How to record a transfer between savings and current account

Record it as a transfer. In Money by Zaweba you enter the payment in one account's register and choose the Transfer entry for the other account in the category list, with money out or money in setting the direction. Money then makes a linked pair of rows, one in each account, and that pair is never counted as spending or income.

That last point is the reason to do it properly. If moving £200 into savings were filed as an ordinary expense, your spending report would say you spent £200 more than you did, and the income report would later count it as money earned when it came back.

Making the transfer

Open the register for the account the money leaves, usually the current account, and press Ctrl+T for a new transaction. Type the date (today works, as does something like 12/8), the amount and a payee or memo if you want one. In the category list, choose the Transfer entry for your savings account rather than an ordinary category, and set it as money out. Press Enter to save.

There's no separate transfer form. The category list does the job, which keeps the habit the same as entering any other payment. Open the savings account afterwards and you'll find the matching row already there, as money in, joined to the first.

Going the other way works the same. Enter it in the savings register as money out with the Transfer entry for the current account, or enter it in the current account as money in. Either half creates the pair.

Editing and deleting

The two rows are one transfer, so they move together. Change the amount or date on either half and the other half changes too. Delete one, and the other goes with it. That stops the classic home accounts problem of a transfer that exists in one account and has vanished from the other, leaving both balances wrong.

Because changes save straight away and there's no undo, take a moment before deleting. If you do remove something by mistake, the backups Money keeps on close are the safety net.

When the statements arrive

If you import statements for both accounts, the bank will list the transfer in each of them. A transfer you've typed in by hand matches an imported row on amount and date alone, so the import's review screen should show it as already there rather than adding it twice. That's looser matching than for ordinary payments, because transfers between your own accounts often carry descriptions that look nothing alike on the two statements.

Statements that arrive as QIF files can also carry transfers written in the file, and Money brings those across as transfers.

Getting the reports right

Once transfers are recorded as transfers, the reports behave. Spending by category leaves them out. The Income versus spending report counts them as neither. Net worth isn't affected either, because the money has only moved from one of your accounts to another.

The same idea applies beyond savings. Paying off a credit card from your current account is a transfer to the card account. A monthly payment to a loan or mortgage account you track in Money is a transfer too, as is drawing cash if you keep a cash account. Setting these up as recurring transfers under Plan, then Bills and deposits, means they appear in the bills due panel each month, ready to enter with a click.

A few minutes getting transfers right at the start keeps every report in Money by Zaweba honest from then on.