You will want to associate categories that are spent out of a specific envelope in order to make your data entry quicker and more accurate.

For instance in my personal finance portfolio I have a “Transportation” envelope. I then have categories for “repairs”, “gas”, “insurance” and “car payment”. I have these categories associated to my “Transportation” envelope so that whenever I select “Transportation” only these categories are available for me to choose.

Follow these instructions to associate your categories to specific envelopes within your portfolio. Click on “settings” then “categories”. A list of all of your income and expense categories can be found here. You can designate a category to be associated with an envelope by selecting an envelope from the drop down list to the left of each of your listed categories. Please associate all of the categories with the envelope of your preference, scroll down and click save.

See our next helpful tip on setting a default category!

There are two ways to add categories to your Ascend Live portfolio. You can click on “Settings”, then Categories, then “Add a New Category”. Remember to select either “Expense” or “Income” category. Name your new category and then you will be able to associate this category with a specific envelope if you choose to. However, you can also add a category WHILE you are inputting a transaction. If you find you are inputting a spend transaction and find that you do not have an existing category you can click the down arrow under “Tax Expense/Category” on the spend screen. Then click “Add New”. Name your category and associate it with an envelope all in one step! If you want to add an Income category click “deposit”. Once you’ve filled in the amount, date, account, payee etc. you can click the down arrow under “Category” and then click “Add New”. Then name your new income category and save it! We call this adding categories on the fly! Try it, we know you’ll like it!

Did you know Ascend Live isn’t just for your MK business? The envelope system is a powerful tool for home budgeting too. You can add a second portfolio to your account for your personal finances. Ascend Live has made our home budgeting so much easier. My husband and I have not only created our budget in Ascend but we’ve also created the necessary envelopes to fund our expenses. For instance we have a “Household Envelope” which includes the following categories: Mortgage payment, Water/Sewer/Garbage bills, and Household Supplies. Each month we are able to really plan for how to spend our hard earned money. Although I don’t like to see my envelopes in the red, meaning I have spent more than what I budgeted, it is an excellent tool that shows me when I am spending more than what I intended. We truly are spending on purpose since we’ve begun to use Ascend Live for our personal finances.

Here’s a few other home friendly examples:

•Car Expenses envelope with categories: Car Gas, Car Maintenance, Car Insurance, Car Payment, etc
•Utilities envelope with categories: Electricity, Phone, Internet, Security System, etc.
•Food & Supplies envelope with categories: Groceries, School Lunches, Sam’s Club membership
•Personal Care envelope with categories: Hair cut, Nails, Massage, Make up, etc.
•Childcare envelope with categories: Childcare, Summer Camp, Babysitting, Tuition, etc.

Just like Ascend for your business, you can customize your home finances to meet your needs. If you want to see this in action, register for our free Prosperity for Home webinar any time. If you are interested in adding an additional portfolio to start managing your home finances, please contact us in Live Chat (via the support page of our website) or send us an e-mail at support@ascendlive.com  We’ll be happy to help you. Managing your personal finances in Ascend will help you really see where money is going and how you can truly spend on purpose.

Every now and then we all use cash for a business expense, and although we know the IRS likes to see business expenses paid from our business account – well, each of us at one time or another may have used a personal account for a business expense.  You can track cash expenses or business expenses paid from your personal account (an account not managed in your Ascend Live business portfolio) and still have one comprehensive expense report come tax time!

Click Deposit, then other.  You will not enter an amount in the amount field - you will instead enter the amount as an Income Category amount (we suggest adding an income category named something like “Posting Expenses Direct to Reports) and then add a line, using the green + sign below that, to post the expense as a negative number to an expense category. It is critical that the income category amount balances the expense category amount and that your left to split area is at $0.00 then just click save and the expense will be posted directly to your report.  Remember, you are entering this as a deposit (other) NOT a spend transaction for it to post to your reports.  Once you do it a few times you’ll get the hang of it!

To see this in action I would recommend watching the video tutorial “Getting Started Any Other Day Than Jan 1st” as it will help you walk through this process.  You can access this video tutorial as well as many others on the support page of our website:

http://www.ascendlive.com/vidtutorials.aspx