Transfers
Transfers are transactions created when you move money between your own accounts.
Transfer transactions are special, so PocketSmith deals with them in a special way. To get set up, we recommend first making sure that both accounts involved in the transfer are in PocketSmith. When transferring money between accounts - as long as both accounts exist within PocketSmith - two transactions should be imported into PocketSmith: the expense transaction ↘️leaving one account, and the income transaction ↗️entering the other.
You'll then want to have a transfer category into which you can assign these transactions - assigning them here will automatically mark these transactions as transfers and display the transfer icon next to them - nice!
Marking transactions as transfers means that they won't appear in your PocketSmith reports 📋. Excluding transfer transactions here is important because these types of transactions are really just moving your money around in your accounts (even between banks), but they don't represent income or expense as shown in reports, nor do they affect your overall net worth value.
Examples of transfers include
💰 Moving money into or out of a savings account
💡 Moving money between accounts to pay a bill
💳 Repaying debts like credit cards, loans or mortgages.
Just getting started?
All the details you need to know about setting up transfer categories live here: Dealing with transfers in PocketSmith. You can also find out more about transfer marking here: Transfer marking in PocketSmith
Quick Answers
How do I deal with transfer transactions in PocketSmith?
To ensure that transfers are dealt with accurately in PocketSmith, it’s best to assign transfer transactions to categories that are set up to specifically deal with transfers.
Examples of transfer transactions include: moving money into or out of a savings account, moving money between accounts to pay a bill, repaying debts like credit cards, loans or mortgages. Learn more here: Steps to create a transfer category
Why are some of my transactions incorrectly marked as transfers?
All transactions assigned to your transfer category will be marked as transfers and displayed with the transfer icon so they are easy to recognize within your PocketSmith account. If you notice a transaction has been incorrectly marked with the transfer icon, this could come down to a few things:
My credit card repayments are doubling my expenses - should these be set up as transfers?
It’s a good idea to assign credit card repayments to a transfer category so that when you are repaying a credit card purchase PocketSmith won’t count the repayment of a credit card purchase as an expense.
For detail on how best to set up your credit card transactions check out: Managing credit cards within PocketSmith
My mortgage/loan repayments are doubling my expenses - should these be set up as transfers?
It’s a good idea to assign mortgage or loan repayments to a transfer category. When you have a loan account for your mortgage, the interest transaction out of your loan account represents the expense, not the loan repayment. Assigning loan repayments to a transfer category means that the amount you actually pay off your mortgage (mortgage payment less interest payment) will reduce the loan amount, even though the net worth amount does not change.
How do I remove transfer transactions from reporting in PocketSmith?
Once a transfer category is set up, the category and all its transactions are removed from different areas of reporting. This is useful so that transfers between your accounts aren't counted as income or an expense. You can learn more here: Removing transfer categories from different reports and pages
Why is my transfer budget showing as $0 earned (or $0 spent) on the Budget page?
If you notice that your transfer category is showing as $0 earned or $0 spent on the Budget page, instead of showing the amount transferred, it's likely that you'll need to edit the category type for the transfer category.
For transfer categories, it's best to set the category type to 'Yes, this category can include both income and expenses'. This will For more detail on category types, and how to change them, please see: Category types in PocketSmith