Goals in Monarch help you plan for future savings and track debt payoff in one place. The updated Goals experience is organized around two goal types: Save up goals for saving toward future priorities, and Pay down goals for tracking and paying off debt.

Whether you’re brand new to Goals in Monarch or previously used the older version of Goals, this guide explains how the current Goals experience works and what to check next.

If you previously used the older Goals experience, your goals have been moved into the new system.

For detailed information on each new Goals feature, see below:

Using Save Up Goals

Using Pay Down Goals

Table of Contents

• How Goals Work in Monarch
• If your goals were moved from the older Goals experience
• Fund Allocations: A Smarter Way to Move Money
• Understanding the New Layout
• Where to Go Next
• FAQs

What’s New in Goals 3.0

1. Save up and pay down with two distinct experiences

Goals in Monarch are organized around two experiences:

• Save up goals help you set money aside for future priorities, like an emergency fund, vacation, home, retirement, education, or other savings target.
• Pay down goals help you track and plan debt payoff using your connected liability accounts, like loans, credit cards, mortgages, or other debts.

If you’re new to Goals, choose the goal type that matches what you’re trying to do: save for something or pay down debt. If you previously used the older Goals experience, your savings goals now appear as Save up goals, and debt-related goals are now handled through Pay down.

2. Smart save up goals

Save up goals give you a flexible way to plan, fund, and track savings goals.

• Track progress toward a target: Add a target amount, target date, and planned monthly contribution to see whether a goal is on track, ahead, or at risk.
• Choose which accounts can fund goals: Manage goal-enabled accounts in one place and see how much money is available, allocated, or over-allocated across your goals.
• Use an account’s full balance when it makes sense: For goals like retirement or education, you can use an account’s entire balance and future activity toward one goal.
• Move money with fund allocations: Add money to a goal, withdraw money from a goal, or shift funds between goals and accounts without waiting for transactions to post.
• Link income and transfer transactions: Connect real transactions to a goal so contributions and withdrawals are reflected in goal activity and budget actuals.
• Spend from a goal: Link an expense transaction to a goal when you use money you’ve already saved, without distorting your monthly budget.

If you used the older Goals experience, your savings goals were moved into Save up goals. Review each goal’s target amount, target date, linked accounts, planned contributions, and whether spending should reduce progress.

3. Automatic pay down goals

Pay down goals help you understand debt payoff by using your liability accounts directly.

• Track debt by account: Each liability account can appear as its own pay down goal, so balances, payments, and projections stay tied to the actual account.
• Add payoff details: Add APR, minimum monthly payment, and planned monthly payment to power payoff projections.
• See payoff projections: View principal, projected interest, total principal and interest, and estimated debt-free dates.
• Try payoff scenarios: Use the savings calculator to compare payoff methods and see how extra monthly or one-time payments could affect your timeline and interest.
• Plan debt payments in your budget: Use Save to Budget to add pay down contributions to your budget, or continue budgeting debt payments through expense categories if that better matches your setup.

If you previously used debt goals in the older Goals experience, Pay down may look different. Instead of manually created debt goals, Monarch now uses your liability accounts to power Pay down. Check that the right liability accounts are included and that APR, minimum payment, and planned payment details are filled in.

If your goals were moved from the older Goals experience

If you used the older Goals experience, your goals have been migrated automatically. Your previous savings goals were moved into Save up goals. Debt-related goals are now based on your liability accounts and appear in the Pay down section.

What changed after migration

An important note on migration:

When migrated from the old version of goals to the new version, the timeline chart (which is a new feature and did not exist on the old page) will only show data from the migration date forward. It won't display any pre-migration data.

Why? The old version had significant limitations in tracking goal activities, making it impossible to fully reconstruct historical data on a chart. However, all activity types tracked in the old version are still reflected in the activities list. This includes any transactions that were linked to a goal, which are now represented as fund allocations. Note that the old version didn't track manual adjustments to allocated amounts or balance changes when using the entire account balance option.

