How Finium treats what you owe on your cards

When you look at your position in Finium, you may see a line like this:

You owe £669.49 on American Express Gold. It is not added to what your plans need.

This article explains what that means, and how to check your plan already covers the repayment.

What Finium shows

Finium shows the balance of every credit card you have added, with the day it was read. You will see it in two places:

• Needs attention on Overview, one line per card.
• How this was worked out, in the "What you have" list, marked as owed.

Why the balance is not added to what your plans need

Most of what sits on a card is spending you have already planned for. Groceries, fuel or a subscription paid by card are counted in your plan's categories on the day you buy them. If Finium also added the card balance to what your plans need, the same spending would be counted twice: once as spending, and again as the repayment.

So Finium does not add it. It assumes the repayment you intend to make is already in your plan, and it says so rather than leaving you to guess.

There is a second reason. Finium does not know how much of the balance you plan to repay this month. Clearing the whole balance and paying the minimum are both normal, and the difference between them is large. Finium does not guess which one you will choose, and it never invents a figure.

How to check your plan covers the repayment

1. Open Budget, then Plan, and choose the month.
2. Look at the categories you pay for by card, such as Groceries or Transport. If their planned amounts cover what you put on the card each month, the repayment is already covered and there is nothing to do.
3. If you are also paying down an older balance — money that is not this month's spending — add it to your plan. In the category where it belongs, for example Bills & Obligations, choose Add a line, name it (say "Amex repayment") and enter the amount you intend to repay this month.

Once that line is in your plan, it counts towards what your plans need, like any other planned payment.

What is coming

We plan to let you link a repayment in your plan to a specific card. Finium will then use that planned repayment for the card instead of assuming, and the line above will say so.