Schedules

A schedule describes a planned transaction — one-time or recurring — with an amount, timing, and optional payee and account. Schedules are staged and written on Save, like the rest of Actual Bench (see Core Concepts).

Open Schedules from the Data Management section of the sidebar.

What you get beyond Actual Budget

• CSV import and export of schedules for bulk setup and backup.
• Impact-aware deletion — every delete shows the schedule’s linked-rule status, auto-post flag, and transaction count first.
• A richer recurrence summary that infers weekday/day anchors from the start date.
• An “Edit as Rule” bridge to open a schedule’s server-managed rule directly in the Rules editor.
• Staged review — set up or adjust several schedules and review them before they touch your budget.

Create a schedule

1. On the Schedules page, open the schedule drawer to add a schedule.
2. Set the name (optional), date (or recurrence), and amount.
3. Optionally assign a payee and account.
4. Save to stage the schedule.

Saving an unchanged schedule closes the drawer without staging a draft. Closing the drawer with unsaved edits prompts for confirmation.

Choose an amount mode

Schedule amounts always use one of three modes:

• Exact (is)
• Approximate (is approx.)
• Range (is between) — with a low and high amount

Missing or null server amounts are treated as an approximate zero.

Configure recurrence

• Frequencies: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, each with a configurable interval.
• Monthly schedules support a specific day of the month (including “last day”) or a weekday-of-week position (for example “2nd Friday”).
• The table’s Repeats summary infers weekday/day anchors from the start date (for example Every 2 weeks on Wednesday), and a Recurring column marks repeating schedules.

Weekend adjustment and end conditions

• Weekend adjustment — when a scheduled date lands on a weekend, move it to the nearest Friday before or Monday after.
• End conditions — run forever, end after N occurrences, or end on a date.

Auto-add and linked rules

• Auto-add — when enabled, Actual Budget automatically posts a transaction when the schedule is due.
• Every schedule has an underlying linked rule managed by the server. Open it in the Rules editor via Edit as Rule in the drawer.

Schedule-generated rules are managed here

Rules linked to schedules appear read-only on the Rules page — the link-schedule action shows the resolved schedule name and cannot be created or edited manually. Manage that behavior from the Schedules page instead.

Edit, delete, and filter

• Edit schedules in the drawer; successfully saved edits stay visible while the background refresh reconciles server data.
• Deleting a schedule (single or bulk) confirms with an impact dialog showing its linked-rule status, auto-post flag, and transaction count.
• Filter by name, payee, account, frequency, and auto-add state.

Import and export

Import and export schedules as CSV (staged before saving).

No “completed” status column

The schedule completed flag is kept for round-tripping server data but is not shown as a status in the UI, because it does not represent a reliable paid/completed state. Imported schedules start active.

Common problems

• A schedule’s rule looks read-only — schedule-linked rules are managed here; use Edit as Rule to open the editable parts.
• The recurrence summary looks wrong — it is inferred from the start date; check the day/weekday anchor and interval.

Related pages

• Rules — schedule-linked rules
• Tags
• Core Concepts