Transfers aren't spending

Moving $500 from checking to savings doesn't make you $500 poorer. Pennyweight leaves transfers out of your spending and cash flow, so those numbers show money that actually left you. For the bigger picture, start with how Pennyweight works.

What makes a transaction a transfer

A transaction counts as a transfer in one of two ways.

• It's linked to its other side. A link pairs the money leaving one account with the money arriving in another, so both rows read as one movement.
• Its category is a transfer code. An unlinked transaction is a transfer when its category is exactly TRANSFER, TRANSFER_IN or TRANSFER_OUT, in any letter case. Bank-synced transactions that your bank labels as a transfer arrive with TRANSFER_IN or TRANSFER_OUT, so they count too.

The match on the category is exact. A category such as Bank Transfer or Transfer fee is ordinary spending. See how categories work for where categories come from.

What it changes

• Spending and cash flow reports leave transfers out by default. When a spending report leaves rows out, your AI is told how many and their net amount, so it can explain the gap or run the report again with transfers included. See totals look wrong.
• The web app's spending and cash flow reports use the same rule.
• Balances always include every transaction. A transfer still moves money out of one account and into the other, and both balances show it. Linking or unlinking never changes a balance. Understanding balance signs explains how each account's balance is read.

How the two sides get paired

When your AI saves a transaction with a transfer category, Pennyweight looks for its other side. A match must be:

• on a different account in the same workspace, in any of your ledgers except a demo ledger, whose transactions pair only with each other;
• within 3 days either way;
• the same amount in the same currency, with the opposite sign;
• not already linked;
• backed by evidence that it's a transfer: it has a transfer category itself, its description has a transfer keyword such as transfer, Zelle, Venmo, ACH or wire, or one row's description names the other row's account.

When exactly one transaction qualifies, the two are linked. When several qualify, nothing is linked, and your AI gets the candidates to show you. When none qualify, nothing is linked either. In both cases you can ask your AI to link the right pair. Link the two sides of a transfer walks through it.

How to see it

1. Ask your AI why a transfer doesn't show in your spending.
2. If a transfer you made does show as spending, ask your AI to look at both sides and tell you why.
3. To fix it, ask your AI to mark the pair as a transfer or link the two sides.

What you'll see

For the first question, your AI explains that the transfer moves money between two of your own accounts, so it's left out of spending, and that both account balances still reflect it. For the second, your AI finds both sides of the $750 movement and explains that they count because they aren't linked and don't carry a transfer category.

Good to know

• Automatic pairing runs only when your AI saves or changes transactions, including imports and applying rules. It does not run on bank sync. A bank row labeled as a transfer is still left out of spending, but its two sides stay unpaired until your AI links them or edits one of them.
• If one operation leaves more than 200 transactions with a transfer category, no pairing is attempted. The transactions are still saved and still left out of spending. Ask your AI to link specific pairs, or work through one account or one month at a time.
• Unlinking a pair clears the link on both sides. A transaction whose category is still a transfer code stays out of spending until its category changes.
• A credit card payment moves money between your own accounts too. Until it's linked or categorized as a transfer, the payment out of checking counts as spending.
• Two other kinds of link count differently. A partial refund keeps both rows counting, so spending shows what you actually paid. See match a refund to its purchase. A pass-through pair, such as a PayPal purchase and the card charge that funded it, counts the purchase once. See a purchase shows twice.