Recurring costs

Subscriptions and fixed bills with a day in the month.

The payments that come back every month: subscriptions, insurance, rent, memberships.

Frequency and first due date

A recurring cost has a frequency — weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly — and a first due date. The app works out the following dates and shows the next one on the dashboard timeline. An optional end date closes the item, for example when a fixed-term contract runs out.

Ticking off with the real amount

When marking a payment as made, you can give the amount actually charged if it differs from the planned one. The difference is shown — because that is what tells you a subscription got more expensive or the electricity bill went through the roof.

Ticking it off records the expense in your budget, so there is no need to do it twice.

Why a separate module

You could keep these as ordinary transactions. A separate module gives you two things transactions do not: a reminder before the due date and the total of your fixed outgoings, meaning the amount that leaves your account regardless of what else happens that month.

The summary

At the top are two totals: per month and per year, across all active items whatever their frequency. A yearly subscription of 240 adds 20 to the monthly total. Every ticked payment shows whether it came out more or less expensive than planned.

Example

A phone plan at 59 a month with the first due date on 12 January. Every month on the 12th it appears on the timeline, and once overdue in the "overdue" count. Ticking it off with 64.90 marks the payment "more expensive than planned", a cue to look at the bill. Undoing a tick removes the linked expense from the budget, while deleting the whole item keeps expenses already recorded.