Adding manual accounts and debts

You don’t have to connect anything to use this app. Some of what’s been entrusted to you never touches a bank: cash in a drawer, or a loan between family. A steward’s ledger should have room for it anyway. A manual account or debt works like any other: in your budget, in the payoff plan and on Home. The one difference is that nothing comes into it on its own.

When it is the right choice

• Cash, or an account at a bank we can’t connect to.
• A loan from a family member, which no bank knows about.
• An account you’d simply rather not connect. That’s a fine answer, and the app still works.

Adding one

On Accounts, choose Add account, then Add manual account. On a phone, tap the + at the top first. A checking account, a cash wallet, a credit card and a loan all go in the same way. The account type you pick decides the rest. A card or loan with a balance also shows up on Debt Payoff, where its rate and minimum payment live. You only enter it once.

What you take on

Balances only change when you change them. That’s the honest trade of a manual account: no bank is sending updates, so you’re the one paying attention. For a debt, that mostly means updating the balance every month or so. The payoff date is worked out from it. An old balance gives you a date that looks sure of itself but is wrong.

Every manual account is listed under Manual accounts on Accounts → Banks, with Update balance beside it. It’s also on the account’s own row on the Accounts page. Its two boxes are on Banks too: uncheck Debt Payoff or Transactions to hide it from either without deleting it. Its ⋯ menu can edit it or delete it. Once your bank sends the same account, the menu can also merge the two.

You can also add transactions yourself. Say you add one before your bank sends it. When the same charge comes in from your bank, we match the two, so it counts only once.

With Altus turned on, a receipt can add one for you. Scan it, choose Add it as a new transaction, and pick the account you paid with. Altus adds the charge and splits it into your categories. See Splitting a transaction.