDP) on a pay date. If you are in between paychecks, you’ll want to have as much information about what you’ve spent since your last pay as possible. You’ll also need information about what income you received up until that last paycheck.
• If you have multiple sources of income that arrive on different schedules, pick the one that is the most stable. If one income source is significantly higher than others, that’s usually the best choice.
• If you don’t have regularly-scheduled paydays, you can still benefit from the normalized cadence of planning in PDP. Simply pick a schedule and a date to start planning. We recommend the “every 2 weeks” cycle for these situations.

After setting up your pay period, you will be directed to the Plan screen which should include some helpful tips. We recommend always starting with entering your deposits. That will give you a feel for how much you have to spend (which PDP will display for you). If you discover later that you missed one, it’s no problem – you can add things in any order. Note that, until you have completed your plan, you won’t be able to start tracking your actual spending.

Setting up expenses

For planned expenses, there are three different types you can plan:

• Fixed items are expenses that you have to pay and don’t have flexibility on the amount or the date. These are typically your regular bills such as housing, car payments, cell phone bill, etc. This is also the place to put any subscriptions you have that automatically charge you.
• Flexible items are expenses that you most likely have to spend but fluctuate in the timing and amounts. This is typically items like gas for your car or groceries.
• Optional items are expenses that you want to spend but can either do without or at least wait until another period. These could be things like a night out or going to a show.

Using the account field

You’ll also notice that all items have an Account field. This is completely optional, but we recommend that you create accounts for every financial account you spend out of or receive money into. You can use any name you’d like and change it later if you think of a better name. We typically see accounts named “Checking” or “Credit Card” or the name of the financial institution (“YourBank Checking”).

[Optional] Connect to your bank

Pay Day Planning supports connecting with your bank to significantly reduce the time and effort needed to track your spending against your plan. For more information, check out our guide on Connecting to Your Bank.

Finishing your plan

As you are entering deposits and planned expenses, PDP will display an indicator of how you’re doing toward a balanced plan. Keep working until you get the plan to balance exactly, at which point PDP will show you a summary of your planning by type and by account.

Once your plan is balanced, you can use the tracking screen to enter your actual spend against your planned items. If you have something unexpected come up, you can find the “Add unplanned item” in the app menu. Track all of your spending until your next payday and then start again with planning! Continue to repeat this process and achieve financial stability, one paycheck at a time!