Why are you still entering the same transactions every month?
Rent, building maintenance, Netflix, YouTube Premium, health insurance, loan repayment. These transactions have the same amount and the same date every single month. If you have to enter them manually each time, keeping a budget quickly starts to feel like a chore.
The bigger issue is missed entries. Skip a busy month and that month's budget no longer reflects reality. Statistics drift. Cashflow forecasts become unreliable. Transactions that repeat on a schedule should be set up once and generated automatically from that point forward.
How to register a recurring transaction
There are two ways to set one up. The first is going to Settings > Recurring Items and creating a new entry directly — just fill in the name, amount, category, account, and frequency.
The second way is to toggle "Register as recurring" while entering or editing any transaction. When you register directly from an existing transaction, the name, category, and account are copied automatically. The first time you enter a recurring expense, just flip that toggle and it continues on its own from there. This method is especially convenient because it fits naturally into your regular logging flow rather than requiring a separate setup detour.
Schedule options
Repeat frequency can be set to daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Most fixed expenses use monthly. You can specify a day — set "15th of every month" and the badge in the list will show the exact date. For annual payments like insurance premiums or vehicle registration, use yearly and optionally set an end date.
If you go a few days without opening the app, there's nothing to worry about. When you return, any transactions that should have been generated during that time are filled in automatically. A week of travel won't leave gaps in your records.
Managing loan repayments
When registering loan repayments as recurring transactions, it's important to separate principal and interest. Principal repayment is a transfer transaction — both your asset and your debt decrease simultaneously. Interest is a pure financial expense. Keeping them separate is what makes your double-entry ledger accurate and lets you see the true cost of borrowing.
For interest-only periods — common with grace period loans — set the principal to zero. When your repayment structure changes, just update the recurring transaction amount and it applies to every future month automatically. With loan repayments recorded every month, your total interest costs show up accurately in your statistics.
Integration with cashflow forecasting
Every registered recurring transaction flows directly into the annual cashflow forecast. When 4W1H predicts cash movements for months that haven't arrived yet, recurring transactions fill in the gaps. If your rent is registered, that payment appears in the forecast three, six, even twelve months out.
The more recurring transactions you register, the more accurate the forecast becomes. Once your fixed expenses are covered, only variable spending needs individual attention. For a deeper look at how cashflow forecasting works, see the annual cashflow forecasting guide.
Get started
Start 4W1H now and register your recurring transactions. Even just three — rent, phone bill, and one subscription — will noticeably improve the completeness of your budget. All features are available during the free trial.