Creating a transfer budget
Transfer budgets are a useful way to track transfers between your transaction accounts or towards your assets and liabilities in PocketSmith. They help to create an accurate forecast on the Calendar page and make it easy to track each of your transfer categories on the Budget page.
In this user guide
Creating a transfer budget on the Budget page
- If you already have a category set up for the transfer, locate the category and click Start (now continue at step 3)
- If you have already created a budget for the category, but need to change it to a transfer budget, click the three-dot menu on the budget row and select Edit / Delete (now continue at step 3)
- If you need to start fresh with a new category, click + New budget. This will open up the budget form. Under the field What is this budget for? add a name for your category e.g. Credit card repayments (now continue at step 3)
- Does this budget repeat (and if so how often)?
- How much?
- Expense or income
You can choose either expense or income - you'll deal with the other side of the transfer soon! - Which account's forecast is this budget for?
If you selected Expense above, chose the account that the transfer comes from; if you selected Income above, chose the account that the transfer goes to.
Note
In order for a transfer category to display correctly on the budget page, the category type needs to be set to 'Yes, this category can include both income and expenses'.
If you notice that your transfer category is showing as $0 earned, or $0 spent, instead of the amount transferred, it's likely that you'll need to edit the category type for the transfer category.
For more detail on category types, and how to change them, please see: Category types in PocketSmith
Creating a transfer budget on the Calendar page
- If you have already created a budget for the category, but need to change it to a transfer budget, locate and click on the budget (now continue at step 3)
- If you need to start fresh with a new category, click on the date of which you'd like to start the transfer budget. This will open up the budget form. Under the field What is this budget for? add a name for your category e.g. Credit card repayments (now continue at step 3)
- Does this budget repeat (and if so how often)?
- How much?
- Expense or income
You can choose either expense or income - you'll deal with the other side of the transfer soon! - Which account's forecast is this budget for?
If you selected Expense above, chose the account that the transfer comes from; if you selected Income above, chose the account that the transfer goes to.
Note
In order for a transfer category to display correctly on the budget page, the category type needs to be set to 'Yes, this category can include both income and expenses'.
If you notice that your transfer category is showing as $0 earned, or $0 spent, instead of the amount transferred, it's likely that you'll need to edit the category type for the transfer category.
For more detail on category types, and how to change them, please see: Category types in PocketSmith
Understanding transfer budgets
The Calendar page
Your forecast is based purely on your budgeted earning and spending, so using transfer budgets ensures that you are accurately projecting your finances into the future.
We recommend having several transfer categories (eg, Credit card repayments, Savings transfers, Mortgage repayments etc), and setting up a budget for each one. Creating distinct transfer categories and budgets means that you can look at a forecasted future balance at any date in the future and know that transfers are being accurately anticipated 🔮
If you are not viewing both accounts that contain the transfer budget on the Calendar page, a transfer budget will be shown in red or green to reflect whether it is an income or expense budget in that account. However, when viewing both accounts that contain both sides of the transfer, the amount will be shown in black (rather than in red or green like income and expense budgets).
The Budget page
You can easily locate a transfer budget on the Budget page to see how you’re tracking for that period. They will show with a transferred amount, compared to spent or earned for income and expense budgets.
Note
In order for a transfer category to display correctly on the budget page, the category type needs to be set to 'Yes, this category can include both income and expenses'.
If you notice that your transfer category is showing as $0 earned, or $0 spent, instead of the amount transferred, it's likely that you'll need to edit the category type for the transfer category.
For more detail on category types, and how to change them, please see: Category types in PocketSmith
Transfer budgets for assets or liabilities
You might transfer money to a loan, debt or asset that is not associated with a transaction account connected to PocketSmith. If this is the case, you can add a liability or asset into PocketSmith and still track transfers to them with a transfer budget! This might be for something like a personal loan, a car loan, or any assets that aren't connected to a transaction account.
There are two main differences for a transfer budget that is accounting for money transferred to a liability or an asset (compared to a transaction account):
- Creating a liability or asset on the Net Worth page
- Selecting a liability or asset when editing the transfer budget, rather than a transaction account
Learn everything you need to know about transfer budgets for assets or liabilities in the following user guides: