update starting fresh doc, and add simpleFIN call outs (#305)

mostly some more detailed advice in the starting fresh doc. Im trying to
make the budgeting advice be more centralized instead of being in random
places

A few minor tweaks

A few call outs that simplefin is not just a community thing anymore

docs/budgeting/categories.md

@@ -67,6 +67,8 @@ Click the paper icon and type in your note.
 
 ![](/static/img/categories/CategoryAddNote.png)
 
+Notes support Markdown syntax for formatted notes.
+
 ## Viewing Category Notes
 
 Once a Category has been given a note it is possible to view it in one of two way.
@@ -78,15 +80,3 @@ Once a Category has been given a note it is possible to view it in one of two wa
 2. Click the paper icon, this will open the edit box where you can see the note content and also edit the note should you wish.
 
 ![](/static/img/categories/CategoryEditNote.png)
-
-## Tips for new users
-
-If you don't have much experience tracking your finances yet, we recommend starting simple. For this reason, Actual only comes with a few basic categories by default. Don't worry about tracking things super closely. Tracking a few basic areas of your life will still give you profound insights on your spending.
-
-The basic categories are:
-
-- **Food:** all grocery and restaurant spending.
-- **General:** everything else (you probably want to split this up over time, but having a general category is nice for a lot of miscellaneous expenses).
-- **Bills:** all bills that charge that same amount each month. Some people like to split this up too, but we think reports will eventually make this clearer.
-- **Bills (Flexible):** All bills that charge various amounts (power, water, bi-monthly bills, etc).
-- **Savings:** any transfers to savings accounts. These are treated as expenses because it's moving money out of the budget, but if you add your savings account on the budget you'll want to budget all that money accordingly instead.

docs/budgeting/index.md

@@ -98,19 +98,3 @@ Sometimes you want to keep a negative balance in a category across months. The m
 1. Click an amount in the **Balance** column for a category.
 2. Select **Rollover overspending**
 3. For all future months, a negative balance will stay in the category
-
-## Recommended workflow for new users
-
-This might sound complex, but it's really not! You can get as detailed as you want, but it's still very effective if you keep it simple. If you're not sure where to start, we recommend this simple workflow:
-
-1. We recommend opening a savings account if you don't have one. Add it in Actual as an off-budget account.
-2. Stick with the basic categories (you will probably add a few more, but don't overdo it).
-3. Try to budget less than what you are making so that you are saving money each month.
-4. When the month ends, copy last month's budget. Whatever is leftover in **To budget** is the amount of money that you saved.
-5. Note that this automatically will cover overspending from last month by taking it out of the leftover **To budget** amount. You're effectively taking out of savings.
-6. Budget the leftover **To budget** amount to the **Savings** category
-7. Transfer the leftover amount to your savings account and categorize the transactions with the **Savings** category
-
-If you don't have a savings account, you can simply skip step 7. The **Savings** category will build up a balance and represent the savings that you are keeping in your account.
-
-This also assumes you have enough income to cover a full month plus any overspending. If you don't, you need to watch your budget more carefully and make sure to cover overspending from other categories.

docs/getting-started/starting-clean.md

@@ -5,65 +5,103 @@ For most users it's best to start fresh with a blank file.
 This guide will walk through setting up a budget file fresh without migrating from a previous budget software export.
 
 ## 1. Setting up Accounts
-It is recommended to add all accounts you have to Actual including all savings, checking, and investment accounts.
+It is recommended to add all accounts you have to Actual. 
+This includes all savings, checking, and investment accounts.
 These accounts should match what shows up in your Bank or Credit Union.
 For example, if you have a savings, checking, and credit card account with Bank of America, add each as a separate account in Actual.
 ### On or Off Budget
+In Actual, you have the option of on budget accounts and off budget accounts.
 On budget accounts are included towards the funds available in your budget, while off budget accounts are only for tracking.
 Off budget accounts are included in the net worth report.
 It is usually best to err towards putting accounts on budget versus off.
 The most common off budget accounts would be investment type accounts such as a 401(k), IRA, HSA, brokerage account, loans, and asset tracking such as your home equity.
 
-Savings accounts can be off budget, but it is recommended to put them on budget.
-That way you can use the budget categories to view where you plan to use those savings funds in the future.
+Savings accounts can be either on or off budget.
+It is usually easier, and more flexible, to place them on budget.
 
-In some situations it may make sense to put a credit card account off budget. This is generally not recommended unless you are not using that card for any spending and are exclusively paying it off.
+#### Considerations for On Budget Savings
+* No need to categorize transfers between other on budget accounts, simplifying the transfer
+* You can leverage the budget categories to manage what you plan to use your savings for and save for specific goals
+
+#### Considerations for Off Budget Savings
+* Your savings is less tempting to borrow from since it is not visible in your budget
+* Any time you transfer to/from your savings, you need to categorize that transaction.  This sometimes causes confusion since the money wasn't spent
+
+In some situations it may make sense to put a credit card account off budget. 
+This is generally not recommended unless you are not using that card for any spending and are exclusively paying it off.
 
 ### How to Setup Accounts
 The process of adding an account is detailed in [the adding a new account page](../accounts/index.md#adding-a-new-account).
 
-For bank syncing, Actual has built-in support for [GoCardless](../advanced/bank-sync.md) which works for most EU/UK banks.
-For other bank syncing option see the [community projects page](../community-repos.md).
+It is recommended to not pull in transactions from more than a month or two prior to your start date.
+The reason for this is that those old transactions will need to be budgeted or your budget will be out of wack.
+Usually the most effective time frame is to start at the beginning of the month you are currently in.
+
+Start your account by finding the balance in each account at the date you want to start.
+Set that amount as the balance when creating the account.
+If your starting date is before the current date, edit the date on the starting balance transaction to the preferred date.
+
+Once your account has the proper starting balance, add all the transactions between your start date and today.
+You can enter transactions [manually](../transactions/importing.md#manually-add-transactions), via [file import](../transactions/importing.md#import-financial-files), or via bank syncing to pull in transactions.
+For bank syncing, Actual has built-in support for [GoCardless](../advanced/bank-sync.md) which works for most EU/UK banks, and SimpleFIN for US/Canadian banks.
+For other bank syncing options see the [community projects page](../community-repos.md).
+
+An optional step after you have created your accounts and added your transactions is to reconcile the account.
+Reconciling your accounts is something you should get in the habit of doing regularly.
+This confirms that your accounts are accurate compared to what your bank says happened in your account.
+If you manually add transactions this is especially important.
+The process of reconciling your account can be found on [the reconciliation page](../accounts/reconciliation.md)
+
+
 
 ## 2. Setting up your Budget Categories
 
 Now that your accounts are set up and your current balance is accurate, you can start adding budget categories.
-It is easier to merge categories later than it is to manually move transactions to a new category down the road.
+While making these categories, remember that all money entering or leaving your budget needs a category.
 
-By default, Actual will start you off with a few basic expense categories Food, General, Bills, Bills (Flexible), and Savings. Some others you may want to add would be rent/mortgage, taxes, eating out, specific utilities, subscription services, charitable donations, child care, gifts, fun money, or debt payment, just to name a few.
+By default, Actual will start you off with a few basic expense categories.
+If you aren't sure what categories you need, Actual will start you with a few basic ones.
+* **Food**: all grocery and restaurant spending
+* **Bills**: all bills that charge that same amount each month
+* **Bills (Flexible)**: All bills that vary month to month
+* **Savings**: Funds you have saved, or are going to transfer to an off budget savings account
+* **General**: Everything else
+
+Some other common categories you could add would be rent/mortgage, taxes, eating out, specific utilities, subscription services, charitable donations, child care, gifts, fun money, or debt payment.
 
 When creating your categories don't just think of your bills, think of your goals too.
 The categories aren't just a name of an expense, it is a bucket that will hold your money.
-That bucket can be assigned to both normal expenses like bill and groceries, and to savings goals like a down payment on a house or a vacation to Bali.
+That bucket can be assigned to both normal expenses, like bill and groceries, and to savings goals like a down payment on a house or a vacation to Bali.
 If you have an investment account that you contribute to, make a category for that.
 
 You also have the ability to make multiple income categories.
 Maybe you have multiple income streams, make a category for each one.
 You may also want a category for interest and dividends.
 
