Add, edit, and split a transaction

Most of your transactions arrive through imports. This page covers what you do with them after that: editing what came in wrong, entering something manually, and splitting a single charge across multiple categories.

stateDiagram-v2
  [*] --> Uncleared: imported or entered
  Uncleared --> Cleared: you confirm it on your bank's site
  Cleared --> Reconciled: reconciliation closes
  Reconciled --> Cleared: unlock to edit

A transaction moves through three states from import to reconciliation.

Add a transaction manually

To add a transaction without importing it — cash spending, a check you wrote, an adjustment — click + Add transaction above the register, or press N.

Fill in:

• Date. Default is today. Change it if the transaction happened on a different date.
• Payee. Start typing and PennyBolt shows matching payees. Pick an existing one or type a new name. If you type a new name, PennyBolt creates a payee.
• Category. Required. Start typing or browse the category tree.
• Amount. Enter the amount. Use a negative number for expenses (money going out), positive for income (money coming in). For credit card accounts, purchases are positive (they increase the balance you owe).
• Memo. Optional. A note to yourself about the transaction.

Press Enter or click Save.

Edit an existing transaction

Click any transaction in the register to open it. Change any field and press Enter or click Save. Payee, category, date, amount, and memo are all editable.

You cannot edit a reconciled transaction without unlocking it first. To unlock: open the transaction, click Unlock, and confirm. Editing a reconciled transaction may affect a prior reconciliation — do it only when you know the original entry was wrong.

Split a transaction

A split lets you assign portions of one transaction to different categories — a Target run that covered groceries, household supplies, and clothing, for example.

To split a transaction:

1. Open it in the register.
2. Click Split.
3. Add a row for each category, with the amount for that portion.
4. The amounts must add up to the transaction total. PennyBolt shows the running difference so you know when they balance.
5. Click Save.

To unsplit a transaction, open it, delete all but one split line, and save.

Delete a transaction

Open the transaction and click Delete. Deleted transactions cannot be recovered. If you imported the transaction from a bank download, you can re-import the file — duplicate detection will skip it, but you can override that if needed. See Re-importing safely .

See also

• Transactions — the fields each transaction has.
• Reconcile an account — what cleared and reconciled status mean in practice.
• Payee rules — let rules assign categories automatically instead of doing it by hand.