Paycheck Planner is a local-first desktop application for comprehensive paycheck-based financial planning. Built with security and privacy in mind, all your data stays on your own computer.
- Create a new yearly plan: Set up planning for a specific year
- Open an existing plan: Load any
.budgetfile from your computer - Recent files access: Quick-reopen from automatically tracked recent plans
- Demo mode: Try a fully-populated demo plan to explore features before entering your own data
- Optional encryption: Choose per-plan encryption during setup; keys are stored securely in your system keychain
Walk through initial configuration with an intuitive step-by-step wizard:
- Currency selection: Choose from multiple currency options (USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, etc.)
- Encryption preference: Enable/disable AES encryption for your plan file
- Pay structure: Enter whether you're paid salary or hourly
- Pay frequency: Select weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly pay periods
- Tax assumptions: Configure federal, state, Social Security, Medicare rates, and additional withholdings
- Starting accounts: Create initial accounts (checking, savings, investments, etc.)
- Full pay breakdown: See your complete journey from gross to net pay
- Estimated taxes: View federal, state, Social Security, Medicare, and additional withholdings
- Deductions tracking: Monitor pre-tax and post-tax deductions
- Multiple views: Switch between per-paycheck, monthly, and yearly perspectives
- Expanded cadence views: Use weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly modes
- Paycheck-cadence defaults: Automatically start in your paycheck cadence view with visible cadence cues
- Key metrics dashboard: High-level summary of income, deductions, bills, and remaining funds
- Plan-wide search: Jump directly to settings, sections, and common actions from one searchable overlay
- Customizable tabs: Show/hide dashboard tabs, reorder tabs, manage your view
- Manage Tabs button for tab customization
- All tabs can be shown/hidden (at least one must remain visible)
- Available tabs: Key Metrics, Pay Breakdown, Bills, Loans, Benefits, Taxes
- Drag and drop to reorder tabs
- Tab preferences saved per plan
- Create and manage multiple accounts (checking, savings, investments, etc.)
- Set default destinations for paychecks
- Track account types and purposes
- Add unlimited bills with flexible frequency options:
- Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly
- Quarterly, semi-annually, annually, or custom
- Assign bills to specific accounts
- Automatic calculation of per-paycheck and annual impact
- View total bill allocation vs. remaining funds
- Mark items as discretionary to control what is eligible for automated reallocation
- Automatically rebalance eligible spending categories when Remaining falls below target
- Uses safe-source guardrails (for example discretionary items and configurable contribution categories)
- Review a clear summary of all amount changes after each automated reallocation
- Add any employer-provided benefits (health insurance, FSA, HSA, etc.)
- Configure benefit amount per paycheck or as percentage of gross pay
- Choose pre-tax or post-tax deduction
- Deduct from paycheck or specific account
- Track total benefit costs per paycheck, monthly, and annually
- 401(k) / 403(b): Track traditional, Roth, or after-tax contributions
- IRA accounts: Traditional and Roth IRA contributions
- Pension and other plans: Support for pension plans and custom retirement accounts
- Employee contributions: Dollar amount or percentage of gross pay
- Employer match: Configure match percentage or dollar cap
- Yearly limits: Optional contribution limit tracking with auto-calculate feature
- Deduction from paycheck or account: Choose where contributions come from
- Automatic calculations: See per-paycheck and annual retirement savings
- Track student loans, car loans, personal loans, mortgages
- Monitor payment amounts and frequency
- View total debt service per paycheck
- Granular control over tax withholdings:
- Federal income tax rate
- State income tax rate
- Social Security (6.2% default)
- Medicare (1.45% default)
- Additional withholding amounts
- Configure tax lines as either percentages or fixed dollar amounts to match pay-stub behavior
- Instant recalculation of net pay as you adjust rates
- Keep separate plans for each year
- Copy Plan: Duplicate a plan into a new year to preserve setup and structure
- Clean separation of historical vs. current planning
- Local storage: All data stored as
.budgetfiles on your computer - Optional encryption: Per-plan AES encryption
- Keychain integration: Encryption keys stored in OS keychain (macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Manager, Linux Secret Service)
- Auto-save prompts: Never lose work with save reminders
- Recent files: Automatic tracking of recently opened plans
- Session persistence: Window size, position, and active tab saved and restored
- Undo/Redo support: Reverse or reapply plan edits across core workflows
