Is cash you take out of an ATM an expense? How do you record transfers between accounts?

What happens if you record a withdrawal as an expense?

You take 2,000 out of the bank and enter it as an expense. During the week you spend 1,200 of it at the market and give 800 to a taxi, and you record both. At the end of the month the report shows 4,000 of spending when only 2,000 left your hands. The same money has been counted twice.

Some people do the opposite: they record the withdrawal as an expense and never enter what they buy with the cash. The total comes out right, but you never find out whether the 2,000 went on the market or on taxis. The category report and your budgets are blind to everything paid in cash.

Which movements are transfers?

A movement is a transfer when both accounts are yours. Taking cash from an ATM is a transfer from the bank to cash, and paying cash into the bank is a transfer the other way. Moving money from your salary account to a savings account, sending money to your own account at another bank and paying off a credit card are transfers too. With the card, the expense was recorded on the day you used the card; the payment only clears the debt.

Money that goes to someone else is not a transfer. Rent sent to your landlord is an expense, and money lent to a friend is a receivable recorded in the People section.

Step by step: recording a transfer in Wiozen Ledger

• On the Accounts page, open an account of type Cash for the money in your wallet. Enter what you have on you as the opening balance.
• Open the Transfer / currency exchange page. Choose your bank account under From and the cash account under To.
• Enter the amount you took out under both Amount sent and Amount received. When both accounts are in the same currency the two amounts must be equal; if they differ, the record is not accepted.
• Press Save transfer. The bank balance goes down and the cash balance goes up by the same amount.

Where does a withdrawal or transfer fee go?

When you use another bank's ATM or send a transfer that costs money, the fee the bank takes is a real expense. Because the two amounts of a same currency transfer must match, the fee cannot be squeezed into the transfer. Enter it as a separate expense from the bank account, in whatever category you use for charges.

Say you took out 2,000 and 2,020 left your account. You enter a transfer of 2,000 and an expense of 20. Your bank balance then matches the real statement, and at the end of the month the category report shows how much you paid the banks in fees.

How do transfers affect your reports?

A transfer is neither income nor expense. It does not count in the monthly report, in income and expense totals, in category budgets or in tag totals. Your net worth does not change either, because the money moved from one of your accounts to another of yours.

The balances of the two accounts change at once, and the transfer appears in the history of both. When you export your transactions as a spreadsheet, a transfer row has the type Transfer and a main currency equivalent of zero, so it does not get mixed into spending when you add things up.

Keeping your cash account honest

Cash is the money people most often forget to record. Once a week, count your wallet and compare it with the cash balance in the app. Any gap is usually small spending you never entered: a snack, parking, a tip. Enter what you remember with its date, and record whatever you cannot remember as a single expense so the balance matches your wallet.

Exchanging foreign currency or gold is also a transfer, but because the two accounts have different units the two amounts differ, and the rate is worked out from them. The guide on gold and foreign currency savings covers that case in detail.

Which plan includes this?

Pro includes transfers between accounts. Every new account gets 14 days of Pro without a card; after that Pro is $39.99 a year or $6.99 a month. The free plan has 1 account and 30 records a month. Details are on the pricing page. The free plan has a single account, so there is nothing to transfer between.