Credit Cards

Credit cards are modeled as debt accounts. Alto tracks your credit card spending through your expense categories while showing payment activity in the budget sidebar.

Key ideas

  • Credit card balances are inverted compared to cash accounts: outflows increase the balance (you owe more), inflows decrease it.
  • Categorized credit card spending reduces the category's available balance, just like spending from a checking account.
  • Payments are entered as transfers from a cash account to the credit card. The cash side is categorized to the card's payment category.
  • All credit card inflows (payments, refunds) are treated as "paid" transactions that reduce your balance.

Credit card payment categories

When you add a credit card account, Alto automatically creates a corresponding expense category for tracking payments to that card.

How payment categories work
  • Auto-created: Created automatically when you add a credit card account.
  • Tied to the account: The category is linked to the credit card and cannot be deleted separately.
  • Hidden when paid off: If the credit card balance is $0, the payment category is hidden from the budget view.
  • Payment tracking: When you make a transfer from a cash account to the credit card, the cash side is categorized here.

Balance change rules

For credit cards (debt)
  • outflow → balance increases (you owe more)
  • inflow → balance decreases (you owe less)
Why it matters
This keeps the mental model consistent: the displayed balance is the amount you owe, not the amount of spending you've done.

Credit cards in the budget sidebar

Credit cards appear in the right sidebar under the Accounts section. For each card, you'll see:

  • Balance: The total amount you owe on the card (does not change based on the viewing period).
  • Spent: How much you've spent on the card during the current pay period.
  • Paid: How much you've paid toward the card during the current pay period.

Credit card account 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.
  • Minimum payment: Your minimum required payment amount.
  • Credit limit: The total credit limit on the card.
  • Interest rate: The APR on the card.

Making payments

The recommended way to record a credit card payment is to create a transfer from your checking account to the credit card.

What happens when you create a payment transfer
  • The checking account balance decreases (outflow).
  • The credit card balance decreases (inflow = you owe less).
  • The cash side of the transfer is categorized to the credit card's payment category.
  • The credit card side shows as a "paid" transaction.

Refunds and credits

Refunds, credits, and other inflows on your credit card are all treated the same way: they show as "paid" transactions that reduce your balance.

Simple model
Since credit card transactions aren't categorized to expense categories, there's no special handling needed for refunds. Any inflow on a credit card simply reduces what you owe.

Filtering credit cards

In the budget sidebar, you can filter which credit cards are displayed:

  • With Balance: Shows only cards that have a balance, available funds, or assigned amounts.
  • All Cards: Shows all credit card accounts.