Online Money Management with myFinanceTracker™

myTax Centre is provided by H&R Block and is meant to simplify your tax-related needs through the use of new apps. The apps will make planning and managing your taxes easier. You can use myTax Centre to get help with filing your taxes through H&R Block, calculate your RRSP contribution tax benefits, and keep up-to-date on the latest tax news.

H&R Block offers multiple ways of filing your tax returns, depending on which option works the best for you. As an RBC client, you'll have access to exclusive offers for filing your taxes through H&R Block. To view all of the options available to you:

1. Select the "myTax Centre" tab within myFinanceTracker.

2. Choose "File My Taxes".

3. Click on the "Start for Free" button.

Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) is an important investment vehicle for tax reduction purposes. The RRSP Tax Benefits allows you to estimate your tax savings. To estimate what your tax benefits will be, go to the RRSP Tax Benefits and enter the following information into the provided fields:

4. RRSP Deduction Limit: You will find this on your previous year's notice of assessment

5. Taxable Income: Your salary is usually a good baseline value

6. Province: Your province of residence is needed, as the tax rules in each province are different.

7. Contribution Amount: This is the amount you are planning to contribute to your RRSP this year. You can change the amount to see the tax benefits from different contributions.

Making a contribution to your RRSP can reduce your tax liability. A financial advisor can advise if an RRSP loan is right for you.

The Dashboard displays your financial Apps, most of which contain your account information. You will see your RBC Royal Bank banking or credit card accounts, including any other accounts you have linked. Choose the “Link an Account” link to add additional accounts.

The “Account Summary” page displays a list of your individual account names, including linked RBC accounts and linked accounts from other financial institutions, allowing you to access them from the “Account Details” page. You have several “Account Summary” view options available: All Accounts, My Groups, My Bill Pay Accounts, and My Financial Accounts. Once you have selected an “Account Summary” view, this will be the default view each time you access this page until you decide to change it. You will see the balance for each account at the time of the last account update.

The “Last Updated” field provides information about when the linked account information was last updated. For example, if the “Last Updated” field displays "2 hours ago," it means that the linked account data was last updated 2 hours ago. If you want to update the linked account information, select the “Update” link below the account name.

Each time you use myFinanceTracker, your RBC banking and credit card accounts are automatically updated. There is no need to update your accounts manually.

“Link Account” and “Add Asset/Liability” are Quick Links on the “Account Summary” page that allow you to add linked accounts.

To refresh an individual linked account, select the “Update” link below the account name within each section. RBC Royal Bank banking and credit card accounts will automatically be updated with every sign in.

You can access detailed information about any of your accounts by selecting the “Account Name” link within any section. The link takes you to that account's “Account Details.”

To edit your linked accounts information, choose the account name to access the “Account Details.” From the “Account Details,” select the “Edit Account” link to enable the editing feature.

A nickname can help you distinguish one account from another. For example, you might have an investment account and a personal account with the same financial institution. To add or update the nickname associated with an account,

1. Choose the account name to open the “Account Details.”
2. Select the “Edit Account” link.
3. Enter a nickname for the account in the “Nickname” field.
4. Select “Save Updates” for the changes to take effect.

Manual transactions are transactions that may have been established outside standard online activity, like a cheque you wrote or a recurring expected activity such as a payroll deposit.

By creating manual transactions, you can keep track of all non-online transactions you have made and include these transactions when reports are generated.

Select the "Add Manual Transactions" button on the "Financial Calendar" page.
When you click on the "Add Manual Transactions" button, a window will open where you will need to specify the following:

1. Account: If you are using myFinanceTracker for more than one account, make sure you are adding a transaction to the right account.
2. Type: Select whether the transaction is a Deposit or Withdrawal.
3. Date: Enter the date on which the transaction is expected to happen. This date can even be a date that has passed so that you can indicate a transaction that has already cleared.
4. Amount: Enter the amount of the transaction.
5. Description: Enter a brief description of what the transaction is about (For example: “Birthday gift for Dad.”)
6. Memo: Use this to help you remember the transaction.
7. Occurs: Specify whether the transaction is "Once,” "Weekly,” "Bi-weekly,” "Monthly,” "Every Month” or "Annually.”
8. Category: Select the category to which the transaction belongs (For example: Clothing/Shoes)
9. Class: Select the class under which this transaction can be grouped from the options provided.
10. Cheque #: Enter the cheque # used for making the transaction.
11. Cleared: Check the box whether the transaction has cleared or not.
12. Select "Save Transaction" when you’re done to add the manual transaction.

You might want to edit a manual transaction if something has changed or if you realize there's a mistake to an entry amount.

To edit existing manual transactions:

1. Select the description of the transaction that you wish to edit. The “Update Manual Transaction” page will appear.
2. Amend the transaction information as desired.
3. Select “Cleared” to indicate the transaction has already been cleared, or select “Cancelled” to cancel the transaction.

