What a transfer between accounts is, and why it is not spending.

When you move money from your checking account to your savings, each bank records its half. One account shows money going out and the other shows the same amount coming in, that day or a few days later. Topping up a travel card from your bank account leaves the same trail on both statements.

If the outgoing movement counted as spending and the incoming one as income, a €500.00 transfer would add €500.00 to the month's spending and another €500.00 to its income, without you buying or earning anything. So Jeff Banks keeps both movements out of your income and spending, the categories and the trend in Month, and Payments does not take them for a subscription or an installment.

The balance does move, because the money changes place. Your checking account goes down by what your savings go up, so the total balance on Home stays the same. Both movements stay in your lists and in search with the amount in grey, and opening one shows which bank it leaves and which it reaches.

Without you marking anything, Jeff Banks looks for the other half among the movements of every bank in your workspace. It pairs money out with money in only when all of the following hold.

• They have the same amount to the cent, one negative and the other positive, in the same currency.
• At most 3 days pass between the two dates. When you top up a travel card with your bank card, for example, the charge is sometimes booked a day or two after the money arrives.
• They come from two different accounts, and when the statements of both go into the same bank in Jeff Banks, the bank has to describe both movements as a transfer between your accounts, because a charge and its reversal on one account look too much alike.
• Both look like money changing accounts, such as a transfer, a transfer between accounts or a top-up. A card payment only qualifies when a top-up arrives on the other side. A direct debit, a Bizum, a cash withdrawal, a fee, interest or a refund is never paired on its own.
• When both name someone, it has to be the same person, which is why money you send to one person and money another person sends you do not make a transfer, even when the amount and the date match.
• Something else confirms it, and one sign is enough. The bank describes one of them as a transfer between accounts or the incoming one as a top-up, the text of one names the other's bank (if you picked that bank from the list when you added it), or both carry the same account holder's name.

If several movements fit the same outgoing one, the closest in date is paired, because each movement is paired only once.

A transfer that arrives in two parts, with a fee deducted or converted into another currency finds no equal amount on the other side. Nor does one to an account of yours that is not in Jeff Banks, because the incoming half is missing. Those movements count in your income or spending, under the category the rules give them, until you mark them.

Change its category to the one the app calls “Traspaso entre cuentas”, the way you change any other category. From then on the movement stays out of your income and spending even without a pair. If its other half is in Jeff Banks, the two can pair even when no other sign is there, and that pair comes before any the rules find on their own.

Giving a paired movement another category breaks the pair. That movement follows the category you chose, and the other one counts in your income or spending again, unless it fits a third one. With automatic (“Automática” in the app), Jeff Banks forgets your choice and pairs them again if the rules still find them.

A transfer to another person counts as spending, under the category the app calls “Transferencias”, even when it goes to family, because Jeff Banks cannot know who lives with you. If you do not want to see it as spending, pick the option the app calls “No contar en el P&L” when you change its category, and it then shows as “Fuera del P&L”. Under a spending category it still counts.