You pay your credit card bill from your bank account, withdraw cash at an ATM or move part of your salary into savings. None of these is spending or earning; the money simply moves from one place to another. Record it as an expense and your spending looks higher than it really is; leave it out and your balances stop telling the truth.
That's exactly what Transfer is for: it takes money out of one wallet, puts it into another, updates both balances at once and never touches your income or expense totals. In the seven steps below you'll set up a transfer, learn to spot it in the list and walk through two examples: a credit card payment and entering the remaining debt of an existing loan. You'll find the basics of opening a wallet in Add, edit and delete wallets.
1
Open the Transfer tab
On the Finance screen, click Add transaction. At the top of the window that opens you'll see a Transfer tab next to Expense and Income. The tab appears once you have at least two money or debt wallets; with a single wallet there's nowhere to move money to, so it stays hidden.
Once you pick Transfer, you enter the amount, currency and date in the top row as usual. You can also give the transfer a name in the window's title, for example "Credit card payment" or "Move to savings".
Credit card payment
Expense
Income
⇄Transfer
1,000.00
USD
Oct 13, 2026
Category
Repeat
Reminder
Note
🏦Checking Account (USD)
💳Credit Card (USD) · Debt
SaveCancel
Ctrl + Enter to save
Transaction window · the Transfer tab next to Expense and Income; with Category selected on the left, the From wallet and To wallet fields
2
Choose where the money comes from and goes to
A transfer has no category, because it isn't spending or earning. With the Category tab selected on the left, you see two fields instead of the category list: From wallet is where the money leaves, To wallet is where it goes. The list shows your money and debt wallets, and debt wallets have "Debt" next to their name. Asset wallets don't appear here, because they hold a quantity, not money. At the very end of the To wallet list there is also None (untracked money): pick it when the money goes somewhere you don't track in Pumpynotes. Then only the From wallet's balance changes; no other wallet receives money.
Both fields must be filled in and can't point to the same wallet. If you leave To wallet empty, you'll see "Pick the wallet the money goes to." If you choose the same wallet twice, you'll see "Source and destination must be different wallets." In both cases the transfer isn't saved.
Credit card payment
Expense
Income
⇄Transfer
1,000.00
USD
Oct 13, 2026
Category
Repeat
Reminder
Note
🏦Checking Account (USD)
💳Credit Card (USD) · Debt
SaveCancel
Ctrl + Enter to save
To wallet list · your money and debt wallets, with None (untracked money) last; the source wallet and asset wallets aren't in the list
3
How a transfer affects your balances
The moment you save, the transfer is applied to both wallets: the From wallet's balance goes down by the amount and the To wallet's goes up. If the money moved from one money wallet to another, your Total balance stays the same, because you have just as much money overall. If you picked None (untracked money) as the To wallet, only the From wallet's balance changes.
A transfer doesn't count toward the Income, Expense and Net cards, the breakdown rings, the income and expense lines of the trend chart or your budgets (set Type to Transfer and the trend shows only transfer volume). So when you pay off your card, it won't look like you spent twice that month. If the two wallets are in different currencies, the amount is converted to the other wallet's currency at the current rate (or at the fixed rate, if you entered one in the rate tab of the transaction window); if no rate can be fetched for that currency, the transfer is still saved, but that wallet's balance isn't updated and a warning tells you so. The same rule applies to Buy / Sell transactions on asset wallets.
4
Spot a transfer in the list
In the transactions table a transfer has a look of its own. The box to the left of its name shows a "⇄" sign, the category column stays empty and the Wallet column shows both wallets with an arrow: "Checking Account → Credit Card". The amount appears in purple with no plus or minus sign, which sets it apart from income and expenses. A transfer to None (untracked money) shows as "Checking Account → None (untracked money)".
To see only transfers, set Type to Transfer in the filter bar at the top. When you turn on All columns at the top right of the table, the Type column that appears also gives transfers a purple Transfer label.
When you click a wallet's row in the side panel to show only that wallet, you see the transfers coming into it as well as the ones leaving it. If you click Credit Card, for example, the payments you made from your bank account show up in the list too, so you can follow everything that happens in one wallet at a glance.
Transactions
Upcoming All columns
October 2026
Edit filters
Search
DateNameCategoryWalletAmountActions
Tuesday, October 13
⇄Credit card payment
—
🏦Checking Account → Credit Card
$1,000.00
Monday, October 12
↘Grocery shopping
Groceries
💳Credit Card
−$214.00
Transactions table · the transfer in purple with no sign, the wallet column showing where it came from and where it went
5
Example: pay off your credit card
If you keep your credit card as a Debt wallet, you record what you buy with the card in that wallet as an Expense; every purchase adds to what you owe. When you pay the statement from your bank account at the end of the month, you add a transfer: From wallet Checking Account, To wallet Credit Card. If the card already carried a balance before you started using Pumpynotes, don't enter it as an expense; enter it with a transfer as in the next step.
