Checking and Credit Card Categories (Transfer vs Expense)

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Hello, I am certain this was asked before, I wanted to use best practices and like to confirm the best approach from the Tiller experts. I pay my credit card from my checking account and then it’s posted on the credit card account. In my categories for credit card payment as transfer, but not sure what category should be for checking. Make it more complicated, I pay my mobile phone via credit card and have that as expense. Input is welcomed and appreciated.

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Both accounts categorize as Transfer. Categorize what you paid for within the account that it was charged to. In your example, “mobile” category within the credit card account. Budget sheets will sum up everything correctly to allow you to see where the money goes.

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Agreed,

By using the transfer category for the payment from your checking account to your credit account, the net will be $0.

Example. Payment from Checking to Credit Card (Transfer Category). -$50
Payment applied to Credit Card (Transfer Category) $50
Cell Phone Expense $30

Only $30 will show up on your expenses for the month because the transactions categorized with the transfer category net out to $0

Hope that helps.

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Question related to this, but I’ve not seen an answer yet, though I’m sure I might just be missing something. I have a credit card that I’m trying to pay down/off. Right now I still use it for set expenses (mobile phone, utilities, expenses I know I have to pay anyway) so I can turn the points acquired into payoffs. For those things I understand the above transfer mentality. Because there is an existing balance on there though, I budget out money to pay that down. Is there a way to autoCat or otherwise manage it so up to what was spent on the credit card in a given month goes to transfer (cancels out against budget) but that what’s paid over and above that goes to the payment category?

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Hi
I am not sure this thread (Subject) was responded to but I think this same principle works for your question.I used this concept when to transfer money from checking to savings, really can work the same when paying a credit card from the same account. (ie chase checking and chase credit card).

  1. from checking to sink fund = vacation savings expense.
  2. sink fund from checking = transfer.
  3. after one year, sink fund has 5,280.
  4. before vacation, reverse #1 and #2, now the 5,280 is back at checking and the cumulative vacation savings expense is at 0.
  5. you can hide the transfers if you want to.
  6. enjoy your vacation and then start the process all over again for the next year.
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The debt-paydown support wikis have some suggestions on how to create categories for debt pay down versus same-month transfers. Hope this helps, @jfluegge.