Spend tracking and exemptions

(George Caulfield) #1

Hey there, guys!

First of all, apologies if this idea has been shared already. I wasn’t able to see it though, so thought I’d create a new thread.

One of the main things that prevents me from having my salary paid directly into Monzo, is that any money that is transferred out of the account is assigned a category and is incorporated into my monthly spend figures. As such any funds that are sent to a savings account or similar, are shown as £s spent. To work around this I’ve left my salary with my legacy bank, then divided it up between accounts from there.

Further to this, when products are purchased for someone else, these also show in your monthly spend; even if said third party sends you the money for the purchase, there is no way to counteract it.

I know it’s a relatively small thing, and I’m not sure how much work it would take to implement, but my suggestion would be a spending category called Exhemption (or something along those lines): any transaction attributed to that category would be ignored in your overall monthly spend.

If you haven't moved over, what's stopping you from making Monzo your main bank?
#2

I totally agree. I’m having to use my old bank account for salary because I don’t want a huge “spending” amount ruining my totals.

Also, today I accidentally transferred too much money into Monzo, and send some back to my old bank account - that ruined today’s spending total, so i can’t see how much I’ve actually sent today.

An exemption category would be an elegant solution.

If you haven't moved over, what's stopping you from making Monzo your main bank?
(Brandon Billingham) #3
(Robert Shaw) #4

This is really interesting because I feel exactly the opposite! For me it’s really helpful to have ALL my outgoings classed es expenditure and included within Spending.

I do have an idea about how to show payments from friends for example. I will create a separate thread for it. I’d be interested in reactions to it.

(Tom) #5

I’ve started to hit this issue when transferring money to a savings account at another bank, as well as when payment for work expenses is taken by Direct Debit (which I get paid back for). It’s the same as transferring money to invest in something like an ISA and covering things for friends at restaurants etc.

It would be good to have “Outgoings” in total, but then more granularity for categorising “transfers” etc as opposed to “expenditure”. When the more advanced features like choosing start/end date for monthly reporting and predictive analytics around available money to spend address developed, it’ll be more important then. Overall, this level of detail is needed to get real insight into how I’m managing my money.

(Brandon Billingham) #6

Yep, long asked for and agreed. I really hope this changes soon.

(Alex Sherwood) #7

It looks like a fix is on the way for this :tada:

Click the :arrow_down_small: to view the full post.

(fabianviktor_flatz) #8

I have the exact same problem, quite surprised that this hasn’t been solved yet!
I love the spending feature but it gets highly impacted by 2 things:

  • I transfer money into an investment product (e.g. a savings account or peer to peer lender), which is not part of what I track as spending. --> since I make this investment as a lump sump it is often 0 for 3 months and then super high for another month --> completely screws up my spending for that month and it’s not something I would even consider “spending” (I am buying an asset)
  • If I buy stuff for friends even if they pay me back via Monzo the full amount incl. the portion that belongs to my friends shows up as my “spending”