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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: kimmarg on January 07, 2016, 04:07:02 PM

Title: Mint double counting
Post by: kimmarg on January 07, 2016, 04:07:02 PM
I use mint to track my spending. I have a main checking account and several dedicated savings accounts at at online bank. ('car repairs', 'education'  'christmas' etc) When I purchase something using my debit card it pulls from my checking and I then transfer the money from my online savings account to cover the purchase. The result is that mint counts it twice. So I pay $1000 tuition and that counts as education when it pulls out of checking and it counts as education AGAIN when it transfers from the savings to checking and then mint says I'm way over budget. arrrrg! How can I fix this?
Title: Re: Mint double counting
Post by: rpr on January 07, 2016, 04:15:22 PM
I would categorize the money transferred from the savings to checking into a new category under "Transfers" called "Transfer between Accounts". That way it does not double count.
Title: Re: Mint double counting
Post by: therethere on January 07, 2016, 04:20:03 PM
It should also show a credit to the checking account. So the credit to the checking account and the debit from the savings account should both be classified as "Transfer". Then the only actual categorized transaction is the original payment/deduction from the checking account to pay the bill.

Really though, if you are using Mint as your record. Then you should just have rollover budgets that account for this type of stuff. Then all the money is in the checking account and you don't risk overdrafting. So your car insurance is $600 every 6 months? Set up a Mint budget for $100/month that rolls over. Makes accounting less of a hassle and much simpler.
Title: Re: Mint double counting
Post by: kimmarg on January 07, 2016, 04:32:57 PM
I would categorize the money transferred from the savings to checking into a new category under "Transfers" called "Transfer between Accounts". That way it does not double count.

Yea sometimes it shows up as 'transfer' I think part of the problem is my online savings lets me write a reason for the transfer and then mint picks up on what I write. So If I put a note in as "spring tuition" on the transfer mint auto categorizes it as Education/Tuition.   Maybe I can teach it to ignore the entire savings account for the budget so it only counts when it comes out of checking?
Really though, if you are using Mint as your record. Then you should just have rollover budgets that account for this type of stuff. Then all the money is in the checking account and you don't risk overdrafting. So your car insurance is $600 every 6 months? Set up a Mint budget for $100/month that rolls over. Makes accounting less of a hassle and much simpler.

I keep separate savings accounts to help me manage my money. I know I *should* just be able to leave it all in checking but somehow that never works for me. I psycholoigically consider the dedicated savings accounts "untouchable" except for the specified reason whereas checking ends up getting spent somewhere else.
Title: Re: Mint double counting
Post by: stealthystache on January 08, 2016, 06:57:28 AM
I've had the same trouble with Mint and started fixing it this way: click on the edit button under the item you're fixing (when you're on transactions). when the larger box pops up, in the bottom left corner there's an option to check called "duplicate". In my case, Mint was showing me all purchases on my mileage card, then recorded the payment from my bank account when I paid it off each month, then recorded the amount when it paid off the card. I just typed in the name of each transaction in the search, selected all, hit "duplicate" for all, and got a years worth fixed in less than a minute.

Still a pain, yes? ;)
Title: Re: Mint double counting
Post by: NoStacheOhio on January 08, 2016, 07:00:51 AM
You could also hide tags or accounts from the budgets tab