TransactionsTransfers

Transfers Between Accounts

How to link transfers between your own accounts in Forbidden Finance, including auto-detection, manual linking, budget exclusion, and delete behavior.

Overview

A transfer is a movement of money between your own accounts -- like moving $500 from checking to savings. Transfers are not real spending or income; they are just money changing location. Forbidden Finance recognizes this distinction and automatically excludes transfers from your budget calculations and spending reports, so your numbers reflect actual income and expenses only.

Transfers are represented as a linked pair: one outgoing transaction (negative amount on the source account) and one incoming transaction (positive amount on the destination account). You can link them manually or let Forbidden Finance detect them automatically.

How Auto-Detection Works

When Forbidden Finance sees two transactions with equal and opposite amounts, in the same currency, on different accounts owned by you, within a few days of each other, it links them as a transfer automatically. For example:

  • Chase Checking: -$500.00 on March 5
  • Ally Savings: +$500.00 on March 6

Both transactions get the transfer label and drop out of your budget math. If auto-detection ever links a pair that is not really a transfer, open either transaction and tap Unlink — both sides get their original categories back.

Auto-detection works with both bank-synced and manually entered transactions.

If Forbidden Finance does not auto-detect a transfer (perhaps the amounts differ because of a fee, or the dates are further apart), you can link the pair yourself.

Open either transaction

Find one side of the transfer — either the money leaving or the money arriving — and tap it.

Tap Mark as transfer

In the transaction detail view, tap Mark as transfer, then choose The other side is in another account. A list of candidate transactions appears: opposite-direction transactions on your other accounts from around the same date, with exact-amount matches shown first.

Select the matching transaction

Tap the matching transaction and confirm. Forbidden Finance links the two as a transfer pair and moves both to the Transfer category (their previous categories are remembered in case you unlink later).

Transfers to Accounts You Do Not Track

If the other side of the transfer lives at a bank you have not added — say you move money to an account you keep outside the app — there is no second transaction to link. Tap Mark as transfer and choose It went to an account not tracked here instead. The transaction moves to the Transfer category, so it stops counting as spending or income while the money movement stays visible in your history.

Key Details

  • Budget exclusion: Transfer transactions are automatically excluded from all budget calculations, spending totals, and income reports. This prevents internal money movements from inflating your spending or income numbers.
  • Single display: In your transaction list, transfers show a transfer icon and label so you can easily distinguish them from regular transactions.
  • Delete behavior: When you delete one side of a transfer, the other side is deleted as well. You cannot delete just one half of a transfer pair.
  • Unlinking: If you linked two transactions by mistake, open either transaction and tap Unlink Transfer. Both transactions revert to independent, non-transfer transactions and become eligible for budget calculations again.
  • Same currency required for pairs: A linked pair must be in the same currency. For a movement between accounts in different currencies, mark each side as a transfer to an untracked account instead — both drop out of your budget math the same way.

Tips

If auto-detection links a pair that is not actually a transfer (for example, you paid a friend $50 and coincidentally received $50 from someone else the same day), open either transaction and tap Unlink — both sides return to their original categories.
Credit card payments typically show as a transfer from your checking account to your credit card account. Linking them as transfers keeps your budget clean, since the individual charges on your credit card are already tracked as expenses.
Transfers are excluded from budgets entirely. If you are using transfers to fund a savings goal, make sure you are tracking goal progress through account balances or manual contributions, not through transaction categorization.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are my transfers not showing up in my budget?

This is by design. Transfers between your own accounts are not real spending or income, so Forbidden Finance excludes them from budget calculations. Your actual expenses are tracked through the individual purchases on each account.

Yes. Transfers can be linked between any two accounts, regardless of whether they are manual or bank-synced.

What if the amounts do not match exactly?

Auto-detection only links exact matches, but manual linking allows a difference — real transfers sometimes lose a fee in transit. When you link two legs with different amounts, the app notes the difference so you can double-check it is really the same movement. Keep in mind the difference (the fee) will not show up in your spending totals; record the fee as its own transaction if you want to track it.

Does auto-detection work with CSV-imported transactions?

Yes. After a CSV and JSON import, Forbidden Finance scans the newly imported transactions for potential transfer matches across your accounts.

Transactions Overview

How transactions work in the app.

Manual Accounts

Set up accounts to track transfers between.

Budgeting Overview

Understand what counts toward your budget.

Connect Your Bank

Auto-sync transactions for easier transfer detection.

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

Was this page helpful?