​

Transfers Between Accounts

A transfer moves money between your own accounts. Unlike income or expenses, transfers don’t change your net worth—they simply move funds from one place to another.

​

How Transfers Work

Every transfer consists of two linked transactions:

1. Outflow - Money leaving one account (negative amount)
2. Inflow - Money entering another account (positive amount)

These two transactions are linked together as a single transfer.

​

Example: Moving Money to Savings

When you transfer $500 from checking to savings: Your total net worth stays the same—the money simply moved from one account to another.

​

Transfer Types

Sure recognizes different types of transfers based on the destination account:

​

Funds Movement

General transfers between asset accounts:

• Checking to savings
• Savings to money market
• Between investment accounts

These are excluded from budgets because they don’t represent spending or income.

​

Credit Card Payment

When you pay your credit card bill, Sure creates a cc_payment transfer:

• Outflow from your checking account
• Inflow to your credit card (reducing your debt)

This is excluded from budgets because the spending already happened when you used the credit card.

​

Loan Payment

Payments to loan accounts (mortgage, auto, student loans) are treated as loan_payment transfers.

[!NOTE] Loan payments can be treated as expenses in budgets since they represent an ongoing financial obligation, even though they also reduce your debt.

​

Investment Contribution

Transfers to investment or crypto accounts:

• Contributing to your 401(k)
• Adding funds to a brokerage account
• Moving money to a crypto exchange

These are excluded from budgets because you’re saving/investing, not spending.

​

Creating Transfers Manually

To create a transfer:

1. Go to the Transactions page
2. Click + New Transaction
3. Select Transfer
4. Choose:
   • From account - Where money is coming from
   • To account - Where money is going
   • Amount - How much to transfer
   • Date - When the transfer occurred
5. Click Add transaction

Sure automatically creates both the outflow and inflow transactions and links them together.

​

Automatic Transfer Matching

When you sync accounts with a provider (Plaid, SimpleFIN, etc.), Sure attempts to automatically match transfers between accounts.

​

How Matching Works

Sure looks for transaction pairs that:

• Are from different accounts in the same family
• Have opposite amounts (one positive, one negative)
• Occurred within a date window

​

Date Windows

​

Suggested Matches

When Sure finds a potential transfer match, it creates a pending transfer suggestion. You can:

1. Confirm - Accept the match and link the transactions
2. Reject - Dismiss the match (transactions remain separate)

To review suggested transfers:

1. Open a transaction that may be part of a transfer
2. Look for transfer match suggestions
3. Confirm or reject as appropriate

​

Cross-Currency Transfers

When transferring between accounts with different currencies:

• Sure validates that amounts have opposite signs
• The exact amounts don’t need to match (due to exchange rates)
• Both transactions are linked as a transfer

Example: Transferring from a USD checking account to a EUR savings account: The transfer is valid because one amount is negative and one is positive, even though the numbers differ due to the exchange rate.

​

How Transfers Affect Budgets

Transfers are generally excluded from budget calculations because they don’t represent actual spending or income:

[!TIP] If you want to budget for loan payments, you may want to track them as expenses. Sure treats loan payments specially since they represent ongoing obligations.

​

Understanding Net Worth Impact

Transfers are zero-sum for net worth:

• Moving $500 from checking to savings: Net worth unchanged
• Paying $500 to credit card: Net worth unchanged (reduced cash = reduced debt)
• Contributing $500 to 401(k): Net worth unchanged (reduced cash = increased investments)

The only time a transfer affects net worth is if there are fees involved (which would be a separate expense transaction).

​

Common Transfer Scenarios

​

Paying Off a Credit Card

1. Money leaves your checking account (-$500)
2. Credit card balance decreases (-$500 debt)
3. Net worth: unchanged

​

Making a Mortgage Payment

1. Money leaves your checking account (-$2,000)
2. Loan balance decreases (-$1,700 principal,$300 goes to interest)
3. Note: The interest portion is technically an expense

[!IMPORTANT] Mortgage payments include both principal (reducing debt) and interest (an expense). Sure tracks the full payment as a loan transfer, but the interest portion represents a true cost.

​

Contributing to Retirement

1. Money leaves your checking account (-$500)
2. Investment account balance increases (+$500)
3. Net worth: unchanged (cash converted to investments)

​

Transferring Between Banks

1. Money leaves Bank A checking (-$1,000)
2. Money arrives at Bank B checking (+$1,000)
3. Net worth: unchanged

​

Troubleshooting Transfers

​

Duplicate Transactions

If you see both a transfer and separate expense/income transactions:

• Check if the transactions should be linked as a transfer
• Confirm or reject the transfer suggestion
• Delete duplicate transactions if needed

​

Unmatched Transfers

If Sure didn’t automatically match a transfer:

• The amounts may not match exactly (due to fees or timing)
• The dates may be too far apart
• You can manually create a transfer to link them

​

Wrong Transfer Type

If a transfer is categorized incorrectly:

• Check that both accounts are the correct type
• The transfer type is determined by the destination account