Finance Tracking

Overview

The Finance module tracks every money movement across all your accounts: one-time payments, standing orders, transfers between accounts, client projects, and the payouts you earn from tracked work time. Everything is organized into four areas, with balances and monthly numbers always in the sidebar.

Payments

One-time income and expenses — the heart of the module:

• Income is positive and green, expenses are negative and red — a toggle sets the sign when you create one
• Payments carry a source badge: entered manually, generated by a standing order, created by a payout, a finance project, or a transfer
• Manual payments are fully editable. Payout and project payments are read-only (jump to their source instead). Standing-order payments: name, amount and date here — account, tags and contact on the template
• Filter by income/expense, source, tags (AND/OR) and contact; multi-select manual payments for bulk deletion

Transfers

Move money between your own accounts without distorting your statistics:

• One transfer books two linked entries — outgoing on one account, incoming on the other. Editing or deleting one always handles both
• Transfers move balances but are excluded from income, expenses, and the monthly numbers
• Across currencies you enter debit and credit amount yourself — Self-Engine applies no exchange rate and books no fees

Standing Orders

A standing order is a template that generates the actual payments:

• From the start date, one payment per interval is generated up to today or the end date (they appear after sync). The anchor day pins the weekday or day of month
• Three states: future (everything editable), active (already generating), completed (end date passed)
• When editing name, amount, anchor day or end date you choose the scope: template only, from a date, or all linked payments. Tags and contact always apply to all; the description only to the template
• Interval and start date are fixed once payments exist
• Deactivate sets the end date to today and keeps everything booked. Deleting asks: remove everything, or unlink and keep the payments as standalone entries

Bank Accounts

Every payment belongs to an account; the account defines its currency:

• The balance is your starting balance plus every payment since you set it
• Balance off? Either book an adjustment payment (history stays visible) or set the balance directly (starts fresh from now)
• One default account per currency is preselected for new entries
• Careful when deleting: an account takes its payments, standing orders, payouts, and finance projects with it

Finance Projects

Finance projects bundle money movements around one deal or goal:

• Fixed-price client work: a work project of type "Project" links to a finance project that carries the agreed fee and its payment status
• Personal goals and budgets work the same way: a target amount, a due date, and every related payment in one place
• Adjustments capture changes after the fact — extra costs or additions on top of the originally calculated amount, itemized on the project
• Pay out the main amount or individual adjustments; each payout books a payment and can be undone. A fully paid project locks itself

Payouts

Payouts are the bridge from tracked work time to your finances:

• They are created in the Work module when you bill tracked hours — this tab is where you review and manage them
• Each payout shows its work project, covered sessions, total time, and amount — including the exchange rate if you converted currencies
• Editing title, amount, date or account also updates the linked income payment
• Deleting a payout removes that payment and marks all covered time entries as unpaid again

Categories & Tags

Organize and categorize your payments:

• Create custom tags for different expense categories
• Filter and search payments by tags
• Analyze spending patterns by category
• Use color coding for quick visual identification

Tips & Best Practices

• Record payments as they happen for accuracy
• Set up standing orders for subscriptions so you never forget them
• Use consistent tags for easier categorization and analysis
• Review your finances monthly to identify saving opportunities
• Book account-to-account moves as transfers so your income and expense numbers stay honest
• Link work income to finance projects to track project profitability