With a target you can measure progress towards a financial goal in the future. In terms of a desired amount of money you have on one or more accounts. An example of a target is having saved enough money to buy a new car two years from now.
Targets only look at at the balance of your accounts. At the start and end of the period you select, when monitoring if you have already achieved the target.
Use a budget to keep track of your expenses.
When creating targets in FiQu, please keep the following in mind:
- Every dollar or euro on your account balances can only be used to achieve one target at the same time.
- An earlier target is achieved first. If your account balances allow it, the remainder will be used to achieve a later target etc.
- If you want to measure reduction of a debt or mortgage, you can use a negative target.
Your new Target in five steps
1. Name your target
Every target needs a unique name. Usually a short description of your target, like: new car next year.
2. Enter a desired amount
You can enter any amount you want to reach in the future. Decimals are not possible. A zero amount is not allowed as target.
3. Pick a future date target date
Tap on the default date (one year from now) to select any date in the future. Remember that later targets are only partly achieved (or not at all) if the balances of the selected accounts are still lower than all your targets combined.
4. Select one or more accounts
In the list of accounts, check the ones you want to link to this target. Typically these are your savings or investment accounts. But you can also include the balance of your cash wallet or salary account.
You can use the same account(s) for multiple targets. Every dollar or euro is automatically counted only once in measuring if you have already achieved your targets.
5. Tap the ‘Create this target’ button
You can now create another target or go back to the Overview screen via the arrow button on the top left of the screen.
Monitor your target performance
The current state of your targets is visible in the second part of the Overview screen. Tap on the ‘Targets’ radio button to see this:
For each of your targets, the following information is shown:
- Name, date and amount on the top row
- Amount “from”: sum of account balance(s) at the start of the period you selected
- Amount “to”: sum of account balance(s) at the end of the period you are monitoring.
- The status: target achieved in green, please take action or, if you are close enough to the target date, x days to go. This number of days is calculated based on the rate in which you progress to your target in the selected period.
- A coloured bar, indicating progress:
- Ligth blue: the part of your target still to be achieved
- Dark blue: what part of your target was achieved at the start of the period you selected
- Green: the increase during this period. You are getting closer to your target
- Red: the decrease during this period. You are moving away from your target.
- Percentage achieved at the end of the selected period. Targets with a positive amount can not achieve more than 100%. Any more on your account balanc(s) will be used for the next target etc.
Select a period to monitor
You do that via tapping on the left and right caret buttons near the top of the screen. Or select a different period length by tapping on the period name or date range. How this period selection works is explained in detail in the article about FiQu Graphs.
Update your targets
Tap on a target in the list to either edit or delete it. While editing, swipe to the right or left to reach the previous or next target.
Tap the + button on the bottom left of the Targets list to create a new target. You can have as many targets as you want.