Transfers

Transfers are a special kind of transaction. They move money between accounts you track in Common Cents without turning that movement into ordinary spending.

If the money is still inside your own system after the move, it usually belongs in a transfer.

Good times to use a transfer #

• moving money from checking to savings
• moving cash between two spending accounts
• moving money between an on-budget account and an off-budget account
• moving money into or out of labeled funds when Labels is enabled

Ways to start a transfer #

You can open the transfer form from several places:

• Transfer in an account’s transaction card
• Transfer on the All Transactions page
• the main Add button by choosing Add Transfer
• the Combo Palette command Add Transfer

If the account you are working with is a debt account, Common Cents usually gives you a debt-specific action instead, such as Pay Card or Pay Loan.

What the transfer form asks for #

The Add Transfer form is built to keep both sides of the move aligned.

The main controls are:

• From Account
• To Account
• Date
• Amount
• From Details
• To Details
• Note
• Add another
• Add Transfer

When Labels is enabled, the detail sections can also show label controls:

• In From Details, the Label control lets you choose which labeled or unlabeled money is leaving the source account.
• In To Details, the Label control lets you choose the destination label.
• The Add new label… action under the destination label picker lets you create a label without leaving the transfer form.

When you move money between an on-budget account and an off-budget account, Common Cents also adds Add Category Details or Edit Category Details. That step tells the app which category or unassigned money should fund the move.

Transfer rules that often surprise people #

• Generic transfers do not use debt accounts. Use Pay Card or Pay Loan when debt is involved.
• Closed accounts cannot receive new transfer activity until they are reopened.
• You cannot transfer from an account back to the same account unless you are moving money into or out of a label.
• If the source label or unlabeled balance is too small, Common Cents blocks the transfer and tells you why.
• Cross-budget transfers need complete category details, and those details must add up to the transfer amount.

Editing or deleting a transfer later #

Transfers show up in account history and in All Transactions like other activity.

To change one:

1. Find the transfer row.
2. Open the row action menu.
3. Choose Edit.

The edit form uses Save Transfer when you want to keep the changes and Delete when you want to remove the transfer pair.

How transfers affect your numbers #

Common Cents records both sides of a transfer together so the sending account and receiving account stay in sync.

That means a transfer:

• changes account balances
• is not counted as ordinary spending
• does not inflate dashboard cash flow summaries when both accounts are included in cash flow tracking

If the app offers a debt-specific payment action instead of a generic transfer, use that debt workflow. It carries extra rules that a plain transfer does not handle.