Hi all!
I’m just starting to try the Tiller Foundation Template. I’m really excited about the Net Worth tracker and the Foundation Template concept in general. However, I have been mainly using the Tiller Monthly Budget up to this this point, and it seems that it is incompatible. The Budget in the Tiller Foundation Template looks nice, but it seems somewhat simpler.
What are the main differences in these two budgets?
Hi @taylor,
Great question!
I’m guessing when you say the Tiller Monthly Budget you mean the Tiller Budget (that has a rollover column on the budget dashboard).
The major difference between the Tiller Budget and the Foundation Template is the rollover concept. Rollovers are like virtual savings accounts and make envelope or zero sum budgeting possible, if those are your preferred methods. It has a period interval of your choosing (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly) that is created automatically at the start of each period. You can also use these cool dynamic shortcuts to adjust your budgets or rollovers. It’s all powered by the Budgets History sheet (it’s hidden by default). Finally, it offers a savings goal tracking feature.
This template has some performance issues. It can run very slowly in the browser in some cases and sometimes the script that controls the period create fails and the period is missing requiring you to manually run that script.
The Foundation Template as a budget is way more simple to use, set up, maintain, and understand. It allows you to set up an annual budget starting with whatever month you choose on the Categories sheet. It doesn’t use heavy scripts so it’s a lot faster. It offers monthly and annual cash flow analysis and projections. It also includes an Insights sheet with quick spending and balance insights.
Because of the way these two budgets expect you to set budget amounts for categories they are incompatible with each other. The Foundation Template already has a budget in it, there isn’t a need for a second one. The Foundation Template was built off our “Tiller Monthly Budget” a distinct budget from which we adopted the Yearly Budget and Monthly View (now call Monthly Budget) tabs (even more tab name confusion, right 
?)
Finally, the major difference I’ve personally seen with customers is the level of complexity and learning curve to get started. The Tiller Budget, if you want to use the rollover or savings goal features is way more complex and has a higher learning curve and thus a greater time investment in understanding how it works. This is mostly because of the rollover and rollover adjustment concept.
The Tiller Budget template is supported in and by our community. The Foundation Template is supported by the CS team via support@tillerhq.com or the chat window.
Hopefully that is a comprehensive comparison that others will also find useful!
Let me know if you need any clarification.
Heather
Ty for this! This def helped clarify some of my outstanding questions/concerns.
Great post. Cleared up some confusion for me. One suggestion: I found lots of articles and videos on the Tiller Budget, while I was working out of the Foundation Template. Could a link to this article be added at the bottom of some of those (older) help articles?
And a follow-up question:
Without the rollover categories, what are some methods in the Foundation Template for tracking how much I save towards a particular goal? For instance, I’m setting aside money for multiple annual expenses and for vacation, and want to be sure I don’t spend money I need for bills on an early vacation.
Hi @phil
That is a great question, about how to track the savings. It’s not an answer I have off the top of my head at this time, but maybe some clever person will reply here with their method.
I used the foundation template to get set up, then researched how I could do a biweekly budget and found the “Tiller Powered Financial” template that has the biweekly budget I want. But the foundation
template comes with a monthly budget. How do I get the biweekly into my Foundation?
Thanks!
Hi @Njohneer,
There isn’t a way to get the bi-weekly budgeting option in the Tiller Foundation template. The Foundation template is a monthly/yearly budget template only.
If you prefer to use a bi-weekly budgeting interval the only option is the Tiller Budget (installed via the Tiller add-on). If you’ve spent time customizing the Foundation Template, you can use the Migration Helper in the Tiller Labs add-on to transition your customized transactions/categories/manual balances.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
Heather
I will try the migration helper. I didn’t know about that. Thank you!
Hi Phil,
I’m experiencing a similar thing and the best I could come up with is the following:
In my case, most savings goals are aligned with specific savings bank accounts (digital mimic of envelope method). So at the end of every month I’ll transfer whatever is going to my savings account, and the “outbound” transaction (from checking to savings) will be my savings category while the other will simply be a transfer.
It’s a little wonky and only work because I transfer my savings to a savings account. But that is one solution for using the “Foundations” version of budgeting to mimic the “Envelope” concept of savings.
I had similiar issues, so I created this sheet that will work with the existing sheets. I have just added savings targets to the system and am testing it now. If you are interested I will post as well . here is a screenshot.
Here is the link to version 1.3 ( does not have savings targets yet)
All, I posted the version that has Savings Targets. Here it is
https://community.tillerhq.com/t/envelope-system-with-funding-templates/920/29?u=richl
Pretty nifty!!
Too complex for my use case but really cool and I definitely support your vision
