PLAIN-LANGUAGE REFERENCE

Every Pigget term, without the financial fog.

Look up the words used throughout the budget and understand what each number can—and cannot—tell you.

Reference guide

A

Account
A place where money or debt is recorded, such as a current account, savings account, cash account, credit account, investment, or loan. Accounts answer where money lives.
Activity
The net effect of transactions assigned to a category during one month. Purchases are normally negative activity; refunds assigned back to the category are positive activity.
Assigned
The amount you deliberately added to or removed from a category’s plan for the selected month. Assignment changes a job, not a bank balance.
Available
What a category can safely use now: positive rollover from the previous month, plus this month’s assignment, plus this month’s activity.

B

Balance
The amount held in an account. Depending on context, Pigget may show the native balance, cleared balance, or a base-currency valuation.
Base currency
The common currency used to express the budget as one plan. Accounts and targets may use other currencies while the budget totals are translated into this unit.
Book value
The base-currency value recorded when a balance or transaction entered the budget. Historical book values remain stable instead of changing with today’s exchange rate.
Budget account
An account whose money participates in Ready to Assign and category balances. Current, savings, and cash accounts used for the plan usually belong here.

C

Category
A job or purpose given to money, such as rent, groceries, travel, or repairs. Categories answer what money is for.
Category group
A visual section used to organize related categories. Groups do not hold money themselves.
Cleared
A transaction that has settled at the financial institution. Cleared transactions are included when Pigget compares its balance with the institution during reconciliation.
Committed ahead
A plan that assigns more than current budget money but no more than named, still-future expected income. The money is not yet spendable; the state explains why the plan is temporarily ahead.
Credit account
An on-budget revolving liability. Its negative balance reduces net budget money, purchases reduce spending categories, and payments from another budget account are transfers.

D

Debt
An off-budget liability such as a mortgage or personal loan. Its negative balance tracks what remains owed, while a linked repayment category can hold actual cash for the next payment.

E

Expected income
Named, dated money you reasonably expect to receive. It explains timing but never changes an account, funds a category, or becomes spendable before the real transaction arrives.

F

Forecast
A projection based on current balances, plans, expected inflows, and detected recurring activity. It helps identify pressure ahead but is not a guaranteed outcome.
Funded
A plan whose assignments are fully backed by money already held in budget accounts.

I

Inflow
A positive transaction. New income normally goes to Ready to Assign; a refund can instead return money directly to the original spending category.

M

Market value
What a foreign-currency holding or tracked asset is worth at a more recent exchange rate. It may differ from the stable book value used by historical budget calculations.
Move money
Change the plan by reducing one category or Ready to Assign and increasing another by the same amount. No account balance changes.

N

Native currency
The currency in which an account or transaction actually exists at the institution.
Net worth
Assets minus liabilities. Pigget’s net-worth view can include both budget and tracking accounts without making tracked assets spendable.

O

On-budget
Participating in the envelope plan. Budget and credit accounts are on-budget; tracking accounts and ordinary debts are not.
Outflow
A negative transaction, normally a purchase, fee, or payment leaving an account.
Overcommitted
A plan that assigns more than both current budget money and all relevant expected income. Part of the plan has no named source.
Overspent
A category whose available amount is negative because activity exceeded its rollover and assignments. Cover it by moving money from another priority when possible.

P

Payee
The person or organization associated with a transaction. Pigget can remember the category previously used for a payee to offer better suggestions.
Pending review
An imported transaction that still needs human confirmation, even when Pigget has already suggested or applied a useful category.

R

Ready to Assign
Budget money that does not yet have a category. The usual goal is zero: every available unit has a job.
Reconcile
Compare Pigget’s cleared account balance with the institution’s cleared balance, correct any difference, and mark the verified history as reconciled.
Reconciled
A transaction included in a completed balance check. Reconciled financial fields are protected because changing them would invalidate that checkpoint.
Rollover
A positive category balance carried into the next month. Negative balances are not carried per category; they reduce the next month’s Ready to Assign.

S

Split transaction
One account transaction divided among several categories, or partly left unassigned.
Sub-budget
A detailed internal plan funded by one parent category in the main budget. It divides that category’s money without consuming the same cash twice.

T

Target
A rule describing what a category should receive or hold, such as a monthly amount, balance by a date, or repeating spending need. A target guides assignments but does not create money.
Tracking account
An account included for net-worth reporting but excluded from Ready to Assign and category calculations.
Transaction
A dated change to an account balance. Its assignment determines whether it affects Ready to Assign, a category, several categories, or neither side of the budget as a transfer.
Transfer
Money moved between accounts. A linked transfer between two budget accounts is budget-neutral because the outgoing and incoming sides cancel.

U

Unassigned transaction
A transaction whose category decision has not been made. Its amount counts toward Ready to Assign so it cannot sit outside the budget’s accounting.
Uncleared
A known transaction that has not yet settled at the institution. It affects the working account balance but is excluded from cleared-balance reconciliation.
Underfunded
The additional amount a category needs in the selected month to satisfy its target.
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