How cash flow works

Cash flow shows where your money went: how much came in, how much went out, and how it changed over time. guito builds this view from the movements in your bank accounts, grouped by category and by period. You’ll find it under Cash flow (/transactions).

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The amount sign decides the direction

• Positive amount: money that came in (income side).
• Negative amount: money that went out (expense side).

In the totals at the top of the page, Income adds up everything that came in, Expenses everything that went out, and Net for period is the difference between the two. The same rule applies in the monthly chart and the category breakdown.

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The category is a label — it doesn’t pick the side

A movement’s category (for example, “Rent” or “Salary”) helps you organize and read your data, but it does not decide whether the movement counts as income or expense. The amount sign decides that. The one exception is Transfers: a movement in that category stays out of the totals, whatever the sign. The same category can appear on both sides when it has movements in both directions. For example, if you paid €1,400 in rent and received a €700 reimbursement from someone you share a home with, the “Rent” category shows €1,400 on the expense side and €700 on the income side, leaving the real cost visible.

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What’s left out of the analysis

So that the totals reflect only money that actually came in or went out, guito leaves out three kinds of movements:

• Matched internal transfers. When you move money between your own accounts, that amount is neither income nor expense — it’s the same money changing places. When guito recognizes the pair, it excludes both movements from the totals.
• Movements in the Transfers category. An ATM withdrawal, a payment to a friend, or a deposit into your broker stays out of the totals even when guito hasn’t found the other side of the pair, because the money is still yours.
• Movements excluded from cash flow. You can manually mark a movement to stop it from counting toward income and expense totals. It stays visible in the list, but it doesn’t enter the sums.

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When you adjust the analysis yourself

When guito doesn’t find the pair, you can link the two sides of a transfer between your own accounts by hand. You can also exclude any single movement from the analysis and include it again whenever you want. The step-by-step for both lives in Transactions and cash flow.

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The role of categories

Movements that arrive from your bank are given a category automatically, and you can correct it whenever you want: that is what makes the per-category totals match how you think about your spending. On a movement you record by hand, the category is yours to pick — if you leave it blank and named the entity, guito fills it in for you. See Automatic categorization.

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Dates and time zone

Each transaction shows the calendar day the bank recorded, regardless of the time zone you’re in.

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Currency

All totals are shown in euros. Movements in a foreign currency are converted to euros before they enter the sums, so the math makes sense even with accounts in different currencies.

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