Migration contributions

When you migrate from Goals 2.0 to Goals 3.0, Monarch may create one-time migration events to reconcile your old goal balance with the new system.

• These migration events can be included in summary totals (like Contributions) in the Allocations panel.
• They may not appear in your goal’s Activity list (even if Show adjustments is enabled), because migration events are separate from day-to-day Adjustment events.

If your totals look higher than the visible Activity list, this is usually why.

Fund Allocations: A Smarter Way to Move Money

Fund allocations are a way to move money between your accounts and goals with clarity and control. Fund allocations make it easy to add money to a goal when you save more than planned, move money out of a goal when you’re ready to spend, or shift funds as priorities change. Every allocation you make is instantly reflected in your balances and progress, so your goals always match your real financial picture.

Why goal fund allocations are powerful

• Transparent: You’ll always see exactly where your money is coming from and going to.
• Flexible: Move money anytime — no waiting for transactions to post or rules to trigger.
• Simple: One clear action replaces multiple manual steps, with built-in balance checks to keep things accurate.

Allocations are the most direct, intuitive way to keep your financial plan aligned with real-world activity.

Transaction linking

You can link income and transfer transactions to any save-up goal — manually from the transaction drawer, or automatically via rules. Learn more about all the ways to move funds in and out of goals.

Understanding the New Layout

Goals 3.0 introduces a few navigation changes:

Where to Go Next

Now that you’re using to Goals 3.0, here’s where to learn more:

• Using Save Up Goals in Monarch: Create, fund, and track savings goals with fund allocations and budget integration.
• Using Pay Down Goals in Monarch: Track loan balances, project payoff timelines, and simulate extra payments.
• Moving Funds In and Out of Goals: A complete guide to all four ways to move money in and out of save-up goals — including fund allocations, transaction linking, and spending from a goal.

FAQs

• Why did Monarch change Goals? Can I go back to the old version?
• What happened to my old goals?
• Will I lose my old goals or history?
• What happened to rules?
• Can I still link income or transfer transactions to goals?
• Do I need to reselect my goal accounts?

Why did Monarch change Goals? Can I go back to the old version?

We know change can be hard, especially if you had a setup that worked perfectly for you. Goals 3.0 was built from the feedback of thousands of members who wanted clearer tracking, better budget integration, and support for spending from credit cards and more account types.

The new system focuses on your real account balances and progress rather than individual transactions, giving you more accuracy and flexibility. After you explore the new tools, we think you’ll find they make saving and tracking goals easier than ever.

Once your goals have been mingrated, your data lives in the new system, so reverting isn’t possible.

What happened to my old goals?

Your previous goals were moved into the new Goals experience. Savings goals became Save up goals, while debt-related goals are now handled in Pay down using your liability accounts.

Will I lose my old goals or history?

For save up goals, you won’t lose any history. Everything carries forward automatically. You can still view historical data once migration is complete.

For pay down goals, budgeting works differently — they now appear as regular expenses rather than goal contributions.

What happened to rules?

Rules now support transaction linking for Goals! You can create a rule to automatically link Income or Transfer transactions to a save-up goal, so recurring transactions — like a monthly transfer to your savings account — are linked to the right goal without any manual effort.

Head to your Rules page to set them up. Note that existing goal-linking rules from the previous version of Goals won't carry over automatically, so you'll need to recreate them.

Current limitation: Linking expense transactions via rules isn't supported yet, but you can link expense transactions manually from the transaction drawer.

Can I still link income or transfer transactions to goals?

Yes! You can link income and transfer transactions to any save-up goal — either manually from the transaction drawer or automatically via rules. Linked transactions appear in your goal activity and count toward your budget actuals for that goal.

You can also still use fund allocations if you prefer to move money without linking individual transactions — both methods work, and you can mix and match. For a full breakdown of all the ways to move money in and out of goals, see Moving Funds In and Out of Goals.

Do I need to reselect my goal accounts?

Only if you want to change which accounts are enabled globally. Your previous allocations carry over automatically.