Finance

Record income, expenses and recurring payments across all your accounts and see where your money goes – per account and per currency.

Overview

Finance records every movement of money on your accounts. The section selector at the top of the sidebar switches between four sections:

Payments

Single income, expenses and transfers – as a list and as an overview with charts.

Recurring

Templates for regular income and expenses such as rent, salary or subscriptions. They create the payments for you.

Projects

Finance projects for agreed amounts, such as a fixed-price job: start amount, adjustments and how much of it is paid.

Payouts

The settlements of your hourly work from the Projects module.

Below the section selector, “Select bank account” picks a single account or “All accounts”. The choice applies to the section you are in. On narrow screens the sidebar sits in a menu you open when you need it.
You can add payments without detours: N creates a new item in the current section, and the command palette (⌘ / Ctrl + K) and quick capture (O then C) work from anywhere.

Note Finance is a ledger you keep yourself: there is no connection to your bank and no import of bank statements or CSV files. A recurring payment only books inside the app – it does not transfer money. There are no budgets or spending limits.

Bank accounts

Every payment belongs to an account, and the account sets its currency. Create a separate account for your current account, savings, cash and every other currency.

Create one with “Add bank account” in the sidebar's account picker, or in the settings under “Bank accounts” → “Add account”. You set name, currency, opening day and opening balance, and optionally description, color and icon. The opening day is today by default; pick tomorrow to start from your balance right now, or an earlier day to record older payments. You can edit an account right from the account picker.
An account's currency is fixed once something has been booked on it or it has an opening balance. Only an unused account with an opening balance of 0 can still change it.
The balance is the opening balance plus every payment on or after the opening day, that day included. The opening balance is the balance at the start of the opening day. You can change both until a payment counts; after that, a balance adjustment corrects the balance. The account picker shows payouts that are not confirmed yet separately.
You can mark one default account per currency (“Default account for the selected currency”). It is preselected in new forms. Making another account the default removes that role from the previous one.
If the balance doesn't match your bank, open the account and click “Adjust” next to “Current balance”. Enter the balance your bank shows and the date of your bank statement (today by default): “Create balance adjustment” books the difference as a balance adjustment. It moves the balance but is neither income nor expense, and you can edit or delete it like any payment.
An account with payments, recurring payments, payouts or finance projects can't be deleted, only archived. It keeps its full history and can be restored at any time. Only an account that was never used can be deleted.

The open account picker in the finance sidebar: All accounts with the balance per currency, then each account with its balance and number of entries, and Add bank account at the bottom — Pick an account to narrow the section to it, or add a new one at the bottom of the list.

Heads up Payments dated before the opening day don't change the balance – the opening balance already contains them. They stay in the history, greyed out, so you don't count old money twice.

Payments

Payments are single income and expenses – what actually happens on your accounts. The section has two views: “Overview” with charts and “List” with every entry.

Open a new payment
Open Finance → Payments, switch to “List” and click “Add Single Cash Flow” – or press N.
Choose the type and fill in the fields
Choose “Expense” or “Income”; the switch sets the sign for you. Fill in name, amount, bank account and date. The currency comes from the account.
Organize and save
Under “Configuration” you add one or more tags and optionally a contact. “Create” saves the payment.
Tip Missing a tag, contact or account? Create it right in the form and you return to the payment afterwards.

The form for a new payment with the switch between expense and income, the fields name, amount, bank account and date, and tags and contact under Configuration — The switch sets the sign; the currency comes from the account you pick.

Every payment shows its source: manual, transfer, recurring, payout or project. For generated payments you can jump from there to the source.
Click a payment to edit it. Manual payments can be changed freely. Payments from payouts and finance projects are changed at their source. For payments from a recurring template you can change name, amount and date; account, tags, contact and type come from the template.
You don't delete a single payment of a recurring template – you deactivate it (“Deactivate Cash Flow”). It then no longer counts toward the balance, and it isn't created again either. “Reactivate” brings it back.
In the list, “Show” switches between all payments, expenses only and income only. The filter narrows by source, tags and contacts; with several tags, “Match” decides whether “any tag” or “all tags” must apply.
“Activate bulk select” lets you mark several manual payments and remove them at once with “Delete selected”.

