# Expenses and money

> What went out, what came in, what is owed either way, and budgets that mean something because they sit next to your income.

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.

| Tab       | What it holds                                              | Plan                               |
| --------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- |
| Expenses  | Everything spent, grouped by day, with this week's summary | Every plan                         |
| Budget    | This month against your income, the caps, and the trends   | Paid plans                         |
| Income    | Money coming in, one-off and repeating                     | Every plan                         |
| Owed      | Money lent or borrowed, in either direction                | Every plan                         |
| Recurring | Subscriptions and repeat charges found in your spending    | Every plan                         |
| Balances  | Who owes whom inside the household, and settling up        | Family plan, in a family workspace |

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.

> **Known limit:** There is no screen for adding or renaming categories yet. The assistant can
> add one for you (`create_expense_category`).

## 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.

> **On the phone:** The phone takes the amount on a keypad. Its month picture reports one
> currency and names any others, rather than adding different currencies
> together. **Spending over time**, in the Money screen's **⋯** menu, shows this
> week day by day and the last six months, one set of bars per currency. The
> same menu's **Totals in** row changes the currency the workspace totals in,
> and **Refresh exchange rates** asks for a new set when the stored ones are
> old. It says when the last set was fetched; a set less than an hour old is
> kept as it is.

## 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.

> **Note: Private income in a household** Each person's income is their own. Check
> **Keep this off other members' devices** and that entry never
> reaches anyone else's phone or laptop. The server does not send it to them at
> all. Expenses can be kept private the same way.

## 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**

- **Still due out** money you owe that falls due this month, when there is any

- **Came in** income that has landed this month
- **Went out** what was spent

- **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.

> **On the phone:** The phone's budget sheet has the same **Carry what's left to next
> month** switch. The phone app reads a receipt too: in the expense
> form, press **Take a photo** or **From photos**
> under the amount, check what it filled in, then save. The photo goes up as the
> expense's receipt once the expense has synced. Importing a statement is on the
> web; a receipt attached anywhere shows as a mark on the phone's list.

## 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`).

> **On the phone:** On the phone, the same list sits under the month's expenses on the Money
> screen, with the same two buttons.

## 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](https://themarginapp.com/docs/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](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-shopping-list).

> **Note: Pocket money is a separate ledger** Expenses answer "where did the money go, and who owes whom between adults".
> The family ledger answers "how much does this child have". They share no
> rows and no balances. See [Pocket money and points](https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points).

> **For agents:** `get_money_summary` does the same month arithmetic as the Budget tab, so the
> assistant and the screen give the same answer. The assistant can also record
> expenses, income and debts, and summarize spending across currencies.

**Where to next**

- [Pocket money and points](https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points): the children's side of household money
- [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): what a family workspace adds
- [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): which money features each plan includes


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Section: The rest of life. Checked against the running product on October 7, 2026.
Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt