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A transfer moves money between two accounts you own — checking to savings, or cash to a credit card payment. It isn’t income and it isn’t spending, so a transfer has no category and never touches Ready to Assign. Budget Bandit records it as two linked legs: an outflow from the source account and a matching inflow into the destination account.

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Record a transfer

Press t from anywhere to open the transfer dialog. Choose the From account, the To account, the amount, and a date. Add a memo if you want, then choose Transfer. Both accounts update at once.
Paying a credit card? In the transfer dialog, when the destination is a credit card with a balance owed, you’ll see the amount owed offered as a one-click fill so you can pay the statement to the cent. See Pay your card.

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How the two legs behave

  • The source account shows an outflow; the destination shows an inflow of the same amount. Each leg names the other account in place of a payee (“Transfer: Savings”).
  • The two legs stay linked. Editing or deleting one side affects the pair — deleting a transfer removes both legs together.
  • Transfers don’t change Ready to Assign or any category’s available amount. The money is still yours; it just lives in a different account.

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Credit card payments are transfers

Moving money from a checking account to a credit card is a transfer. It pays down the card’s balance and, on the budget side, draws from the card’s Payment category. The way that Payment money builds up as you spend is covered in How credit cards work.

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If something looks wrong

  • You see the money twice → a transfer should appear once on each account, not twice on one. Check Duplicate or missing transactions.
  • A bank import shows both sides separately → the review queue can link them. See To Review.

Pay your card

Record a credit card payment as a transfer.

Add a transaction

Enter a normal transaction by hand.

To Review

Link a bank-imported pair as a transfer.

How credit cards work

The funded-portion model behind card payments.