Completing Bills
Marking bills complete is the one thing BetterBudgets asks you to do regularly. It takes a couple of minutes per paycheck.
Upcoming and Completed
Every bill assigned to a paycheck starts in Upcoming. When you've paid it, mark it complete and it moves to Completed.
The split gives you the only two facts you need at a glance: what's still coming out of this check, and what's already gone.
The workflow
- ›You get paid.
- ›Open the app — it's on the current paycheck.
- ›Pay your bills as you normally would, through your bank or biller.
- ›Mark each one complete in BetterBudgets as you go.
BetterBudgets doesn't move money. It has no connection to your bank and doesn't pay anything on your behalf. Marking a bill complete records that you paid it.
Do it as you pay, not afterward
Marking bills as you actually pay them takes seconds. Reconstructing a pay period two weeks later takes real effort and you'll get some of it wrong.
The failure mode isn't dramatic — you just fall a period behind, then two, and eventually the app is showing you a version of your finances you no longer trust. If that happens, don't try to rebuild the history. Mark the current paycheck accurately and carry on from there.
Editing a bill amount
Planned amounts and real amounts drift. A utility bill comes in higher than usual; a variable expense lands lower.
Tapping a bill lets you correct the amount for that specific instance. On the Free plan you'll see Upgrade to edit instead — the ability to adjust amounts on the fly is a Thrive feature. See What's Included with Thrive.
Correcting an amount here fixes that occurrence. If a bill is consistently different from what you planned, fix it properly in the Builder and rebuild — otherwise you'll be correcting it every period. See Editing & Rebuilding a Budget.
Adjusting the paycheck amount
The Paycheck Amount at the top is editable the same way, for the same reason: overtime, a short week, a bonus, an unpaid day. Setting the real figure keeps the period's math honest.
This is also a Thrive feature.
Bills you didn't pay
If a bill didn't get paid, leave it in Upcoming. Don't mark it complete to tidy the screen — the whole value of the list is that it reflects reality.
A bill that repeatedly goes unpaid is a signal that the plan is too tight for the period it's in, which usually means either the due date is wrong or you're on a more aggressive plan than your situation supports. Both are worth addressing rather than working around.
Debt payments
Debt payments appear in the bill list like anything else, tagged Debt. Marking one complete is how the app knows your payoff progress is real — it's what feeds the debt-related views in the dashboard.