When Something Looks Wrong

Most "the app is showing me the wrong thing" reports come down to a handful of causes. Work through the relevant section before assuming a bug.

Bills are on the wrong paycheck

Almost always a due date problem.

Bills are assigned to paychecks by the due date you entered in the Builder. A wrong date puts the bill on the wrong period, making one paycheck look tight and another loose when neither is.

Check the due dates on the bills in the period that looks wrong. Fix them in Expenses or Housing and rebuild.

A bill showing No Due Date can't be placed reliably. Give it one.

The paycheck dates themselves are wrong

Check your next payday.

Every pay period is counted forward from the next payday you entered. If that date was wrong — or your employer shifted the cycle since you built the budget — the entire sequence is shifted with it.

Fix it in Income & Current Savings and rebuild. See Editing & Rebuilding a Budget.

"No paycheck dates available to navigate"

The app has no pay schedule to work from. Usually one of:

›No budget is active — restore one from the Archive
›The budget was built without a valid next payday
›The plan window has ended, so there are no further periods

"No budget selected" or "No valid budget data"

No active budget. Open the Archive and restore one.

If you've never built a budget, start at Creating Your First Budget.

The dashboard shows "No data available"

The chart has nothing to draw. Common reasons:

›The budget is new and hasn't accumulated history
›The selected time range doesn't overlap any completed activity
›No budget is active

Most charts need a few pay periods of completed bills before they say anything. A new budget looks sparse for a couple of weeks — that's expected.

Dashboard numbers don't match my bank

Check whether the bills were actually marked complete.

The dashboard is built entirely from bills you've marked off. It has no view of your accounts. A bill you paid but didn't mark is invisible to it, so the app will understate you.

This is by far the most common cause. If your marking is current and the numbers still look wrong, check that you're reading the right period — the Paycheck / Month toggle and the time range both change what the tiles mean, despite the "this Month" labels. See Your Monthly Numbers.

One month shows much higher income

Probably a three-paycheck month. On a weekly or bi-weekly cycle, some calendar months contain an extra paycheck.

Nothing is wrong, but don't set expectations from it. Switch the toggle to Paycheck for the more honest view.

"Debts Do Not Complete"

Your debts aren't projected to clear within the plan window.

Check, in this order:

›Interest rates. The most common cause and the easiest to fix — a rate entered wrong distorts the whole projection. See Debts.
›The plan tier. A gentler plan may not be enough for your debt load. Look at the more aggressive options in your results.
›The surplus itself. If income minus committed costs is genuinely too thin, no allocation fixes it. That's a real finding, not an error.

My projections seem too optimistic

Usually understated expenses.

It's tempting to trim expenses so the dates look better, and it works — producing a plan you can't actually follow. Compare your budgeted figures against what you've actually been completing. If you're consistently over, the inputs are wrong.

Also check Budgeted vs Actual Paycheck Amount on the dashboard. If your real income runs below the planned figure, every date in the plan is optimistic. See Paycheck Insights.

I can't edit a bill or paycheck amount

Editing amounts is a Thrive feature — you'll see Upgrade to edit. See What's Included with Thrive.

Canvas won't open

Canvas requires a subscription. If you have one and it's still locked, try Restore on Settings → Subscription.

I upgraded but still have Free features

Use Restore on Settings → Subscription. It re-links purchases from your app store account and resolves most cases, including after a reinstall or signing in on a new device.

If Restore doesn't work, contact support with your account email. See Help & Feedback.

Notifications aren't arriving

Both the channel and the topic have to be on, and you have to tap Save Changes. Then check that your device permits notifications for BetterBudgets at the system level.

Full checklist: Notifications.

"No plans available in your region"

Thrive isn't sold where your app store account is registered. See Region & Currency.

Still stuck?

Send a report through Settings → Support. Include what you expected, what happened, and how to get there — plus which budget and pay period, if it's a numbers problem.

See Help & Feedback.