Scheduled Transactions

Scheduled Transactions are forecasts for recurring money in or out. Use them for paychecks, rent, subscriptions, loan payments, transfers, or any future transaction you want to see before it posts. They are not posted transactions: a pending occurrence does not change an account balance or Ready to Assign until the underlying money is real.

Scheduled transactions and their status #

A Scheduled Transaction is a transaction created for planning or forecasting. As time passes, resolve it in one of these ways:

• Match it to the actual transaction when that transaction is recorded.
• Skip it when no real transaction will occur.
• Delete it during final cleanup when it should no longer remain in the forecast.

Pending scheduled transactions fall into two date-based states:

• Future: the scheduled date is still ahead. It remains part of the forecast until it needs attention.
• Past Due: the scheduled date has passed and the transaction still needs action. Match, skip, edit, or clean it up.

To find items that need attention, go to Transactions and open the Scheduled Transactions tab. Its notification count shows how many pending occurrences are past due. When there are items that need attention, the tab starts with the Needs Attention status filter selected. Use the Status filter to review Pending, Matched, or Skipped occurrences as well.

The tab also lets you filter by account, payee, category, type, and date, then copy or export the filtered occurrences. Pending rows have direct Match, Edit, and Skip controls; matched rows can be unmatched, and skipped rows can be reopened.

Recurring scheduled transactions #

A Recurring Scheduled Transaction is a schedule that creates repeated scheduled transactions. Set it to recur weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly, and choose whether it continues forever, ends on a specific date, or stops after a set number of occurrences.

Use a recurring schedule for predictable activity such as payroll, rent, subscriptions, insurance, debt payments, or regular transfers. Each generated occurrence is handled separately, so one unusual month can be edited, matched, skipped, or deleted without changing the usual schedule.

Turn on Scheduled Transactions #

Go to Settings > Features and enable Scheduled Transactions. The Scheduled Transactions settings page lets you choose whether new inflows fund the month received or the following month, and set the tolerance used for match candidates.

Create a recurring schedule #

Open Scheduled Transactions from Transactions, then choose Manage Schedule Rules and Add a Schedule. This opens the main Add Transaction form in Add Schedule Rule mode, so the account, payee, category details, amount, and note use the same controls as an ordinary transaction.

Use Add Scheduled Transaction on the Scheduled Transactions tab when you need one forecast occurrence without creating or changing a recurring rule.

For each schedule, set:

• Schedule: weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly
• First date and, when needed, an end date or total number of occurrences
• Account, Payee, Category, Amount, and optional note
• whether the amount is an inflow or outflow

Use Add Rule Only to save the recurring rule without adding an entry for its first date. Use Add Transaction & Rule to record the first transaction and save its recurring rule together. When the first date is in the future, this action is labeled Schedule Transaction & Add Rule and creates a pending scheduled occurrence instead of a posted transaction.

The transaction or scheduled occurrence created with the rule counts as its first occurrence, so generating the month later does not create it again.

For an inflow, you can mark it as income. The category may be Unassigned when the inflow should fund your budget generally, or a category when it represents money with a specific job.

For an outflow, choose the category that should reflect the expected spending. A scheduled rent payment, subscription, insurance bill, or loan payment then appears in the appropriate future month, helping you see upcoming category activity and expected availability before the transaction is posted.

Use Pause rule when a recurring item should stop generating temporarily. Choose Edit from a rule’s Related Actions menu when the usual amount, timing, account, or categories change; it opens the same Add Schedule Rule form.

Choose when an inflow funds the budget #

Only the Unassigned portion of an inflow becomes forecast funding. A schedule can use the default funding timing or override it to fund the month received or the following month.

When editing an individual pending occurrence, you can also split its funding allocation across budget months. The allocation must equal the Unassigned part of that inflow.

This lets you model real timing. For example, an end-of-month paycheck can fund next month’s categories without making it look available earlier than you intend.

Outflows do not have a funding allocation because they are not a funding source. Their category details forecast the future activity that the transaction is expected to create.

Generate monthly occurrences #

Schedules become usable forecasts when you generate occurrences for a month.

You can generate them from the Scheduled Transactions page or from the contextual sidebar while Budget is in Planning Mode. Choose the month, then select Generate Scheduled Transactions. Past months cannot generate new occurrences.

Generating again is safe: Common Cents keeps existing occurrences and adds only the new ones the schedule requires.

Work with pending occurrences #

Pending occurrences appear in the Budget forecast and can be opened from the scheduled-funding drilldown or a Budget activity drilldown. Choose the occurrence to edit its date, amount, category details, or, for inflows, funding allocation for that month.

An occurrence remains a forecast until you explicitly post or match it through the normal transaction workflow. Use Planning Mode to decide what forecast inflows should fund, use scheduled outflows to review expected category activity, then use Review & Apply when actual funding is ready.