A transaction can be categorized under any of the available transaction categories, including the categories you create.

To categorize a transaction:

1. On the "Transactions" page under the "Category" header, select the “Category” link.
2. When the dropdown menu appears, select the new category.
3. The new category will be automatically updated for that transaction.

If you want to assign a single transaction to more than one category, it can be "split.” Splitting a category allows you to allocate it across multiple categories or subcategories. For example, you can split a purchase from a grocery store into individual categories, such as "Groceries,” "Healthcare,” and "General Merchandise.”

To split a transaction:

1. On the “Transactions” page next to the transaction name, select “Split.”
2. When the popup page appears, complete the fields and select the additional categories in which this transaction should be allocated to.
3. Select the “Save Split Transaction” button.

Note: Because of the large number of account transactions that can be stored, it may take the system a day or more to "learn" the new category rule and automatically apply it to future transactions.

With Advanced Display Options, you can customize which transactions are displayed based on your specific criteria, such as Category, Date, Amount, etc.

To view the Advanced Display Options, select "Show Advanced Display Options" located directly under the "Account(s)" drop down menu.

The Cash Flow Analysis Chart report provides a graphic representation of your income versus expenses over a specified period of time. At the bottom of the Cash Flow Analysis Chart report you will see the same data presented as a table. Each cell in the table is a link that takes you to the transactions that match that particular total. You can choose to run the Cash Flow Analysis Chart report either for the past 3, 6 or 12 months; and this year or last year.

The Cash Flow Analysis Chart report also displays the average monthly net cash flow and total net cash flow for the selected period.

To include a projected cash flow in Cash Flow Analysis Chart report:

1. Select the time period for which you want the Cash Flow Analysis Chart report to be generated from the “Select Time Period” dropdown menu.
2. Select “Show More Charting Options.”
3. Select the “Include Projected Cash Flow” check box.
4. Select “Show” for the Cash Flow Analysis Chart report to appear.

To include the transactions that are classified as business expenses in the Expense Analysis Chart report:

1. Select the “Include Business Expenses in Expense Analysis” check box from the “Expense Analysis Chart” page.
2. Select “Show” for the updated Expense Analysis Chart report to appear.

You can choose to view the expense analysis report for either all accounts or for individual account groups that you created. To view the expense analysis chart for an account group:

• Select the group from the “Group View” dropdown menu.
• Select “Show” for the Expense Analysis Chart page to display the expense analysis report for your account/account group.

The Expense Analysis Chart report provides a pie chart and a tabular representation of your expenses broken down by category.

The Expense Analysis Chart report displays expenses grouped by category, percentage of total spending, and the amount spent for the specified time period. The Expense Analysis Chart report displays the top 12 spending categories.

Select a category to drill down and view all the transactions used to calculate the Expense Analysis Chart. You can choose to see the Expense Analysis Chart report for 1, 3, 6, 12 months, or customize to another time frame like last week, this week or your entire spending history.

You can also choose to manage your spending better by clicking the “Set Budget Goals By Expense Category” link. The link will take you to the “Set Budget Goals and Alerts” page where you can create a budget and choose alerts that will notify you when a threshold you define has been triggered.

You can view your personalized transaction reports based on the search criteria such as category, group or time period. You can also narrow down your search by providing the key words.

You can select the account for which you want to view the account trends chart from the “Select Account(s)” dropdown menu.

The Net Worth Change displays how the value of your Net Worth has altered in both dollars and as a percentage for a specific period. You can select the “View Net Worth Chart” link to see changes in your Net Worth over time.

Select the “View Net Worth Chart” link to open a page that displays several charted views of your Net Worth. You'll see:

• A historical weekly balance bar chart for assets and liabilities with a Total Net Worth overlaying them. You can mouse over any of the assets or liabilities bars, or the net worth line, to see the exact balance for that point in time.
• A tabular breakdown of the accounts that make up your assets and liabilities and shows the start date and balance compared to the current balance. This allows you to see which accounts are responsible for significant changes to the Net Worth total.
• A current Net Worth table that shows total Net Worth, assets and liabilities. If myFinanceTracker is unable to verify the total for one or more accounts, you will see this disclaimer: "*Some fields may not have been included in the calculation of the Net Worth total for this month."
• A pie chart that shows the current allocation of balances between asset accounts. You can mouse over any wedge of the pie to show an account's exact balance. If there is only one asset account, the pie chart is a solid color.
• An allocation pie chart that shows the current allocation of balances between liability accounts. You can mouse over any wedge of the pie to show the exact balance for that account. If there is only one liability account, the pie chart is a solid color.

