Recurring transactions are templates for payments that repeat on a schedule — rent, subscriptions, salary, loan repayments. Once set up, Financio creates the actual transactions for you on the right day and uses them to build your cash flow forecast.
Accessing Recurring Transactions
- Go to Planning from the main navigation.
- Select Recurring.
You'll see three tabs: Active, Paused, and Suggestions. Suggestions are patterns Financio has spotted in your history that you might want to turn into recurring transactions.
Creating a Recurring Transaction
Click New Recurring to open the form.
Type
Choose what kind of transaction repeats:
- Expense — Bills, subscriptions, regular purchases
- Income — Salary, pension, rental income
- Transfer — Scheduled movements between your own accounts
Account
Pick the account the transaction will be recorded against. For transfers, you'll also pick a destination account.
Name and Description
A short name (like "Netflix" or "Employer payroll") and an optional description. These flow through to every transaction created from this template.
Amount
Enter a fixed amount, or toggle Amount varies each time for payments that fluctuate (like utility bills). When amounts vary, Financio uses a rolling average of your last few instances to forecast upcoming balances.
Category
Pick the category that should be applied to every transaction created from this recurring. The category is optional — leave it blank if you'd rather rely on automation rules to categorise each instance.
Rules Take Precedence
If a matching rule sets a category, it overrides the category on the recurring transaction when instances are created. This lets you keep a default category on the template while still letting rules handle special cases.
Frequency
Choose how often the transaction repeats:
| Cadence | Description |
|---|---|
| Weekly | Every 7 days |
| Fortnightly | Every 14 days |
| Monthly | Once a month on a chosen day |
| Quarterly | Every 3 months |
| Annually | Once a year |
| Custom | Every N days |
Depending on the cadence, you'll also pick a day of the week or day of the month.
Date Range
- Start date — When the first transaction should occur. If you set a start date in the past, Financio will backfill missed instances.
- End date — Optional. Leave blank for open-ended schedules.
Active toggle
Leave Active on to generate instances automatically. Toggle it off (or use Pause later) to stop new instances without deleting the schedule.
How Categories Work on Recurring Transactions
When Financio creates a transaction from a recurring template:
- It uses the template's category as the starting point.
- It then checks your rules. If any rule matches the merchant or description and has a "Set category" action, that rule's category replaces the template's.
- The resulting transaction lands in your account with the final category already applied.
This two-step flow means most bills can be handled by setting the category once on the template, while edge cases (like shared merchants that mean different things in different contexts) can still be steered by rules.
When to Use Each
Set a category on the template when the recurring transaction should always land in the same category — your Netflix subscription, your mortgage repayment, your salary.
Use a rule when the same merchant name appears for both a recurring and non-recurring transaction, or when you want the same categorisation logic to apply to imported transactions too.
Creating from an Existing Transaction
If you've already recorded a transaction and realise it's a regular expense, you can turn it into a recurring template:
- Open the transaction.
- Click Make Recurring.
- Choose the cadence and confirm.
Financio copies the merchant, description, amount, account, and category from the transaction and creates a recurring schedule. The original transaction is linked as the first instance.
Pausing, Resuming, and Deleting
- Pause stops new instances from being generated but keeps the schedule and all past instances.
- Resume re-enables generation and recalculates the next due date from today.
- Delete removes the schedule. Any transactions that were already created stay in your account as standalone transactions — they aren't deleted with the schedule.
Suggestions
Financio watches your transaction history for patterns that look recurring (same merchant, similar amount, regular interval) and surfaces them on the Suggestions tab. Approve a suggestion to create a recurring transaction with sensible defaults pre-filled, or reject it to stop that merchant from being suggested again.
Recurring Transactions and Your Forecast
Every active recurring transaction feeds into your Cash Flow Forecast. Because you've told Financio exactly when and how much, forecasts based on recurring transactions are the most accurate predictions in the app.
Next Steps
- Cash Flow Forecast — See how recurring transactions shape your projected balances
- Understanding Rules — Automate categorisation across all your transactions, including recurring instances