Recurring bills and subscriptions

SageFin looks through your transactions for things that repeat — subscriptions, regular expenses, bills, a standing transfer — and offers each one to you before treating it as real. That offering is the number beside Recurring in the sidebar, and it is a queue rather than a warning.

The number is a queue, not a problem

It counts merchants SageFin thinks repeat and you have not yet had a look at. It goes up as new patterns appear and down as you work through them.

Nothing breaks if you never do. Your transactions, budgets and reports are unaffected by an unreviewed queue; what you lose is the forecast, because SageFin will not tell you a bill is coming until you have agreed it is a bill.

What SageFin looked for

Pattern matching, not a model reading your data. Something becomes a candidate when:

• The same merchant appears at least three times. Twice is a coincidence.
• The amounts are close — within about 15%, or a few pounds either way on small ones, so a subscription that rises with VAT or a bill that varies a little still counts.
• The gaps are regular, and the rhythm decides what it is called: roughly a week, a fortnight, a month, a quarter, or a year.

That is the whole of it. It is deliberately mechanical, which is why it is offered for review rather than applied.

Reviewing one

Open Recurring and work through the queue. Each merchant shows what SageFin worked out — the amount, how often, when it last happened — and a few recent transactions so you can see what it is matching on.

Three things you can do:

• Save as recurring. You agree. It becomes a confirmed stream and starts appearing in the forecast.
• Skip. Decide later. It stays in the queue.
• Not recurring. Dismiss it. It stops being offered, and finding the same pattern again does not bring it back.

When the queue is empty you get You're all caught up, and the badge disappears.

The recent transactions are examples, not the full list

They are there to show you what the pattern matched, not to be an audit of it. If you want every transaction for a merchant, the transactions page with a search is the honest tool for that.

Why a savings transfer is offered as a subscription

Because a monthly transfer to savings and a monthly gym membership look identical to a pattern matcher: same name, same amount, same interval.

They are not the same thing to you, which is the entire reason there is a review step. Dismiss the transfer and it stops asking.

You may also notice that transfers are left out of the monthly recurring total. That is deliberate — money moving between your own accounts is not money going out — and it is why a transfer confirmed as recurring can appear in the list without changing the figure at the top.

After you have confirmed some

Confirmed streams become a forecast: what is due, roughly when, and how much. That is what the Recurring page is actually for — the review queue is just how things get into it.

Each one keeps a next expected date, moved forward by its own rhythm every time it is seen again. A stream that stops arriving does not disappear on its own; if you cancel a subscription, mark it as no longer recurring so the forecast stops expecting it.

Adding one SageFin did not find

Some things repeat without looking like it — an annual bill you have only paid once, a merchant whose name changes slightly each time. Add recurring merchant on the Recurring page lets you name one yourself, and it goes straight in as confirmed.

What this is not

It does not pay anything. SageFin reads; it cannot pay a bill, cancel a subscription, or move money. A forecast is a list of what is coming, not an instruction to anybody.

It is not connected to your biller. The rhythm comes from your own transaction history, so a change in price or date shows up after the first payment at the new figure — not before it.