Hi-
I am fairly new at this and trying to figure out some kinks.
I have a credit card that is a debt account as I am needing to pay it off. I am still actively using the card for transactions. There are times when I have made a return on a purchase and have a credit for these transactions. What would you suggest for doing this?
I tried doing a ‘credit/income’ transaction with the account but since it’s a ‘debt account’ it won’t let me and tells me to do a ‘debt transaction’. If I do a ‘debt transaction’ do I consider it a ‘payment’ transaction? If I do this what ‘account’ do I say it is from?
Or a ‘new charge’ transaction but then give it a -(negative)xx.xx. for the amount?
Suggestions??
You’ve described one of the trickiest situations in Goodbudget (using a credit card while it carries a balance). That said, your best bet here is indeed to use a Debt transaction type and “Add Interest, Fee or New Charge” of a negative amount for the credit you’ve received.
The tricky part comes in using your envelopes appropriately when you spend on the card. Since you don’t want to accrue any new balance, you’ll probably need to do both a Debt transaction (to increase the card balance) and an Envelope Transfer from the envelope representative of the purchase into the debt payment envelope. This accomplishes two things: it means you’ll have enough money in the debt envelope to pay off the charges, and it represents your true spend in that category for the month.
Hope that helps!