If you have recurring bills or expenses that you pay quarterly, semi-annually or annually that you need to save up for throughout the year then we would recommend creating Funds for those items. This helps ensure you’re prepared when those expenses come around. The steps to create a Fund are outlined here.
When your Fund is set up in EveryDollar with the Original Balance already set and you get paid and want to add money to it, you will simply update the Planned column for the Fund with the amount you want to add or deposit to it. The "Planned" column acts as the deposit amount for funds. So basically, if you are adding $100 to your Auto Insurance Bill Fund (or any other fund you create), you will simply add $100 to the "Planned" column for the fund and that's it. You will not add a transaction at all. As long as your balance and "Planned" amounts are correct, your numbers should all line up.
You can also delete any transfer transactions that may come through from your bank account if you transfer money from one account to another as you will not need those.
If your Carryover Balance is not correct for one of your Funds then you will add a transaction to make up for the difference, so for example if the Carryover Balance is $100 less than it should be then you would need to add an income (+) transaction for $100 to the Fund to correct that. If the Carryover Balance is $100 more than it should be then you would need to add an expense (-) transaction for -$100 to the Fund to correct it.
For the most part, you will mainly only be adding transactions to Fund items when you are using some of the money in your funds and so you will mostly be adding expense transactions to the fund. When you do this the "Remaining" column will decrease and the "Spent" column will increase for the fund.
💡 Pro Tip: If you have bills or expenses that you pay every other month or once or twice per year and you do not need to save for them throughout the year then we would recommend just making them a regular budget item (not a Fund) and setting the Planned column amount to $0 if you are in a month where you do not have to pay the bill and then just update the Planned column amount when you are in a month when you do have to pay the bill.