Analysis

The “Overview” in Payments sums up what happened on the selected account – or on all accounts. If you use several currencies, pick the currency at the top.

Key figures

Net, income, expenses, average per transaction and “This month” compared with the previous month.

Per month

A bar chart of income and expenses for each month.

By tag, contact and account

The five entries with the highest turnover in each group, with net amount and number of transactions. Payments without one end up under “No tag”, “No contact” or “No account”.

Sidebar

Net for this and last month and a chart of the last six months – always in view while you work in the list.

All figures are per currency; euros and dollars are never added together. Transfers between currencies appear as “Conversion in” or “Conversion out” and count toward net, not toward income or expenses.
Tags overlap: a payment with two tags counts fully in both groups. If you want a clean split by category, give every payment exactly one category tag.

Note The list's filters don't apply to the Overview. It only follows the account selected in the sidebar and the chosen currency.

Transfers

Moving money from your current account to savings is not an expense. Book it as a transfer so your income and expenses stay accurate.

Create a transfer
In Payments → List, choose “Transfer money” from the create menu. The option appears once you have at least two accounts.
Enter accounts and amount
Choose “From account” and “To account” – “Swap accounts” reverses the direction – then name, date and amount. If the accounts use different currencies, you enter “Debit” and “Credit” separately.

A transfer consists of two linked bookings, one per account. The list shows them as a single row from account to account; editing and deleting always affect both.
Transfers in the same currency only move balances and never show up as income or expenses in any analysis. Between currencies they count as conversion in or out.
There is no automatic exchange rate and no fee booking: enter the amounts your bank actually debited and credited.

Recurring payments

A recurring payment is a template for regular income or expenses. Self-Engine creates the individual payments from it – you don't type in your rent every month.

Create the template
Switch to “Recurring” in the sidebar and click “Add cashflow”. Choose “Expense” for rent or subscriptions, “Income” for a salary, for example.
Fill in the details
Enter name, amount and bank account, and optionally description, tags, contact, color and icon.
Set the rhythm
Under “Date & Recurrence” you choose the interval – daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly –, the start date and optionally the last execution. Then “Create”.

From the start date on, a payment is created for every period that is due, up to today or the end date. They appear after the next sync. For running templates, the anchor day sets the weekday or day of the month that is booked.
Click a recurring payment in the sidebar: “Course” shows a chart, key figures, projections (per year, rest of year, until the end date) and past pauses; “Payments” lists the payments it created.
The Recurring overview shows, per currency, net per month, income, expenses, what is still due this year and the next payment – plus a monthly chart, a breakdown by tag, contact or single template, and the upcoming payments as a timeline.
When you change the name, amount, anchor day, end date or account of a running template, “Apply Changes” asks which payments follow: template only, from a specific date, or all linked payments. Tags and contact always apply to all; description, color and icon only to the template. The account can only be swapped for one in the same currency.
What you can change depends on time: before the start date, everything. Once it runs, start date, interval and type (income/expense) are fixed. After the end date it can no longer be edited.

The Recurring overview with net per month, income, expenses, rest of year and the next payment, a monthly chart, a breakdown and the upcoming payments as a timeline — The course of your balance, a breakdown and the next payments, all on one page.

Note A salary you linked to a project of type Employment is marked “Salary” and is managed through that project. Don't create a second recurring payment for it.

Pause, end and book early

If you put a subscription on hold for a few months or a payment arrives early, you don't need to delete anything. The actions are in the template's menu in the sidebar and on its detail page.

Pause

“Pause from next payment” stops right away. “Schedule pause” lets you choose the first omitted payment and optionally the first payment after the pause – or leave it open-ended. A preview shows the affected dates. You can edit or remove scheduled pauses.

Resume

“Resume” continues the template with its full history. Skipped payments are not booked afterwards.

