For Exclusions in Recurring Transfer Series -- which is Money In and which is Money Out?

DryHeat

The help article on setting up a Recurring Transfer Series has this helpful note:

But it seems I'm confused about what Money Out and Money In really mean. I thought that Money Out would mean the sending side (the one where the transaction is negative), and Money In the receiving side (the one where the transaction is positive). But apparently not.

I marked a Series as shown below to exclude the transaction in the sending account and include the transaction in the receiving account.

To complete the picture, here's how my transfer Series is set up — $250.00 is deposited into Checking and taken out of Other Asset.

But the result is the reverse of what I expected.

When you look at the transaction reminders under Bills & Income, the one taking the money out of the Other Asset account is NOT EXCLUDED, but the one putting the money in the Checking account is EXCLUDED.

So, what do Money Out and Money In really mean? And how am I getting it so wrong?

EL1234

I agree that it's confusing! I don't do this very often (I have a couple of series that are set up like this) so I just use the "trial and error" method.

Coach Natalie

@DryHeat, thanks for posting your inquiry to the Community!

When testing this with both an Income Transfer Series and an Expense Transfer Series, it seems to me that the "Money Out" side is tied to the account that's paying, and the "Money In" side is tied to the account that's receiving. The account that's paying would be the 'Select Account' field in the Recurring Series setup, and the account that's receiving would be the 'Category' field in the Recurring Series setup.

So, for the Income Transfer Series you presented, if you want the money coming into your checking account to be included as income in the Spending Plan, you'd want to exclude the "Money In" side.

I definitely agree that it's confusing when using an Income Transfer Series, and you are welcome to create an Idea post to request a change if you'd like. I also think the way these are presented in the Spending Plan is confusing, since it is showing account names as the category for transfers. It definitely made my testing this morning more complicated. But we do have an Idea post to vote for a change there!

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/7043/eliminate-confusion-on-accounts-listed-in-spending-plan-transfers-credit-card-section-edited

I hope this helps!

DannyB

The whole money in and money out for transfers hurts my brain!

DryHeat

@Coach Natalie

"The account that's paying would be the 'Select Account' field in the Recurring Series setup, and the account that's receiving would be the 'Category' field in the Recurring Series setup."

That doesn't match the way your Series is set up. The ICCU Checking account is paying $250.00 but it is in the 'Category' field; and the High-Yield Online Savings account is receiving $250 but it is in the 'Select Account' field. That's the opposite of how you describe it.

"it seems to me that the "Money Out" side is tied to the account that's paying, and the "Money In" side is tied to the account that's receiving."

You would think that, based on the names.

But it looks more like "Money Out" just refers to the account in the 'Select Account' field and "Money In" just refers to the account in the 'Category' field -- regardless of which way the funds are actually flowing.

Do you agree that it works as I describe here? (It matches what is happening in your example and in mine.)

Coach Natalie

@DryHeat, I apologize if my terminology caused confusion, but yes, I think we have the same understanding of how this works.

DryHeat

@Coach Natalie

yes, I think we have the same understanding of how this works.

Great!

So the problem is that "Money Out" and "Money In" are the wrong labels to use.** Because in our examples:

• the account affected by excluding "Money Out" is the account receiving money in, and
• the account affected by excluding "Money In" is the account sending money out.

So how do I make a suggestion that they use better lablels without having to rewrite all these posts?

** Depending on how you set up the Series, sometimes the labels will be accurate, sometimes they won't.

Coach Natalie

@DryHeat, I would recommend creating an Idea post suggesting that the Money Out and Money In labels be clarified or switched for Recurring Income Transfer Series to avoid confusion. You should be able to easily link this thread in that request to give more insight.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/998/creating-and-voting-for-ideas-in-the-community

I hope this helps!

DryHeat

@Coach Natalie

I would recommend creating an Idea post suggesting that the Money Out and Money In labels be clarified or switched for Recurring Income Transfer Series to avoid confusion.

I don't think I have done a good job of explaining this. Switching the Money In/Out labels will not help as they are currently correct half the time. They are right when the money is flowing from the Select Account field to the Category field account, and wrong when it is flowing the other way. (As in my initial example.)

Put another way, the target of the exclusions is based on which field an account is in, not whether that account is getting money in or sending money out. So the Money In/Out labels are never going to be helpful.

This seems like a program error because the exclusions affect the wrong field half the time.** So I am posting this problem in the Report a Bug section. If you feel it belongs somewhere else, feel free to move it.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/15144/the-money-in-out-exclusions-in-recurring-transfer-series-apply-backwards-half-the-time

**Note: This doesn't mean reprogramming the program's action would be required. Instead, the labels could be changed to something that corresponds to the existing program action. Something like "Transaction Account" and "Category Account." (I'm sure program staff could come up with something better.)