 ### How to Setup Categories
-While making these categories, remember that all money entering or leaving your budget needs a category.
 
 The process for adding and working with categories is found in [the category guide](../budgeting/categories.md#add-a-category).
+When making categories remember that it is easier to merge categories later than it is to manually move transactions to a new category.
 
 ## 3. Assign Available Funds
 Now that you have your accounts and categories set up, you're at the fun part.
 You get to budget! 
 Actual uses a style of budgeting called zero-sum budgeting, or envelope budgeting.
-In this style you allocate all available funds between you categories.
+In this style you allocate all available funds into your categories.
+If you were budgeting with all cash you would do this by physically putting your cash into envelopes for each category.
 This can be referred to as giving all your money a "job".
 One dollar (or whatever your currency is) may be used for Netflix while the next dollar may be for savings.
 Giving every dollar a job forces you to be honest about where you money is going because each dollar can only have one job.
 
 Every one has a different situation so there isn't a once size fits all way to assign your available funds.
 Detailed below are a few strategies you can use.
 ### The Basics
-The basic idea with zero-sum budgeting is that you can only budget what you have, and all you have should be budgeted.
+A basic idea with zero-sum budgeting is that you can only budget what you have, and all you have should be budgeted.
 If you budget more than you have one month, the over budgeted amount will be deducted from what you have available the next month.
 So to start, decide what your most important categories are.
 Those important categories might be rent, food, and utilities.
 Assign what you need for those categories, then repeat the process for the next most important categories until your to budget amount for the month reaches zero.
-When you get a paycheck or other income continue filling in where the funds are needed.
+When you get a paycheck, or other income, continue filling in where the funds are needed.
 
 As you go along you will start to get a good view of where your money is going.
 If you don't like how things are going, make changes.
@@ -81,12 +119,19 @@ It can be hard to know where to budget your funds when you get paid in the middl
 One way to handle this is called the "month ahead" method.
 This consists of holding everything you make this month and only budgeting it next month.
 The goal is to not need any of this month's income for this month's bills, but pay all of this month's bills with last month's income.
-Actual makes this easy by allowing you to hold your available funds for the next month by clicking the **To Budget** amount at the top of the budgeting screen
+Actual makes this easy by allowing you to hold your available funds for the next month by clicking the **To Budget** amount at the top of the budgeting screen and selecting the "Hold for next month" option. You can read more about this on [the budgeting page](../budgeting/index.md#how-money-rolls-over)
 
 
 ## 4. Keep Budgeting
 Now that you have set up your budget, you can start importing transactions and tracking your spending and saving.
-The best next step is to read through the "Using Actual" section of the documentation.  This section has detailed explainers on the features of Actual and how to use them.  Some of the most useful features are [Rules](../budgeting/rules/index.md), [Schedules](../budgeting/schedules.md), [Reconciliation](../accounts/reconciliation.md), and [Reports](../reports-filters/reports.md).
+Every time a new transaction is imported your process should look something like this:
+1. Give that transaction a category
+2. If you had enough budgeted in that category your done!
+3. If you didn't have enough you need to decide what to do
+    * Move money from a different category
+    * Change the category of the transaction
+
+A good next step is to read through the "Using Actual" section of the documentation.  This section has detailed explainers on the features of Actual and how to use them.  Some of the most useful features are [Rules](../budgeting/rules/index.md), [Schedules](../budgeting/schedules.md), [Reconciliation](../accounts/reconciliation.md), and [Reports](../reports-filters/reports.md).
 
 If you feel a bit overwhelmed, don't worry.
 Starting budgeting is confusing, especially if you are new to zero-sum budgeting.

src/pages/index.js

@@ -195,8 +195,7 @@ export default function Hello() {
             learnMore="/docs/advanced/bank-sync"
           >
             Actual has built in support for bank syncing using goCardless 
-            (EU/UK).  Community importers are also available for Plaid and
-            SimpleFIN (US/Canada).
+            (EU/UK) and SimpleFIN (US/Canada).  Community importers are also available for Plaid.
           </SmallFeature>
           <SmallFeature
             title="Budgeting"