For historical charting purposes, myFinanceTracker stores and displays one weekly data point for each account balance for up to 12 months. Because data freshness is impacted by site availability and user activity, myFinanceTracker stores the last available balance data for any given account, starting with the last day of the week and moving backward until a valid balance is available. Note that the historical chart is built on a cumulative basis. At the end of each month, the Net Worth value is stored to create, over the subsequent months, a rolling 12-month chart. Because of this fact, when you initially view the chart, you may only see a limited number of data.

For point-in-time charting purposes myFinanceTracker uses the latest data available for the accounts being charted, beginning with the current data and moving backward until valid data is available. This corresponds with what is shown in the application (generally data is current after a refresh, but may not be current if there is a refresh error).

You can choose to view your “Net Worth Statement” for all accounts or for individual account groups that you created. In order to view the “Net Worth Statement” for an account group, you must select the check box next to Net Worth on the “Add or Edit Account Group” page.

To select a different account view:

• Select the account/account group from the “Select Group” dropdown menu.

To select which accounts you want to display in the “Net Worth Statement:”

1. Click the “Preferences” link.
2. On the “Customize Net Worth Display” page, select or clear the check boxes next to the account name for the accounts that you want to display in the “Net Worth Statement.”
3. Click the “Update Settings” to save your changes.

Net Worth Chart is a report that shows your net worth as it changes over time. You can select the period and account type for which you want to view the net worth change.

Assets, liabilities, and net worth are shown in blue, red, and black. The blue bars indicate the value of your combined assets for each data shown. The red bars indicate your combined liabilities. The points along the black line are your net worth which is calculated after deducting the liabilities from your assets, as of each date.

You can view your balance change for each account and also the percentage of change. If you have selected the time period as 3 months, then you can view your current balance against the past 2 weeks. For 6 months and 12 months, you can view your current balance against the last month.

You can view your assets that are allocated as per market value, account balance, and class. Market value depicts the current value of your assets. Account balance shows the current balance of your investment accounts and class classifies your asset type such as Mutual Fund, Stock or Bonds.

Account Trends Chart is a report that shows your account balance at different intervals. You can specify the time frame you wish to view your account trends for.

Setting a budget helps you simplify your personal expenses and perform timely checks to avoid overspending. It also helps you understand your spending habits in order to meet your personal budgetary goals.

You can set budget goals to maximize your ability to increase savings or reduce debt. As time progresses, you can re-evaluate and adjust your individual budgets based on new awareness of your financial activities and spending habits.

You can view your spending by category for the current month as well as an average monthly spend which is calculated over the past 6 months. After reviewing your spending, you can set budget goals to make sure you are staying on target.

Budget goals can be set for individual categories and/or for total income or expenses.

You can choose to receive budget status reports on a weekly and/or monthly basis. Budget status reports contain the amount you have spent in each category compared to your budget target for all "included" categories.

You can also choose to be notified when the total amount spent/earned in any category comes within a particular percentage or threshold of your desired budget goal.

To configure a budget status report:

1. Enter the monthly budget goal amount for each category.
2. Select “Save Changes.”

You can access the Financial Calendar by selecting the tab at the top of each web page.

The Financial Calendar displays all of your bills due, transactions, projected balance(s) and fund transfers that are either due or scheduled in the current month. Bills, payments and transfers are noted on the exact due date in the calendar.

You can also add or edit manual transactions by selecting the link on the single day view on the right of the Financial Calendar.

1. The “Current Balance” is the total amount of all of your transactions that have cleared.
2. The “Projected Balance” is the sum of your available current balance and all your transactions scheduled for a future date. Transactions that are scheduled for the future are called “Projected Transactions.”
3. You can select the “Projected Balance” link to know how projected balances are calculated, how to improve the accuracy of projected balances and other related information. The link is displayed at the bottom right of the Financial Calendar.

The options in the “View” dropdown menu are Bills, Transfers, Balances and Transactions. When you select all or some of the options, the corresponding details of those accounts will be displayed in the Financial Calendar. Similarly, when you de-select any of the options, the respecting details of those accounts will not be shown.

View the details of all accounts or a particular account by selecting it from the “Show” dropdown menu. You can view accounts related only those account types that are selected in the “View” dropdown menu. For example, if you have selected accounts related to “Bills and Balances,” then your bill pay accounts and banking accounts will be displayed in the dropdown menu. Accounts related to fund transfers and transactions will not be shown.

You can view the calendar information for the previous/next month by selecting the “Previous Month” or “Next Month” links from the “Financial Calendar” page. You can also choose to review the financial calendar by selecting an account group type from “Select Account(s)” and a specific month from the month filters.

The Financial Calendar displays all transactions such as withdrawals, the projected balance in individual banking accounts and any manual transactions.

