Expenses and money

The money pages keep enough of a record to answer the questions people actually ask: where did the money go, what is left this month, am I over on groceries, and who owes whom. Your accountant will still want a spreadsheet.

Money out, money in and money owed are all on every plan, Free included.

The tabs#

Open Expenses from the sidebar (on the phone the screen is called Money). Everything lives on that page, in tabs. The month you are looking at sits beside the page title, and every tab follows it. The page opens on the tabs themselves, so Income, Owed and Budget are one tap away rather than below the expense form.

On Free, the Budget tab stays visible and explains what the paid plans add.

Record an expense#

An expense has an amount, a currency, a category, a date and an optional note. The form is on the Expenses tab, under the month's numbers. Press Receipt in the form to attach a photo or PDF of the receipt (up to 5 MB), or open an expense afterwards to add one.

Fill it in from the receipt#

With a receipt attached, press Fill in from it. Margin Intelligence reads the photo and fills in the total, the store's name, the date, the currency and a category that matches what was bought. Nothing is saved until you press Add, so check the figures first. When the total was hard to read, the form says so.

Reading a receipt uses one AI action, the same as a short question. When your workspace has used its actions for the month, type the amount in as usual. The receipt itself is stored as an attachment on the expense, readable only by people who can see that expense.

The amount is always more than zero, because an expense is money spent. The forms, an import and a connected assistant all hold to that. Money that comes back, such as a refund, goes on the Income tab as a refund, so spending and income each stay honest. A CSV import works out which sign is spending in your file, a bank's negative or a tracker's positive, and leaves the other rows out and tells you how many.

Import a bank statement#

We do not connect to your bank, so the statement file is how a month of spending arrives. Press Import statement beside the page title (it is there on every tab), or search the command menu for "Import a bank statement", and drop the CSV your bank exports.

• Most bank layouts are read for you. One signed Amount column, or a Debit and Credit pair (Money Out and Money In), a Posting or Transaction Date, and a file with no header row or a summary block above the columns all come in as expenses with the money and the date already matched.
• The columns are remembered. Match the date, amount and description columns once and name the account ("Chase checking"). The next statement from the same bank lands already matched.
• Transfers stay out of spending. Moving money to savings, paying off a credit card and other transfers between your own accounts are left out, and the preview says how many. A matching amount going out of one account and into another within three days counts as a transfer too. Switch off Keep transfers out of spending to import them anyway.
• Importing twice adds nothing twice. A row with the same description, date and amount as one already in the workspace is skipped, so overlapping statements are safe. Two identical purchases on the same day are still two. The import button counts only the rows that are new, so it never promises more than it adds.

On the phone, a statement comes in through Import your data in Settings→Data: choose the CSV from a folder on Android, or paste its text on any phone. It reads the same way, uses the layout you remembered for that bank on either device, and keeps transfers out the same way.

A workspace gets eight categories once, created by the server: Food & Dining, Transport, Bills & Utilities, Shopping, Entertainment, Health, Education and Other. Because the server makes them, two devices opening Expenses for the first time at the same moment do not each add a set.

More than one currency#

Every amount keeps the currency it was spent in, so a trip does not have to be converted at the register and remembered wrongly later.

Exchange rates refresh four times a day. The month's total is priced at the current rates, and the card can show the same month priced at each entry's own day beside it, with the age of the rates it used. The amount you typed is never overwritten. Pick the currency you want totals in from the same card.

Money coming in#

Spending alone cannot answer "what is left". Add what arrives on the Income tab: salary, freelance work, business, a benefit, investments, a gift, a refund.

Anything that repeats is recorded once. Check This repeats and choose how often, from every week to every year, and it counts toward a normal month without being retyped. On each payday a row for it lands by itself and you get a notification saying so.

When a job ends, delete the standing arrangement. The paydays that already landed stay where they are, so past months keep their numbers.

Budgets, next to what you earn#

A cap of 400 a month says nothing on its own. Against 3,200 coming in it says quite a lot, so the Budget tab opens with the month set against your income.