In the example the card balance is $1,615.04 and you pay $1,000. When you save the transfer, Checking Account goes down by $1,000 and the card's remaining debt drops to $615.04. Your purchases were already counted as expenses, so the payment isn't counted again. Card debt isn't part of your Total balance, so your Total balance goes down by $1,000. Your debt goes down by the same amount, so your Net worth doesn't change. To see how the remaining debt shows up in your net worth, read What is net worth and how is it calculated.
Example · before the payment on the left, after on the right; the bank account goes down and the card's remaining debt drops
6
Example: enter an existing debt
Say you're paying off a loan and $10,500 is still left. A new wallet starts empty, so you need to enter the remaining debt yourself. The cleanest way takes three steps:
1. Open a debt wallet. Add a new wallet and pick Debt as its type. Total loan is optional; if you enter the original loan amount, the progress bar shows how much of it you have paid.
2. Enter the remaining debt as a transfer. On the Transfer tab, pick the debt wallet as the From wallet and None (untracked money) as the To wallet; the amount is the remaining debt and the date is today. The debt wallet now shows -$10,500, exactly what you still owe. No other wallet changes and no total is inflated.
3. Set up the installments as a recurring transfer. Add a monthly recurring transfer from the money wallet you pay from to the debt wallet, and set its start date to the next installment date. Recurring transactions turn into real rows as each date arrives, counted from the start date; a start date in the past would also post installments you have already paid, and the debt would look smaller than it is.
Don't enter the remaining debt as an Expense: that month's Expense card and breakdown ring would jump. A transfer is never counted as income or expense, so the Expense card, the breakdown rings, budgets and the trend chart stay untouched.
Existing debt · From wallet is the debt wallet, To wallet None (untracked money); only the debt wallet changes
7
Edit or delete a transfer
When you open a transfer from the table and change its amount, date or wallets, Pumpynotes corrects both wallets to match. When you delete a transfer, it's reversed in both wallets: the wallet it left goes back up and the wallet it went to goes down.
A deleted transfer goes to the trash like any other transaction, and when you restore it, it's applied to both wallets again. You'll find the details in Restore something you deleted from the trash.
Frequently asked questions
Why isn't a transfer counted as income or expense?
Because your money doesn't grow or shrink, it just changes places. When you pay off your card from your bank account, you've already recorded your purchases as expenses in the card wallet; if we counted the payment as an expense too, that month's spending would look twice as high. That's why transfers stay out of your income, expense and net totals.
Can I transfer between wallets in different currencies?
Yes. For example, when you move money from a euro account to a dollar account, the amount is converted to dollars at the current rate (or at the fixed rate from the rate tab of the transaction window). If no rate can be fetched for that currency, the transfer is saved but that wallet's balance isn't updated; you'll see a warning, and you can add the difference as an income or expense row to fix the balance yourself.
Can I transfer to a shared wallet?
Yes, as long as you have permission to add transactions to it. A wallet shared with you as view only doesn't appear in the From wallet or To wallet list. We explain sharing in Share notes, events and wallets.
Can I transfer to an asset wallet?
Not a transfer: use Buy or Sell. An asset wallet holds a quantity rather than money, for example Bitcoin or gold. When you buy gold, pick the Buy tab in the transaction window: you enter the quantity and the unit price, the money leaves the money wallet you choose and the asset wallet's quantity goes up. Sell does the same in reverse. You'll find the details in Asset wallets: track your gold, crypto and stocks.
What happens to transfers when I delete a wallet?
Transfers that left that wallet go to the trash along with it, and they're taken back from the wallet the money went to. If you delete Checking Account, for example, the payment you made to your card is deleted too, and the card's remaining debt goes back to what it was before the payment. Transfers that came into that wallet stay where they are: if you delete the card wallet, the payments from your bank stay in the list and the Checking Account balance doesn't change, because the money really did leave. When you restore a transfer from the trash, the amount is applied to the other wallet again, and the transfer returns without the deleted wallet. To bring the wallet back together with its transfers, Undo this deletion on the History page.
Can I make a transfer repeat every month?
Yes. In the transfer window, switch to the Recurrence tab on the left, turn the switch on and pick a frequency; for example, a transfer to your savings account on the 5th of every month, or a loan installment. When the day comes, Pumpynotes turns that occurrence into a real transfer row and updates both wallets' balances, so you don't have to enter it yourself. Occurrences coming up soon appear on the Upcoming payments (14 days) card. To skip a month, choose Skip this occurrence on that date's row in the Transactions table; if the date is outside this month, widen the date range first. You'll find the details of setting up a recurrence in How to set up a recurring transaction.
Can a transfer go somewhere outside my wallets?
Yes. Pick None (untracked money), the last option in the To wallet list. The money only leaves the From wallet and no other wallet receives it; the list shows the row as "Checking Account → None (untracked money)". Because it is a transfer, the Expense card, the breakdown rings, budgets and the trend chart are not affected. Its most common use is entering the remaining debt of an existing loan on a debt wallet. Record real spending as an Expense, so it shows in your totals.
Which plans include transfers?
A transfer needs at least two money or debt wallets. Since the Free plan allows only one wallet, transfers are in practice used on the Pro, Business and Enterprise plans.