Introduction
We all get similar transactions every month. Whether that's rent, monthly travel pass or car insurance every month you are going to see the same transactions cropping up. That's where scheduled payments comes in. Scheduled payments allows you to "pre-mark" transactions so that they are automatically deducted from your spending plan. A detailed explanation is provided below.
Where does schedule payments come into managing my finances?
Topic Area
Scheduled Payments
Relevant to users on:
Money Dashboard Neon
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What are Scheduled Payments?
Scheduled payments are repeat payments and transactions that you make from your accounts on a regular basis. These are used to create your Spending Plan's Leftover figure to show how much money you have left for the rest of the month if and when all your payments have left your account.
This is great for when you may have a regular payment that is expected to come out later in the month so you are not overspending.
Where does scheduled payments come into managing my finances?
Top Tip When you initially sign up the app will recommend that you identify your scheduled payments.
To get the most out of the app I would recommend that before setting up any new scheduled payments after setting up your account you have completed a couple of steps.
- You know What a Pay Cycle is and How you should set your Pay Cycle up
- You have been introduced to transactions and categorisation and understand how they work.
- Once you have understood scheduled payments articles on How to Set Up Budgets are going to make far more sense.
A Working Example
A scheduled payments is simply:
An incoming payment you make on regular intervals that is then added to your overall balance
OR
An outgoing payment you make on regular intervals that is then subtracted from your overall balance
Here is an example: Every month I have to pay my rent. I will likely be making this payment consistently over 6 - 12 months ( or far longer) and I have to pay it. Let's say its the 25th of the Month, you pay your rent on the 26th and get paid on the 30th.
- Left in your account on 25th: £500
- Rent Payment to be paid on 26th: £400
Let's say we didn't have rent set up as a scheduled payment. On the 25th you would see that you have £500 Leftover until payday on the 30th. However, you don't really because you have to pay your rent. This is where scheduled payments come in.
Let's say we did have rent set up as a scheduled payment. On the 25th you would see that actually you only have £100 to spend until payday. By setting up scheduled payments you have these payments automatically applied to your overall balance. This makes looking ahead in your Pay Cycle far easier.
Things to Note
Transactions set up as scheduled transactions will not appear in your budgets. This is to avoid double counting (We'll get to setting up Budgets later)
Top Tip Understanding scheduled payments and how they work with Budgets will help you get the most out of spending plan
Other relevant articles
How do I set up a scheduled payment?