Is there a way to create a recurring manual bill based on the actual Credit Card amount?

Marconi Menezes

At the moment, I use a recurring manual bill to estimate the payment from my checking account to my credit card account every month. The bill is set up with 0 value and I manually update the next payment as I make expenses with the credit card.

However, I feel like I might be missing a smarter feature that can link the monthly transfer from my checking account with the actual value in the credit card account and update the estimated value automatically. I always thought that this should be a simple and common feature of money managers, although I never found it in MS Money either.

So, am I missing something or is it just a dream?

Jim_Harman

Normally as you say, a credit card bill is paid using a transfer from your checking account to the credit card account.

If you create a Bill or Transfer reminder with a credit card account as the destination, you can click on (change) next to Estimate amount for me and set the estimate to Current credit card balance.

The disadvantage of this estimate is that it will change during the month as the credit card balance grows, and by the time you get the bill, the current balance will generally be greater than the closing balance. This affects your projected balance display.

This is better than an estimate of zero, but I find it more useful to set the estimate for credit card payments to use the past 3 months' payments. This assumes that the amount due this month will be about the same as previous months.

RalphC

Is this what you're looking for? Create/Edit your bill reminder and set the estimate to be the Current credit card balance.

Marconi Menezes

Thank you both for your replies. Yes, that's what I was looking for. I didn't know that this estimate option existed, maybe because it's only available in this type of transfer.

I understand that it might not be very exact all the time, for instance, when I make a purchase after the invoice cut-off date for that month. Anyway, I think it will be better than having to update the manual reminder every time I pay something with the CC.

I think that this feature could be just a bit smarter by asking what is the cut-off date of the CC and taking that into consideration when calculating the estimate for a given month. In my CC, for instance, it's the 5th of every month. Any charge made after the 5th should be considered for the next month instead.