1. Use the “Show” and “For This Month” filters to choose the account type and month you want to see on the Financial Calendar and select “Update.”
2. Select a bill on the single day view to mark it as “Paid” or “To be Paid” on the “Bill” or “Payment” page depending on the status of a bill. You can see the unpaid bills on the monthly and day views.
3. Select a payment on the single day view. You can view the payee name, payment date, payment amount and the payment status such as failed, cleared or scheduled.
4. Select a transfer on the single day view. You can view the transfer scheduled or cleared and the amount.
5. Use the “Add Manual Transaction” link on the single day view to add a manual transaction. You can also edit existing manual transactions or delete transactions.

The Financial Calendar is shaded to distinguish between past, current and future days. Days that have already passed are shaded. Holidays, Saturdays and Sundays are also shaded.

The icons on the Financial Calendar indicate the following:

•   indicates Projected Balance
•   indicates a deposit made to the account
•   indicates a future bill
•   indicates a recurring bill

The day block view is divided into 7 horizontal slots. You can see the date and the holiday information in the first slot. You can see the balance, bills, payments, funds transfers and transactions in the rest of the slots. If there are more than 6 transactions, the last slot will display "More..."

You can get a detailed view of your bills due, projected balance and manual transactions. You can select a bill to mark it as “Paid” or “To be Paid” depending on the status of the bill.

Similarly, you can add a manual transaction by selecting the link. Editing, updating and deleting are some of the actions you can perform from the single day view.

myFinanceTracker has a predefined set of transaction category names. Changes made to the transaction category names are saved and will be displayed in the categories dropdown menu.

You can edit a transaction category name on the “Manage Categories” page:

1. Provide the personalized category name you wish to use for each of the predefined categories.
2. Select “Save Changes” for changes to take effect.

The "Category Rules" page allows you to create your own category rules for transactions. These customized rules can be used to identify and correctly categorize transactions — such as your paycheque — that the automatic category rules may not be able to identify.

For example, you can create a rule to automatically categorize your monthly rent and another rule to automatically identify and categorize your paycheque.

After you create a category rule, any future transactions that meet your rule's criteria will be categorized accordingly. The categories of your past transactions will not be affected by your new rules unless you apply your category rule by selecting the “Run All Rules” link from the "Category Rules" page.

Create a category rule by following these steps:

1. Enter the part of the transaction description that you would like your rule to categorize. For example, enter "Payroll" if your paycheque transaction description includes the word "Payroll" (e.g., "Payroll as of Nov_10_10").
2. Enter a transaction amount.
3. You can optionally enter a numeric or a percentage offset to this amount. If the amount in your rule, offset by this number or percentage, matches the transaction amount, then your rule will categorize the transaction. For example, if you specify the transaction amount as $3000 and select "+/- $1.00" from the dropdown menu, all transactions between $2999 and $3001 will be categorized under this category.
4. Select the category under which you want this rule to categorize your transaction.
5. Select “Save Category Rule” to save the rule.

This rule will now appear in the list of rules under "Your Category Rules."

Custom category rules can be run based on the priority assigned to each of them. You can increase or decrease the priority of a category rule by selecting the up or down "Set Priority" arrows next to each rule.

Please note that your rules will be executed in the descending order of their priorities. The first matching rule will determine the category of the transaction.

You can apply the category rules to your transactions by clicking “Run All Rules” from the “Category Rules” page. myFinanceTracker will categorize or re-categorize all historical transactions when you apply the rule.

Note: These rules are not applicable for historical transactions that you manually categorized or re-categorized.

Please refer to the following table for an explanation of each category. You can use this as a guideline as you select categories for your rules.

Category Name Meaning

The "Account Groups" page displays the bank account(s) within myFinanceTracker.

You may change the view as required, using the dropdown menu, to display “All Account Groups,” “My Groups” and “My Bill Pay Accounts.”

The “Add Account Group” page allows you to create groups for related accounts for reporting purposes. Shared accounts owned by other users can also be included in your groups.

To add an account group, follow these steps:

1. From the “Account Groups” page, select “Group Accounts.”
2. Select “Create Account Group.”
3. Specify a name for the account group you are creating.
4. Select the accounts that are to be associated with the group that is being created.
5. Select “Create Account Group.”

The “Manage Account Groups” page allows you to manage your account groups. You can update, modify or delete existing account groups, and also create new account groups.

Editing an existing account group allows you to add or remove accounts belonging to an account group and to select the pages in myFinanceTracker that must use the account group for reporting purposes.

To edit an account group:

1. From the “Manage Account Groups” page, select “Edit” for the account group that you want to edit.
2. Select the accounts that are to be associated with the group that is being created.
3. Select “Update Account Group.”

You can delete existing account groups by following these steps:

1. From the “Manage Groups” page, select “Delete” against the account group that you want to delete.
2. Select “Continue” to complete the deletion.