Every time money moves between two of your own accounts, it leaves one and arrives in the other. Counted naively, that's a €500 expense on one side and €500 of income on the other, and your savings rate and budgets stop making sense. A transfer links the two sides together, so Talvo knows the money stayed yours.
What a transfer does
In Talvo, a transfer is a pair of transactions: money out of one account and the same money into another, linked together and filed under the Transfers category. Once linked:
- It's left out of spending and income. The Spending page, your budgets and the Insights money-flow diagram ignore it.
- Balances still move. Your current account goes down, your savings go up, and your net worth stays the same, as it should.
- You can still find it. Transfers show a Transfer badge in your transactions list, and the type filter has a Transfers option.
Each side names the other account. Neither counts as spending or income.
Transfers Talvo finds for you
When both accounts are connected through the same bank, like moving money between pockets or currencies in one banking app, Talvo matches the two sides on its own every time it syncs. It pairs transactions that share the bank's reference, have opposite amounts and fall within a few days of each other. There's nothing for you to do.
Recording a transfer yourself
For anything involving a manual account, like moving money into a cash wallet or a savings account that doesn't sync, you record the transfer yourself. There are two ways, depending on whether the money already shows up in Talvo.
The money moved between two manual accounts: add a new transfer
- 1Click Add transaction on the Transactions page (on mobile, tap the +) and switch the type to Transfer.
- 2Choose the From account and the To account. The money can come from any account. It can only go to a manual account.
- 3Enter the amount and the date, add a note if you like, and save. Talvo creates both sides and links them.
Moving money between accounts in different currencies? Talvo converts the receiving side at that day's exchange rate. If your bank used a different rate, edit the amount to match.
The money already left a connected bank: mark it as a transfer
The classic case is a cash withdrawal. Your bank already shows −€100 at the ATM, and you want that €100 to land in your cash wallet rather than count as spending.
- 1Open the transaction and choose Transfer.
- 2Answer Which account did this money go to? (or come from? for money coming in) by picking a manual account.
- 3Click Make it a transfer. Talvo adds the other side to the manual account and links the two.
Don't add the bank side twice. If the money left a connected account, mark that existing transaction as a transfer rather than creating a new one. A new transfer would add a second −€100 next to the one your bank already sent.
Transfers between two different banks
When money moves from one connected bank to another, both sides arrive on their own through sync. Talvo doesn't link them automatically yet. To keep them out of your totals, put both sides in the Transfers category:
- 1Open the outgoing transaction and choose Edit.
- 2Under Category, click All categories and pick Transfers. Keep Remember this category for future transactions ticked if this transfer repeats, like a monthly move to savings.
- 3Do the same for the incoming transaction at the other bank.
Anything in a transfer category is left out of spending, income and budgets, just like a linked pair. You can add your own transfer categories, such as “Savings” or “Credit card payment”, in the category manager.
Changing or removing a transfer
Open either side and choose Transfer. Talvo shows which account it's linked with and offers Remove transfer. The link is gone, and if Talvo created one of the sides for you, that side is removed too. For a pair Talvo matched automatically, removing the link also stops Talvo from matching those two transactions again.
A few things to know:
- Edit the real side. When Talvo created the other side of a transfer, edit the original transaction and the other side follows.
- Switching the type also works. Editing a transfer and changing its type to Expense or Income removes the link first.
- Check the category afterwards. A transaction that still sits in the Transfers category keeps being treated as a transfer. Give it a spending or income category if it should count again.
- Deleting one side ends the transfer. Deleted transactions are archived, so you can restore them from the Archived filter.