Tags & contacts

Tags and contacts turn a long list into something you can analyze. You manage both in the settings – reached via “Adjust finance settings” at the bottom of the sidebar.

In Self-Engine, categories are tags: groceries, rent, insurance and so on. A payment can carry several tags.
A tag has a name, a description and “Available in modules”. Leave the modules empty and it is available everywhere – in Tasks or Projects too.
Contacts are the other side of your payments: employers, clients, landlords, shops. A contact is a person or a company and can store email, phone, billing address, tax details and a currency.
You can also create tags and contacts right in the payment or recurring form without leaving it.

Finance projects

A finance project records an agreed amount – typically for a fixed-price job – and shows how much of it is paid and how much is still open.

Create a project
Switch to “Projects” and click “Add finance project”. Enter name, start amount and bank account, and optionally a description, a due date (single date or range), contact and tags.
Record adjustments
If the amount changes – extra work, a discount – add an increase or reduction with “Add adjustment”.
Pay out
“Payout Project” books the project's payment as income. You can also select the start amount and individual adjustments and pay them out together. A payout can be undone; you manage its payment here, not in the payments list.

The finance projects overview with three invoices as cards: one paid, one open with a due date, and one with adjustments — Each card shows how much of the agreed amount is paid and how much is still open.

The detail page shows Total, Paid, Open and the due date, plus a breakdown into start amount, unpaid and paid adjustments.
A project of type Project-based in the Projects module can be linked to a finance project, or create one when you set it up. The fixed price is then paid through the finance project.
Bulk selection deletes several finance projects at once; each one is edited on its own.

Note Finance projects are not budgets or savings goals: you can't assign arbitrary expenses to them, and there are no spending limits.

Payouts

A payout settles hourly work: it marks the chosen time entries as paid and books the amount you received as one income. You create it in the Projects module and review and manage it here.

Settle in the project
Open a project of type Hourly and choose “Payout” → “Quick Payout” with “All time”, “This month” or “Last month” – or select entries in the list and pay out the selection.
Check the amount
The dialog shows the calculated start value and the number of sessions. Enter what actually arrived as “End Value”, plus date and bank account. If the amount differs in the same currency, give a reason; for an account in another currency you enter the received amount yourself. Then “Payout”.
Wait for confirmation
The payout is pending at first. Once the server confirms it, the income appears in Finance and the entries count as paid.

Each payout shows the project, the calculated and received amount, number of sessions and duration – and with different currencies the rate that follows from both amounts. Filters for projects and contacts help you find one.
At the top you see per currency: this month, last month, average per month (last 12 months), this year and total.
“Edit Payout” corrects what arrived: title, amount, date, contact and account. You review the changes and confirm them. The settled time entries stay as they are; if you change the currency, you explicitly confirm the new amount.
Deleting a payout removes its income once confirmed, and the time entries are open again.

Heads up Creating, changing and deleting a payout stay pending until the server confirms them – offline too. Until then they don't count in the analysis; the balance shows the change separately as provisional. If the server rejects one, for example because another device already settled the entries, you see it on the device where you made it and can retry or dismiss it.

Web, Mac and mobile

The full feature set is available in the web app.

The Mac app shows the same interface as the web app.
The mobile apps are in development and not publicly available yet. So far they have a list of payments, recurring payments, transfers and account management, but no finance projects, no charts, no booking early and no creating payouts.

Tips

Set your opening balance deliberately and compare the balance with your bank regularly. A balance adjustment shows later where a difference came from.
Set up subscriptions as recurring payments, but compare them with your bank statement now and then: a created payment doesn't prove the bank actually charged you, and price increases are yours to enter.
Pause a subscription instead of deleting it – the history stays and you can resume it later.
If a regular payment came early, book it early instead of adding a second payment by hand.
Book movements between your own accounts as transfers so your income and expenses stay honest.
Give every payment one fixed category tag if you want a clean split by category; extra tags overlap on purpose.
Pick the right path for work income: hourly work is settled through payouts, fixed prices through a finance project, and a salary runs as a recurring payment from the Employment project.