How do you keep track of monthly payments like rent, bills and subscriptions?

Why are recurring payments so easy to forget?

Rent, building fees, electricity, water, gas, internet, phone and a few streaming subscriptions add up to around ten fixed payments a month in most homes. Each has its own day: rent on the 1st, internet on the 12th, a subscription on the 23rd. Keeping them all in your head is hard, and missing a bill that is not on automatic payment can mean a late fee.

Subscriptions are a problem of their own. Because the amounts are small they slip out of sight, and a membership nobody uses can keep getting paid for months. Seeing them all on one list shows how much of each month goes to fixed costs and which ones you no longer need.

What should the list contain?

Four things per payment are enough: its name, the day of the month it is paid, a rough amount and the account it comes out of. Add a category too, and at the end of the month you can see what bills, rent and subscriptions cost separately.

For bills that change every month, write an estimate. Electricity and gas bills move around; what matters is not forgetting the payment, and the amount gets corrected on the day you pay.

Step by step: adding a recurring payment in Wiozen Ledger

• Open Recurring payments from the menu and go to Add a recurring payment.
• Under Name, type what the payment is: Rent, Internet, Netflix. Under Day of month, enter the due day, from 1 to 31.
• Enter the estimated amount and choose the account the money comes out of and a category. The payment is kept in the currency of the account you chose.
• Press Add. From then on the payment shows up on the list every month.

How do you mark a payment as paid?

The Recurring payments page lists the current month. Every unpaid row has an amount field and a Pay button. If the real bill is different, correct the amount and press Pay. The app creates an entry dated that day: the amount leaves the account you chose, the entry goes under the payment's category and the payment's name goes into its note.

A paid row shows a paid label, the payment date and the account. Whether a payment counts as paid for a month depends on whether an entry linked to it is dated in that month. When the month changes, the list starts over and every payment is pending again.

The amount field always opens with the last amount you paid. If internet cost 450 last month, this month the field opens at 450; if the price went up, type the new amount and next month starts from that. Before the first payment, the field holds the estimated amount.

When do reminders appear?

Three days before the due day, the dashboard shows a reminder such as "Rent payment is coming up". Under it you see the date, the days left and the amount, for example "5 November · 2 days left · 25,000". If the day has passed and you still have not entered the payment, the reminder changes to "Rent was not paid" and shows how many days ago it was due. It disappears as soon as you press Pay.

If the day does not exist in a month, the payment moves to the last day of that month. A payment set for the 31st is reminded on the 30th in 30 day months and on the 28th or 29th in February.

Reminders appear on the dashboard when you open the app; there are no email or phone notifications. The Pending payments this month card on the dashboard also lists unpaid items with their Pay button, so you can mark them without leaving the page.

Changing bills, foreign currency subscriptions and cancelling

If you link a subscription paid in dollars or euros to an account in that currency, the Pay row gets a second field for the amount in your main currency. Leave it empty and the latest rate entered up to that day is used.

You can pick an income category too. A salary or rent income that arrives on a set day each month can sit on the same list.

When you cancel a subscription, press Remove on its row. Past entries are not deleted; they stay in your reports and account history. Entries made with Pay are ordinary expense entries, so if the category has a budget they count toward it.

Which plan includes this?

Pro includes recurring payments and payment reminders. 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. Recurring payments cannot be set up on the free plan.