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A credit card in Budget Bandit is an account with a balance you owe rather than money you have. Adding one creates two things: the account itself, and a Payment category in your budget that tracks how much of the balance you have the cash to pay.

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Add a credit-card account

1

Open Accounts and add an account

Choose to add a new account and select the Credit Card type.
2

Name the card and enter its current balance

Enter what you owe today as the starting balance. A card you owe money on starts with a negative balance — that is the debt.
3

Add optional card details

You can enter the credit limit, payment due day, minimum payment, and APR. These power the due-date reminders, utilization meter, and the payoff report later, but none are required to start.
4

Save

The account appears in your sidebar, and a Payment category for this card appears in your budget.
If you enter a starting balance you already owe, Budget Bandit asks how you plan to handle it: pay it in full, or pay it down over time. Paying over time sets up a monthly payoff plan on the card. See Debt payoff.

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How the Payment category works

This is the heart of how Budget Bandit handles credit cards. When you spend on the card out of a category you funded, that money moves to the card’s Payment category and becomes safe to pay. Here is the flow:
  1. You assign $100 to Groceries.
  2. You buy $40 of groceries on the credit card.
  3. Groceries Available drops to 60,andthecard′sPaymentcategorygains60, and the card's Payment category gains 40.
That $40 in the Payment category is cash you have set aside and can hand to the card issuer without touching anything else in your budget. You spent the money in the category that earned it; the Payment category just reserves it for the bill.
This is the funded-portion model. Only spending you actually budgeted for moves to the Payment category. If you spend on the card without budgeting first, that part does not become safe to pay — the Payment category shows short. See The Payment category is red.

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Starting balances are not auto-funded

The balance you owed the day you added the card is not automatically marked safe to pay — you have not budgeted for it yet. It shows up as an underfunded amount on the Payment category from day one. Budget toward it over time, or set up a payoff plan, to clear it.

How credit cards work

The full concept behind the Payment category.

Pay your card

Record a payment as a transfer.

Payment category is red

Why it goes short and how to fix it.

Debt payoff

Pay down a balance you carried in.