Your regular bills, set up once

A bill is something you tell Mintro will happen: a name, an amount, how often it repeats, the next due date, the account it is paid from, and the envelope the money comes out of. It can repeat monthly, every other week, twice a month, or yearly. Nine bills cover the Reyes household. Maya's paycheque is set up the same way, as money coming in every other Friday, with no envelope, because income always goes to Ready to assign.

Upcoming bills and income is the first section of the register on Accounts, and it answers one question: what is due? You can look two weeks, a month, or three months ahead. Each line shows a bill, its envelope, its amount, and a button to enter it when it is paid. A bill that is past its date stays there, marked overdue, until somebody enters it. Mintro doesn't enter bills on its own schedule, so nothing is entered automatically unless you turn that on for a bill.

If Friday is a holiday and the mortgage will come out on Monday instead, change the date. You can change it just this once, so next month is back on the 1st, or from now on. And when the bank's transaction arrives, it can be matched to the bill you entered, so it is only counted once.

When the mortgage payment shows up from the bank, it is not a new, unexplained transaction. It is the mortgage bill being paid: same account, same amount, within a few days of its date. It is recorded as the bill automatically: it is filed to Mortgage, the bill moves on to its next due date, and because the bill is linked to the mortgage loan, the loan's balance goes down by the payment. One bank transaction updates all three.

A payment that comes in a little different from the bill is still recognised as the bill. A Shaw transaction for $81.40, when the Shaw Internet bill is $85.00, has the bill's name and is within 20% of its amount, so it is recorded as the bill in the same way, at the amount the bank actually took; the bill keeps its usual amount for next month. If two bills could both match, or a transaction is far from the bill's amount, it waits for you to decide, with Mintro's suggestion beside it.

Switch Cashflow to Bills only, and the future part of the chart shows nothing but bills and paycheques: the mortgage taking your balance down on the 1st, and the paycheque bringing it back up on the Friday. Set up a bill and it appears on the chart right away. That is why setting up your bills matters more than any reminder: it is how Mintro projects the month ahead. The everyday spending you choose to include is added on top of that in the With spending view, and a scheduled bill is never counted twice.