Aspire Budgeting

Diagnostics

Published on June 11, 2026

The Diagnostics panel in the Aspire Budget add-on scans your spreadsheet for common data integrity issues — things that might not cause obvious errors but can lead to inaccurate balances, broken reports, or unexpected behavior.

How to run diagnostics

  1. Open the Aspire Budget add-on sidebar (Extensions → Aspire Budgeting → Open Sidebar)
  2. Navigate to the Diagnostics section
  3. Click to run the check

The panel will scan your spreadsheet and report any issues it finds.

What diagnostics checks for

Missing starting balances

If you’ve added an account on the Configuration tab but haven’t created a starting balance transaction for it, diagnostics will flag it. Without a starting balance, that account’s balance starts at $0 — which means your total Available to budget and Dashboard figures will be wrong.

Fix: Add a starting balance transaction on the Transactions tab for each flagged account.

Orphaned category references

If a transaction references a category that doesn’t exist on the Configuration tab (perhaps you renamed or removed it), diagnostics will flag those transactions. This can happen when:

  • You rename a category after logging transactions
  • You hide a category that still has active transactions this month
  • You manually typed a category name instead of using the dropdown

Fix: Update the affected transactions to use a valid category from the dropdown.

Orphaned account references

Similar to categories — if a transaction references an account name that no longer matches what’s on the Configuration tab, it’ll be flagged.

Fix: Update the transaction to use the correct account name.

Data validation issues

Diagnostics may flag cells where data validation (dropdowns) is missing or broken. This can happen after row insertions/deletions that shift the validation ranges.

Fix: In mild cases, re-select the correct value from the dropdown. In severe cases, you may need to re-apply data validation to the affected cells or restore from version history.

When to run diagnostics

  • After major changes — if you renamed categories, reorganized accounts, or made structural edits
  • When something feels off — balances don’t add up, reports show unexpected values
  • Periodically — once a month as part of your monthly review for peace of mind
  • After your first CSV Import — to catch any category mismatches from imported data

Diagnostics won’t catch everything

The diagnostics panel checks for data structure issues. It won’t find:

  • Transactions with wrong amounts (typos)
  • Transactions in the wrong account or category (misclassification)
  • Missing transactions that were never entered
  • Formula damage from deleted rows

For those issues, reconciliation is your primary tool.

Tips

  • Run diagnostics before troubleshooting other issues. If your balances don’t match, diagnostics might immediately surface the cause (orphaned category, missing starting balance).
  • Address flagged issues promptly. They don’t cause crashes, but they silently skew your numbers.
  • If diagnostics shows many issues, it might be faster to do a fresh start rather than fixing each one individually.