The month at the top of the Budget tab

Came in

income that has landed this month

Went out

what was spent

Still due out

money you owe that falls due this month, when there is any

Left

what remains after all of that

Under it, a line says what share of a normal month's income your budgets have already spoken for. A normal month is worked out from your repeating income, not from whatever has landed so far. Otherwise a salary paid on the 28th would make every budget look like the whole of your income for most of the month.

Budgets are set per category, weekly, monthly or yearly. The trend and category charts on the same tab are where a slow drift shows up.

Carry what is left to next month#

A monthly budget can roll over. Turn on Carry over on its card, or Carry what's left to next month when you set it, and whatever was not spent adds to next month's cap. An overspend comes off next month instead. The card says how much was carried in.

The carry is worked out from your expenses every time, counted from the month the budget started and at most twelve months back, so editing an old expense moves it straight away. It is shown beside the share of income your budgets commit, never inside it: money saved last month was earned last month.

Subscriptions and repeat charges#

The Recurring tab answers "what am I paying for every month?". It finds the same store charging about the same amount on a steady rhythm, weekly, every two weeks, monthly, every three months or yearly. Two monthly charges are enough to show one. Each line gives the typical amount, what it costs a month and when the next one should land.

• Mark as recurring confirms it, and the expenses behind it are flagged as repeating.
• Not a subscription hides a pattern that is just a store you go to often. That choice is yours and holds in this workspace only.

A charge that has not come for longer than its own rhythm is treated as canceled and drops off the list. Import a bank statement to fill this in quickly. Margin Intelligence reads the same list (list_recurring_charges).

Money owed, in both directions#

The Owed tab records money you have lent or borrowed, whether or not the other person uses The Margin. A landlord, a brother, a store: a name is enough. Give it a due date if there is one.

• Payments. Open the record and use Record payment as money moves, and the balance follows. A negative payment is a further advance on the same arrangement rather than a new debt.
• Due dates. You get a reminder three days before a debt falls due, and one a day once it is overdue. If the other person is on Margin, they are reminded from their side too.
• One person, one picture. The same person is added up across every workspace you belong to, so a loan you tracked personally and one in the family space stop being two half-answers.
• Lookalikes. If two records look alike (same person, same amount, close together), the app says so and leaves them alone. A second loan of the same size is as likely as a double entry, and it cannot tell which.

When they are on Margin too#

If the other person is a connection, or shares a workspace with you, you can send them the record. Nothing is sent to anyone outside those two groups, so guessing an email address never puts a claim about money in front of a stranger.

1. You send it. They see what you recorded.
2. They answer That is right or I disagree, with a reason if they like.
3. A disagreement is not the end. Send it again with more detail, as many times as it takes. Every round is kept with its reasons.
4. When it is paid, either side says This is paid off and the other side confirms. Settled means both of you agreed.

Discuss this opens a chat about that one arrangement with just the two of you in it. It is the same thread every time either of you presses it, so the reasons behind a claim have somewhere to live. See Chat.

When they are not#

Then it is your own record, and the honest thing is to hand it over.

Copy statement gives you a plain account of what was agreed, what has been paid and what is left, ready to paste into a message. Download saves the same thing as a file. The other person needs no account to read it.

Splitting and settling up#

In a family workspace on the Family plan, an expense can be split between members: evenly, by percentage or by exact amounts. Only members who have Share Expenses turned on in Family→People, under "You in this family", appear in the split.

The Balances tab keeps the running totals, so nobody has to. Its settlement suggestions net the balances out so fewer payments clear everyone. In a household of four that is usually fewer transfers than everyone paying everyone. Recording a settlement, cash or a transfer, takes it off the balance straight away, on the web and the phone alike, and paying the whole amount clears it.

In a family workspace#

A family workspace's budgets and month picture belong to the household, so "are we over on groceries" is about the household rather than whichever adult happened to pay. The family page's Money card shows who is up and who is down, the one payment that squares it, and when the next allowance lands.

Finishing a shopping run can log what it cost straight into Expenses, with the list and the item count already filled in. See The shopping list.