Category for Financial Advisor Fees: Transfers v. Fees Expense?

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1

I would appreciate others’ views on categorizing financial accounts advisory fees.

I have some roboadvisor (Betterment) fees that are identified in the transaction data. I have been categorizing (as I do the internal buy sell transactions in the account) as a “Transfer.” But it would be nice to keep track of the annual costs of the fees.

If I auto-categorize as a “Financial Fees” Expense, for example, it appears as part of my budget - but I don’t really need to fund that Expense as I do with traditional expenses. (I understand these fees are a real Expense, of course, but these transactions simply diminish the account balances under management as a Transfer does.)

Is there an optimal way to manage - to allow tracking but not show up as part of my monthly expense budget? (I might be asking for my cake :cake: and eating it too, but thought I would ask the Community.)

Thanks :pray:, all!

2

Great question that I never thought to ask. I used to categorize the fees as transfer. Then I really needed to understand how much a particular broker was charging me so I changed them to expenses. But now I have two brokers I have been thinking about using tags to get a faster, clearer, picture.

Maybe transfer with tags might work for you?

3

Susan, that seems like one great option!

Thank you.