Creating a transfer budget for a liability
Some loans or debts are not associated with a transaction account that can be connected to PocketSmith. If this is the case, you can add the loan or debt into PocketSmith as a liability then create a transfer budget. This budget will help you to track your progress as you pay off a debt.
In this user guide
Tracking debt in PocketSmith
Setting up a liability on the Net Worth page
For loans or personal debts that don't have a transaction account connected to PocketSmith, you can instead add them as liabilities using the Net Worth page. The Net Worth page allows you to see all your financial assets and liabilities, such as your house, mortgage, car, or car loan, all in one place. Learn how to add a liability here: Adding a liability to Net Worth
Using transfer budgets to track a liability
You are able to track payments towards a liability that you've set up in PocketSmith using a transfer budget.
Liabilities in PocketSmith are different from bank and transaction accounts because they don't actually have any transactions attached to them. Transactions alone won't affect the balance of a liability because there are no transactions imported into PocketSmith within the liability.
Instead, you'll need to set up a transfer budget to account for payments towards a liability.
A transfer budget tracks your budgeted expenses when paying down a debt and automatically reduces the amount owing on that liability on the date of that budget.
You will need:
- A liability
- A category (where you'll assign the expense transactions that pay off the loan)
- A budget
Setting up a transfer budget for a liability
- 1
- Head to the Budget page
- 2
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- If you already have a category set up for your repayments, click Start on the category (now continue at step 3)
- If you have already created a budget for the category, 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 new category e.g. Paying off car (now continue at step 3)
- 3
- If you are currently using the simple budget form, select ADVANCED OPTIONS
- 4
- Choose and fill in the following options:
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- Does this budget repeat (and if so how often)?
- How much?
- Expense or income
Select Expense - Which account's forecast is this budget for?
Chose the account that the transfer comes from
Note
It's best to begin your budget after the date that the liability was added to PocketSmith.
This is because the current value will override any budget events between the draw-down date and the current date (the date the liability was added to PocketSmith).
However, if you'd prefer your budget to begin earlier, and have the current balance of the liability reflect the original draw-down amount + budget events, this is possible. Once you have created your budget, you'll just need to follow the steps outlined here to update your liability balance accordingly. - 5
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Tick the check box
This is a transfer to and from the dropdown menu select the liability where the transfer goes to
- 6
- Click Save or Update
- 7
- If you are editing an existing budget, in the Confirm Updates window, select one of the bottom two options to ensure that this change is applied to all future budget events for this budget category. Click Confirm Changes
Now you have set up your transfer budget — yay!