I also get paid near the end of the month, the way I handle it in Actual is I budget at the beginning of the month with the money I have at that point. When the salary comes in, I click on the now non-zero unbudgeted amount and select “Hold for next month”, which moves the amount to the next month for budgeting purposes (the transaction keeps the correct date). It is an extra step, but I have two jobs, both of which pay on different dates, which also vary with weekends and holidays, so I don’t think there is a better way in my case.

Actually, I just had a look at the docs and it seems the holding for next month can be toggled to be automatic. Will have to try that https://actualbudget.org/docs/budgeting/#automatic-holding-of-funds

“That guy” works full time as a kernel developer on the Linux memory management.