Budget Checkup looks at your recent spending and transaction history, then suggests buckets to add or adjust so your budget lines up with how you actually spend. You review each suggestion and tap to apply it. Nothing changes on its own.
It runs on your own transactions and a set of clear rules, not generative AI. Same history in, same suggestions out. So when Beacon says you’re trending high on groceries, it’s pointing at real transactions you can open and check.
What Budget Checkup suggests
A Checkup can turn up two kinds of suggestion.
Adjustments re-price a bucket you already have when your spending has drifted. Say you budgeted $250 a month for groceries but you’ve been trending closer to $340. The suggestion shows your current target next to a suggested target, so you can see the gap and decide.
New buckets are recurring expenses you don’t have a bucket for yet. Beacon shows the amount and the cadence it detected, like “$8.99 every week.” Tap Add bucket and the bucket screen opens pre-filled with that amount and the funding cadence Beacon found. You can change anything before you save.
Where Budget Checkup shows up
You’ll run into it in a few places:
- During onboarding, as “Budget setup.” Right after you connect your first bank, Beacon runs a Checkup so you start with a real budget instead of a blank screen.
- On demand, any time. Open it from the Buckets tab or from Home whenever you want a fresh look.
- In your recurring expenses. When Beacon spots a recurring charge you haven’t budgeted for yet, it surfaces the suggestion there so you can add a bucket for it on the spot.
How to act on a suggestion
Every suggestion gives you two choices: Dismiss it, or Apply it (for a new bucket, the button says Add bucket).
- Open Budget Checkup from Home, the Buckets tab, or during onboarding.
- Read each suggestion. To see where it came from, open the How we got this panel. It lists the transactions behind the number.
- Tap Apply to accept an adjustment, or Add bucket to create a new one.
- Tap Dismiss on anything you don’t want.
Nothing in your budget changes until you tap Apply or Add bucket. Reviewing a suggestion, or opening the How we got this panel, doesn’t touch your buckets.
What you need, and what you’ll see
Budget Checkup needs a connected bank. It reads your transaction history to find spending patterns, so without a linked institution there’s nothing for it to work from. If you haven’t connected one yet, start with the getting-started guide below.
When your budget already looks on track, Beacon tells you so and shows nothing to change. That’s a good outcome, not an empty state. It means your buckets already match your spending, and your Free-to-Spend number is doing its job.