Accounts
Accounts represent where money lives (checking/savings) and where debt lives (credit cards). Alto uses account type to decide how balances move and what counts as “income” for Ready to Assign.
Account types
Manual vs Plaid-linked
- Manual accounts: you maintain balances by entering transactions.
- Plaid accounts: Alto can sync transactions and keep balances aligned with the institution.
- Newly-linked Plaid accounts typically create a starting balance so Alto’s internal balance math matches Plaid’s “current balance”.
Starting balances
When you add an account with an initial balance, Alto creates a “Starting Balance” transaction and then updates the account balance using the same balance-change rules as any other transaction.
- A positive starting balance is stored as an
inflow. - Cash starting balances count toward Total Income (and therefore Ready to Assign).
- A positive starting balance represents debt and is stored as an
outflow. - Credit-card starting balances do not count as income.
Net worth calculation
The Accounts page shows a net worth-style number by treating credit card balances as liabilities (subtracted) and cash balances as assets (added).
Credit card settings
Credit card accounts can store additional metadata to help you manage your cards:
- Payment due day (1–31): The day of the month when your payment is due. Used for sorting cards and surfacing what's due sooner.
- Minimum payment: Your minimum required payment amount.
- Credit limit: The total credit limit on the card. Helpful for tracking utilization.
- Interest rate: The APR on the card. Useful for prioritizing which cards to pay down first.
Deleting accounts
When you delete an account, Alto carefully handles the data to keep your budget balanced. Here's what happens:
- Payments to the deleted account (e.g., credit card payments) are converted to regular outflows on the source account. This keeps your checking account balance accurate.
- Transfers from the deleted account are converted to inflows on the destination account.
- Categorized transactions are preserved (without an account) to maintain accurate category "available" amounts.
- This prevents your category balances from incorrectly increasing when you delete an account with spending history.
- Credit card payment envelopes are deleted along with the card.
- Any direct assignments to the card are removed from the budget.
- The amortization schedule is deleted.
- Auto-created payment categories are unlinked but not deleted, so you can repurpose them or delete them manually.
Deleting an account is permanent. The account's starting balance and uncategorized transactions will be removed from your budget history. If the account had significant income or spending, your Ready to Assign may change after deletion.