Record cash or a missing transaction

Some transactions never reach Pennyweight on their own: cash you spent, or a charge missing from a card you track by hand. Ask your AI to add it, and it lands in the account you name with that account's balance updated to include it (when it's in the account's own currency). The account has to exist first. If it doesn't, see add a manual account.

How to do it

1. Tell your AI the amount, the account, the date and who you paid. A category is optional.
2. Say whether money went out or came in. Your AI turns that into the right sign for the account.
3. Your AI saves the transaction straight away and confirms it.

What you'll see

Your AI confirms the amount and the account it recorded. For the first prompt, that's $40 out of Wallet Cash, dated yesterday. For the second, it's a $15 charge on the Rewards Card under Transportation. The account's balance now includes the new transaction.

Money in and money out

The amount is the change to that account's balance:

• Money out is negative. Spending from cash or checking, and a charge on a credit card.
• Money in is positive. Income, a refund, and a payment toward a card or loan.

So a $15 card charge is saved as −15, and what you owe on the card goes up by $15. For why a card balance reads negative, see why a credit card shows a negative balance.

Good to know

• The account decides the ledger. The transaction goes into the ledger its account belongs to, even when another ledger is active. A request to file it in a different ledger is refused. To record it in another ledger, add it to an account in that ledger.
• A category you give is your decision. No rule replaces it. With no category, the first of the ledger's active rules that matches the merchant categorizes it, and your AI is told which rule did. A merchant whose category you pinned in your AI's memory is skipped. If no rule matches, the transaction is saved as uncategorized. To skip your rules for one entry, ask your AI to add it without applying them. See create a categorization rule. You can change its category later.
• Currency. If you don't name one, the transaction uses the account's currency. A currency you name must be a valid three-letter code, such as EUR. A transaction in a currency other than the account's is kept at face value and shown as a separate amount for that currency, not added to the account's balance.
• Splitting. To spread one transaction across categories, ask your AI to split it as it adds it, or afterwards. Either way, the parts must add up to the total. If they don't, a split given while adding is refused and nothing is saved, so your AI can correct the parts and try again. See split one charge across categories.
• Mistakes can be fixed in place. Your AI can correct the amount, date or currency of a transaction you added by hand. See correct a manual entry.
• Transfers between your accounts. If you add both sides yourself, your AI can link the second side to the first as it saves it. The link needs two different accounts and opposite signs, and your AI tells you if it was refused. Naming only the other account helps only when the new side is categorized as a transfer: Pennyweight then looks for the matching transaction on that account. See link the two sides of a transfer.
• Money lent to a person belongs on that person's own account. See track money you lent or borrowed.
• Every entry has a reason. Your AI records why it added the transaction. The reason is kept on the transaction and in your audit trail.
• A whole statement is an import. For many rows from a statement, see import a PDF or screenshot statement.
• Read-only ledgers can't take new entries. After your trial, a ledger without its own subscription is read-only. Adding to an account in it is refused, and your AI passes on a link to subscribe that ledger. Your other ledgers are unaffected. See when a ledger is read-only.