- Audit history overlay: Review notable changes and roll back targeted edits when needed
- PDF export: Generate comprehensive PDF reports
- Optional password protection for PDFs
- Granular section selection (metrics, pay, accounts, bills, benefits, taxes)
- Professional formatting with all your plan details
- Cmd+, / Ctrl+,: Open Settings
- Cmd+N / Ctrl+N: New budget plan
- Cmd+O / Ctrl+O: Open existing plan
- Cmd+S / Ctrl+S: Save current plan
- Cmd+Z / Ctrl+Z: Undo
- Cmd+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Y: Redo
- Cmd+F / Ctrl+F: Open plan search
- Cmd+Plus / Ctrl+Plus: Zoom in
- Cmd+Minus / Ctrl+Minus: Zoom out
- Cmd+0 / Ctrl+0: Reset zoom
- Keyboard shortcuts reference: View a full list of all available shortcuts from the Help menu
- File menu: New, Open, Save, Close
- Edit menu: Standard editing commands
- View menu: Toggle developer tools (dev builds only)
- Window menu: Minimize, zoom, bring all to front (macOS)
- Help menu: Glossary, keyboard shortcuts reference, support/feedback
- Settings panel: Configure appearance presets, dark-mode behavior, high-contrast mode, zoom/font scaling, and glossary tooltips
- Glossary: Built-in financial terms reference accessible from Help menu or inline tooltips
- Keyboard shortcuts reference: View all available shortcuts in a dedicated in-app dialog, accessible from the Help menu
- In-app feedback: Submit bug reports and feature requests directly from within the app via the Help menu
- About dialog: Version info, credits, license
- Window state: Automatically saves and restores window size, position, and active tab
- Confirmation dialogs: Save prompts before closing unsaved work
- Curated preset pairs: Choose from more polished light/dark appearance presets
- Manual dark-mode overrides: Adjust dark behavior independently when preferred
- High-contrast mode: Boost readability and separation for accessibility-sensitive workflows
- Persistent preference: Appearance choices saved across sessions
- App-wide Lucide iconography replaces legacy emoji indicators
- Account icon picker lets you choose from a larger icon catalog per account
- Interactive tooltips: Hover over or click glossary terms for definitions
- Toggle on/off: Disable glossary tooltips in Settings if preferred
- Searchable glossary: Access full glossary from Help menu
- Deep linking: Open glossary to specific term from inline references
- Real-time validation of numeric inputs
- Currency formatting with proper symbol placement
- Percentage inputs with automatic bounds checking
- Required field enforcement
- Framework: Electron + React + TypeScript
- Build System: Vite
- Encryption: AES (crypto-js)
- Keychain: Native OS integration (keytar)
- PDF Generation: jsPDF with autoTable
- Styling: CSS with CSS variables for theming (light/dark/system modes via
ThemeContext)
- Privacy-conscious users: Keep your financial data on your own computer, not in the cloud
- Detailed planners: Need granular control over paycheck allocation and deductions
- Multi-account managers: Track how income flows to different accounts and bills
- Yearly budgeters: Prefer planning by year with clean separation between periods
- Security-focused individuals: Want optional encryption with OS keychain integration
- Benefits navigators: Need to model complex employer benefits and retirement contributions
- Download the latest release for your platform (macOS, Windows, Linux)
- Install the application
- Launch and choose to create a new plan or try the demo
- Follow the setup wizard to configure your paycheck details
- Start planning by adding accounts, bills, benefits, and other allocations
Official release builds are signed and notarized for macOS. If you still see this warning, it is usually due to a stale or partially downloaded artifact, or because you are running a local unsigned build. To open the app:
Option 1: Terminal command (remove quarantine flag)
- Open Terminal
- Run:
xattr -c "/Applications/Paycheck Planner.app"- Try opening the app again
If your app is in a different location, replace the path with your app's actual location.
Option 2: Right-click to Open
- Right-click (or Control-click) on the app
- Select Open from the menu
- Click Open in the security dialog that appears
Option 3: System Settings
- Try to open the app normally (it will be blocked)
- Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security
- Scroll down to the Security section
- Click Open Anyway next to the message about Paycheck Planner
- Confirm by clicking Open
You only need to do this once. After the first launch, macOS will remember your choice and the app will open normally.
Windows may show a SmartScreen warning for unsigned apps. Click More info and then Run anyway to proceed.
If the AppImage won't run, make it executable:
chmod +x Paycheck-Planner-*.AppImageNote: This is a beta release. All core features are functional, but you may encounter minor issues. Please report any bugs or feature requests via GitHub issues or the built-in support email feature.
For technical documentation, build instructions, and architecture details, see src/README.md.