Transactions and transfers

A transaction is an expense or an earning on one of your accounts or cards, and it is the most frequent thing you do in Fortuna. A transfer moves money between two of your own accounts and counts as neither. The rules, including that an amount is always positive and its direction carries the sign, are in Concepts.

In every form on this page the amount is read as an exact decimal in the locale you chose in Settings, so 1.234,50 and 1,234.50 are stored identically, and an action is only reported as done once the API has accepted it (UI-BR-04). When the API refuses, you see its reason and the form keeps what you entered.

The list of transactions is the Spreadsheet, which has a Record button and opens a transaction when you tap its row.

UC-19: Record a Transaction

Screen: Record a transaction, /transactions/new.

1. Choose Expense or Earning at the top.
2. Enter the Amount. The currency shown beside it is the chosen account’s or card’s.
3. The date button shows today. Tap it to pick another day.
4. Choose the Account or card. Cards are marked “(card)”, and each entry shows its currency.
5. Choose a Category.
6. Optionally fill in Description (optional), Counterparty (optional) and Tags (optional), where tags are typed as names, “Separated by commas”.
7. Press Record. When the API accepts it, the screen becomes “Recorded”, showing the amount, the direction and the category, with Record another (which clears the form) and Done. Done goes to /, which is a placeholder; see the guide’s start.

Notable alternatives:

• Checks in the form. “That amount could not be read. Enter a number.”, “The amount must be greater than zero.”, “Choose a category.” and “Choose the account or card this is on.” A date more than one day ahead is refused, in the picker as well: “That date is too far ahead. A movement in the future is a recurring commitment or a projection, not a transaction that has happened.”
• Nothing to record against. If you have no account or card, or no category, the screen says “Set up an account or a credit card first” (or a category, or both) and explains “A transaction needs somewhere to sit and something to be called. Create …, then come back.”, with Go to accounts and Go to categories buttons.
• A rule the form does not check is the API’s to refuse, and its reason is shown under the form.
• A failure to reach the instance does not report the transaction as recorded, and the form keeps your entry so you can retry.

UC-20: Update or Delete a Transaction

Screen: Transaction, /transactions/:id. Reached by tapping a row in the spreadsheet, a transaction in a chart drill-down, or “Open the transaction” on an imported record.

1. The screen shows the amount, the direction (or “Transfer”), the date, and any category, account or card, description, counterparty and tags.
2. A Source card says where it came from: “Entered by hand”, “From a connected institution”, “Imported from a spreadsheet” or “Imported from a statement file”.
3. If it was imported, an “The imported record” card shows “Amount as imported” and “Date as imported” exactly as they arrived. It says “This is what was imported, exactly as it arrived. It cannot be edited: it is the evidence the import is reconciled against, and a record that can be changed is evidence of nothing.” If you corrected a value after import, it adds “A value above was corrected after import. The original is kept here.”
4. To correct the transaction, press the pencil icon (tooltip “Edit”) in the top bar. The dialog “Edit transaction” has the direction, amount, date, account or card, category, description, counterparty and tags, with Save.
5. To delete it, press Delete in the same dialog. A second dialog asks “Delete this transaction?” and says “It will disappear from every view except deleted records, where it can be restored.” Choose Delete or Keep it.

Notable alternatives:

• The same checks as recording apply to a correction.
• The API may refuse a change, for example on a transaction in a settled statement or one already reconciled; its reason is shown in the dialog and your edits stay.
• A deleted transaction shows a card, “This transaction is deleted. It no longer appears in any view except deleted records, where it can be restored.”, and the edit icon is not offered. Restoring is in Deleted records and the audit trail.

UC-21: Record a Transfer

Screen: Record a transfer, /transfers/new. Not available offline.

1. Choose the origin in From and the destination in To. Each entry shows the account’s currency.
2. Enter the Amount, which is in the origin’s currency, and pick a date.
3. Press Transfer.
4. The screen becomes “Transferred”. It says “Recorded as a transfer between your own accounts. It counts as neither an earning nor an expense, so it does not appear in either total.” If the accounts hold different currencies and the API converted, the screen adds “Converted by the instance at” and the rate. Done closes it.

Notable alternatives:

• Choosing the same account twice is rejected in the form: “Choose two different accounts. Money cannot be transferred to the account it came from.” An amount that is not greater than zero is rejected too.
• With fewer than two accounts the screen says “A transfer needs two accounts”, and that you have none or one, with a Go to accounts button.
• The API applies both sides of a transfer or neither, and the screen shows only what the API confirms. Whether it refuses a currency mismatch or converts is the API’s call.
• In offline mode the whole screen is replaced by “Not available offline” and the core’s reason: the paired legs, conversion and cascade are not implemented natively. See Offline mode.

UC-24: Reconcile a Transaction

Screen: Transaction, /transactions/:id. Reconciling confirms that a recorded transaction matches what an institution reported; the idea is explained in Concepts.

1. Open a transaction that is not yet reconciled. A card, “Not yet reconciled”, appears.
2. If the API has proposed a matching imported record, the card says “The instance proposes the imported record below as its match. Reconciling confirms the two describe the same movement.” and the button reads Reconcile.
3. Press it. The transaction’s new state appears.

Notable alternatives:

• No matching record. The card says “No imported record matches this transaction. You can still confirm it yourself — it will be recorded as your own confirmation rather than as a match.”, and the button reads Confirm it myself.
• Already reconciled. The action is not offered. The card says “Reconciled” and which kind: “Matched to an imported record” or “Confirmed by you”.
• Refused. The API’s reason appears in the card.
• Offline. The card says “Not yet reconciled” with a “Not available offline” line, because reconciliation needs imported records the native core does not create.

UC-35: Manage a Transaction’s Attachments

Not built. This use case is open as issue #36, and the code agrees: nothing in the interface’s screens mentions attachments. The transaction screen has no attachments section, and no control to add, download or remove a file.

The API supports attachments (the endpoints are in the OpenAPI document), and the interface’s generated client includes them, but no screen uses it. The specification describes the intended behavior: a transaction’s attachments shown beside it, a file chosen with the platform’s file picker, a check of its type and size against the instance’s limits before upload, download through the platform’s file saving, and removal after a confirmation. None of that can be used yet.

Sources

This page is written from the interface’s Use Case Specification (UC-19, 20, 21, 24, 35), checked against the code in lib/features/transactions.