How to categorize transactions for transfers between accounts

When categorizing your monthly transactions, you may find a few situations where you've transferred money between accounts. This article will help you sort out exactly how to reflect these transfers inside your WizeFi account.

There are a few different types of transfers:

Transferring between checking and savings accounts
Contributions to your savings accounts
Paying off debt
Contributions to investment accounts

Let's go through each scenario

Transferring between checking and savings accounts. This transfer should not include situations where you're trying to contribute to a savings account to reach your savings goal.
1. Ex: Moving $1000 from savings into checking to pay off certain bills
2. In this situation, you can exclude the withdrawal transaction from the savings, and the deposit transaction into the checking account.
3. To exclude a transaction, go the "Transactions" page and click the trash can icon next to the transaction you wish to exclude
Contributions to your savings accounts.
1. Ex: Contributing $1000 from your checking account your savings account in order to get closer to your goal of having $2000 in savings.
2. In this situation, you can exclude the withdrawal from your checking account (-$1000).
3. Then, categorize the deposit of $1000 towards the savings account
4. Once you've categorized this deposit, you can see this transaction on your Plan. Go to the "Plan" page, click 4-step plan, and look at the savings account.
5. Notice how the $1000 deposit now appears in the "Applied" column. Since the Planned contribution amount for this month was $1000, you're on track with your FI plan this month!
Paying off debt
1. Ex: Pay off $30 of credit card debt using money from my checking account.
2. Exclude the withdrawal transaction (-$30) from the checking account.
3. Categorize the $30 payment on the credit card towards the credit card. In this example, I used this $30 to pay off a Visa.
4. Once you click save, this payment will now appear on your 4-step plan under the debt section.
5. Note: It's important to categorize these credit card payments to the credit card specifically, so you can see how much you've paid off compared to your planned amount.
6. In this example, my plan is to pay off $30 on my Visa credit card. After categorizing the payment, I can see that I have met my goal for the month and have paid off the $30. The next step is to pay off my Student Loan. I planned to pay off $600 this month, but I haven't yet (the "Applied" column for Student Loan is $0 so far).
Contributing to investment accounts. There are two situations when contributing to investment accounts.
1. Contributing from a checking/savings account
  1. Exclude the withdrawal from the checking/savings account
  2. Categorize the contribution to the investment account towards the investment account.
  3. Once you've saved this transaction, you can see it on your 4-step plan
2. Moving money from one investment account to another
  1. If you're moving money between accounts, but that's not a part of your 4-step plan, you can exclude both transactions (withdrawal and deposit)
  2. Ex: You want to move $500 from one brokerage account to another. Your plan this month is to contribute $1000 to your brokerage account which doesn't include this $500 transfer.
    Exclude both the withdrawal (-$1000) and the deposit ($1000) transactions. WizeFi will automatically update the brokerage account balances once the transfer has been completed.