Skip to content
Open Net Worth Docs

Transactions and the ledger

Every amount that goes in or out of an account is a transaction, listed in that account’s register. The register is the source of truth for your budget’s activity, your cash figure in net worth, and your spending reports.

You can add transactions by hand (below), by importing a statement, from email or a bank connection, or just by telling Lucius: “I paid $42.80 for dinner at Nando’s on my Visa yesterday.”

Add a transaction

  1. Open Accounts and pick the account in the list.
  2. Click Add transaction (beside the search box above the register).
  3. Fill in the row:
    • Date.
    • Payee — start typing a name. To record a transfer, pick To/From another account from the list instead of a payee.
    • Category — optional. Leave it blank and it shows as Uncategorized.
    • Description / Memo — optional (which of these show depends on the register’s columns).
    • Amount — click the −/+ button beside it to switch between money out (outflow) and money in (inflow).
  4. Press Save, or Save and add another to keep entering.

Edit, delete or split a transaction

  1. Click a row in the register to open its detail drawer.
  2. Click Edit transaction, change any field, then Save changes.
  3. To split it across categories (for example a supermarket run that is part groceries, part household), click Split into multiple categories under Category and add a line per category. The lines must add up exactly — the editor shows Balanced when they do, or the amount Remaining.
  4. To remove it, click Delete.

The drawer also shows the transaction’s Activity (every change made to it, and by whom) and its Receipts — see Attach a receipt.

To change many at once, tick the rows’ checkboxes. A bar appears for setting the category, marking them cleared, uncleared or reviewed, deleting them, and (under More) moving them to another account or setting a description.

Mark transactions cleared

A transaction is cleared once it has posted at your bank. Clearing is what reconciliation checks against; it is separate from categorizing.

  • Click the cleared mark in the register row, or
  • in the detail drawer, tick Cleared (ticked reads Posted, unticked Pending). While editing, it saves with your other changes.

The Starting Balance transaction is always cleared.

Find transactions

Type in the search box above the register to search payee, memo and category. Click into the empty box for one-click filters — Uncategorized, Uncleared and Needs review — or type them: uncategorized, status:uncleared, status:review. Cleared and Uncleared are one choice: picking one replaces the other.

Review new transactions

A transaction added by an import, by Lucius, from email, or by an Automation can be flagged needs review. It already counts in your balances and reports — review is a check, not a holding area.

  1. In Accounts, click N to review to list them, or Start review to go through them one card at a time.
  2. On each card, correct the account, amount, date, payee or category if needed.
  3. Click Approve to save it and clear the flag, Skip to leave it for later, or Reject to delete it (you confirm first). On a touch screen, swipe right to approve, left to skip.

Hovering the Review tag on a row says what Review means.

When transactions are waiting, a new Lucius conversation shows a Needs attention item such as 7 transactions to review; its Review button opens the same cards. The Dashboard’s Needs attention lists them too, beside its other flags.

Only you approve. You can ask Lucius to approve rows — “approve the ones that look right” — and he shows you a confirmation card listing each one first. An Automation can add, edit or re-flag a transaction, but can never clear the flag.

Transfers, investments and the Starting Balance

  • A transfer always has two sides, one in each account, and both stay in sync — edit one and the other follows. Both accounts must exist (one may be archived).
  • An Invest transaction is a buy (cash out, −) or a sell (cash in, +). While editing, click the sign beside the amount to switch. Its payee is the broker or platform (for example IBKR) — set automatically when the trade is recorded against an account with an institution, and editable in the drawer like any other payee. A buy or sale recorded against a holding writes what it traded as the description — for example Sold 60 KSTL @ 150.00 USD · fees 1.25 USD — and leaves the memo free for your own note.
  • A balance adjustment (created when you reconcile) never has a category and is left out of spending reports.
  • The Starting Balance can’t be deleted, uncleared, freely edited or merged — change the account’s opening balance from Edit account instead.

What Lucius can do here

  • Add one or many transactions from a plain description, including transfers and splits.
  • Find and fix categorization mistakes, or update many transactions at once.
  • Trace a transaction’s full history.
  • Find and merge likely duplicates, keeping the history intact.
  • Attach a receipt, or read one that’s attached.

Things that trip people up

  • Category is optional. No category shows as Uncategorized — a blank, not a category. Lucius won’t invent a category you don’t have; he asks or leaves it blank.
  • A foreign-currency amount is converted at the rate on its date, not today’s. Net worth still values your current balances at today’s rate. See Base currency & FX.
  • Split lines must add up exactly — a cent off is rejected, not rounded.
  • Deleting an account that has transactions deletes them too, after you confirm. To keep the history, archive the account instead. See Accounts.