Add a Transaction

How to manually enter a transaction in Forbidden Finance, including amount conventions, categories, tags, and merchant auto-categorization.

Overview

Manual transaction entry lets you record income and expenses by hand. This is the primary way to track your finances on the Free tier, and it remains useful on paid tiers for recording cash purchases, side income, or anything your bank does not capture. You can add a transaction in under 30 seconds once you are familiar with the form.

How to Add a Transaction

Open the transaction form

Tap the + button on the bottom navigation bar or go to Transactions and tap Add Transaction in the top right.

Select an account

Choose the account this transaction belongs to. If you only have one account, it is selected automatically.

Enter the amount

Type the transaction amount. Use a negative number for expenses (e.g., -45.00 for a grocery purchase) and a positive number for income (e.g., 2500.00 for a paycheck). You can also use the income/expense toggle to set the sign automatically.

Add the merchant name

Type the name of the business or person. Forbidden Finance remembers your merchant-to-category associations, so after you categorize a transaction from "Trader Joe's" once, future transactions with that merchant are categorized automatically.

Choose a category

Select a category from the list. Categories are organized into groups like Food & Drink, Transportation, and Housing. If you leave this blank, the transaction is marked as uncategorized and you can assign a category later.

Set the date

The date defaults to today. Tap it to change it if you are recording a past transaction.

Add optional details

Expand the details section to add a description (a note to yourself), tags (free-form labels like "business" or "vacation"), or to adjust the currency if you have multi-currency enabled.

Save the transaction

Tap Save. The transaction appears immediately in your transaction list and counts toward your budget.

Amount Conventions

What You Are Recording	Amount	Example
An expense or purchase	Negative	`-85.00`
Income, a refund, or deposit	Positive	`1200.00`
Transfer out of this account	Negative	`-500.00`
Transfer into this account	Positive	`500.00`

The income/expense toggle at the top of the amount field handles the sign for you if you prefer not to type a minus sign.

Auto-Categorization

Forbidden Finance learns from your categorization choices. The first time you assign "Groceries" to a transaction from "Whole Foods," every future transaction from that merchant is automatically categorized as Groceries. You can always override the suggestion.

If you change the category on a transaction, Forbidden Finance updates the rule so that future transactions from that merchant use the new category.

Recording What You Were Actually Charged

When you buy something abroad, your bank settles the charge in your account's currency, so a EUR 40 dinner arrives as a USD figure. The original amount is the one you recognize, so you can record it.

On the add form, the Charged in picker sets the currency of the transaction you are entering, and defaults to the account's own currency. For a transaction that has already settled, open it and tap the Original charge row on its detail screen to record what you were really charged.

The picker is built to need as little work from you as possible:

It opens on the currency you were most likely charged in. If you already recorded one it reopens on that. Otherwise it works down from your base currency, the currencies your accounts are in, and where you are signing in from right now, so a traveller usually finds the right currency already selected.
Your currencies come first. The list is split into Your currencies (your base currency, currencies from accounts you hold, and any you added yourself) and All supported currencies below, in alphabetical order.
The account's own currency is shown but cannot be picked. Recording that a USD charge was charged in USD says nothing, so that row is visible and explained rather than hidden.
The amount is filled in for you where we can. We convert the settled amount at the current exchange rate as a starting point. If a rate is not available, the field is left blank for you to type the figure from your receipt.

Estimates Are Labeled as Estimates

An amount we worked out by conversion is never presented as fact. On the transaction detail screen the original charge row names where the figure came from:

Label	Meaning
Manual	You typed it. Treated as exact.
Auto-detected	Read directly out of your bank's own transaction text. Treated as exact.
Estimate	Converted at an exchange rate, so it is close rather than exact.

Estimated amounts also show (est.) next to the currency wherever they appear, so you can tell at a glance. Tap the row to replace an estimate with the real figure from your receipt, and the label changes to Manual.

Correcting an estimate is worth doing for anything large. The conversion uses the current rate, not the rate your bank actually applied on the day, so an estimate will not match your statement to the cent.

Key Details

Manual transactions are always marked as "posted" — they skip the pending state that bank-synced transactions go through.
Tags are free-form text labels. Use them for anything your categories do not cover, like "reimbursable," "gift," or "tax-deductible."
Currency defaults to the account's own currency. Every plan can track at least one foreign currency alongside your base currency, and how many depends on your plan. See Multi-Currency Support.
Editing: Tap any transaction to open it and make changes. Your edits are saved immediately.
Deleting: Swipe left on a transaction or open it and tap Delete. Deleted transactions are removed from your budget calculations.

Tips

Use the merchant name consistently. Typing "Starbucks" the same way each time ensures auto-categorization works reliably. Forbidden Finance normalizes minor differences in capitalization and spacing, but very different names are treated as separate merchants.

Add tags like "vacation" or "holiday" to group transactions across categories. Later, you can filter by tag to see exactly how much a trip or event cost.

Negative amounts are expenses and positive amounts are income. If your budget numbers look off, double-check that you used the right sign.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I add a transaction to a bank-synced account?

Yes. You can manually add transactions to any account, including bank-synced ones. This is useful for recording cash purchases or transactions your bank has not picked up yet.

How do I record a cash purchase?

Add a manual transaction to whichever account you consider your "cash" account. If you do not have one yet, create a manual checking or savings account and name it "Cash" or "Wallet."

Can I add a transaction without a category?

Yes. Uncategorized transactions still appear in your transaction list and account balance. They just are not allocated to any budget category until you assign one.

Does auto-categorization work across accounts?

Yes. Your merchant-to-category rules apply to all accounts. If you categorize "Netflix" as Entertainment on one account, any Netflix transaction on any account picks up the same category.

Transactions Overview

Learn about the three transaction sources.

Split a Transaction

Divide a purchase across categories.

Search & Filter

Find transactions quickly.

Manual Accounts

Set up accounts for manual tracking.

Multi-Currency Support

Track foreign currencies and set your base currency.

Need more help? Contact us at [email protected].

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