Budget rollover carries the gap between last month's target and last month's actual spend into this month's target. Under by $400 in August and September's target is $400 higher. Over by $400 and it's $400 lower. It's off by default and you switch it on one account at a time, on Pro plans and above.
Without it, an account starts every month on the same number no matter how the last one went. A quiet month is simply gone on the 1st, and a heavy one is never paid back.
How it works
On the first of each month, Pace fetches what the account actually spent in the month that just ended and compares it with that month's target. The difference becomes this month's carry, and Pace adds it to your base target.
An account set to $10,000 that spent $9,600 in August starts September on $10,400. If September then spends $10,100, October starts on $10,300, because the $300 still owing from August carries through. Each month's sum uses the previous month's adjusted target rather than its original one, so nothing is double counted and nothing is lost.
The sum runs once, in the early hours of the 1st, in the account's own timezone. An account set to Sydney rolls at Sydney's start of month. Pace reads spend once and doesn't estimate: if a platform can't report last month's figures, no carry is written for that month and your workspace gets an alert saying so.
Switch it on
- Open the account and click the Settings (gear) icon.
- Click the Budget tab.
- Turn on Budget rollover.
- Click Save.
Nothing changes this month. Rollover starts at the next 1st, and the panel tells you the date it will first run.
Note: Budget rollover is available on Pro, One, Agency and Founder plans. On lower plans the switch is locked and shows what an upgrade gives you.
Reading the three lines
With rollover on, the Budget tab shows three figures:
- Base target is the number you set. It's still yours to edit at any time.
- Carried from [month] is the adjustment, with its sign. Positive means last month came in under. Negative means it went over.
- Effective target is what the account is actually pacing to this month: the base plus the carry.
Editing the base target mid-month doesn't touch the carry. The effective target simply becomes your new base plus the same carry.
Elsewhere in Pace you'll see the effective target, not the base. Rows with an adjustment carry a small marker; hover it to see the base and the carried amount. Client reports add a footnote naming the amount carried and the month it came from.
Campaign groups
Groups are included automatically and follow the account's switch. There's no separate control on a group.
Each group's own gap is carried on that group, so a group that came in under its own budget gets that amount back rather than the money being absorbed by the rest of the account. Group carries are a share of the account's carry, not an extra amount on top of it. A group that didn't exist for the whole of last month has no history to compare against, so it's skipped that month and picks up from the next one. A group inside a flight that has already started is skipped too: a flight is its own budget period, so there's no monthly target to be under or over by.
Reset carry
Reset carry in the Budget tab zeroes the current month's adjustment and leaves the base target alone. Use it when the month it came from wasn't representative, say a client paused for two weeks or a one-off spend spike you don't want repaid.
A reset also clears every campaign group's carry for that month, so the account and its groups always agree — otherwise the groups would keep an adjustment the account no longer has.
You'll be asked to confirm, and the reset is recorded in the account's Changes history, with one entry per group whose carry was cleared. Rollover keeps running from the next 1st.
Turning the switch off does the same thing to the current month. Past months keep the targets they were actually paced against, and switching it back on later starts fresh rather than reviving old carries.
When the target reaches zero
If an account overspent by more than its whole next target, the effective target lands at $0. Pace treats that as a hard stop: it pauses the account's included campaigns for the month even when overspend protection is off, records it in Changes, and sends an alert.
Campaigns start again on their own as soon as the target is positive, whether that comes from next month's carry, an increase to the base target, or Reset carry. The stored carry keeps the full amount, so the debt still chains rather than being quietly forgiven.
An account added part-way through last month
If you connected an account mid-month, Pace compares a full month's target against a partial month of spend, and the first carry can look large. Check it before you rely on it, and use Reset carry if the first month wasn't a fair comparison. From the following month, both sides of the sum cover the same full month.
What rollover doesn't change
- Your plan's managed-spend limit and your bill always count the base target, never the carry. A carry can't tip a workspace over its plan.
- Bulk Budgets CSV export and import, and sheet import, read and write the base target. A carry never round-trips through a spreadsheet.
- Daily Floor accounts don't use rollover, because they don't pace to a monthly target. The switch is unavailable and says so.
- Accounts inside a custom flight, and accounts excluded from pacing, are the same: the switch is unavailable with an explanation.
There's no cap on the size of a carry, no per-group switch, and no back-dating to months before you switched it on.