Recurring Transactions

Automate regular transactions with recurring schedules

Overview

Recurring transactions automatically create new transactions on a schedule. Perfect for regular income, expenses, and transfers that happen at predictable intervals. Set them up once, and Firefly III handles the rest.

What Are Recurring Transactions?

Recurring transactions are templates that automatically generate real transactions:

• Salary: Automatic deposit every two weeks
• Rent: Monthly withdrawal on the 1st
• Savings Transfer: Automatic transfer to savings every payday
• Subscriptions: Monthly service payments

Recurring transactions create actual transactions automatically. They’re different from Bills, which only track if expected payments occurred.

Creating a Recurring Transaction

1. Navigate to Recurring Transactions

   Go to Recurring Transactions in the main navigation.

2. Create New Recurrence

   Click Create New Recurring Transaction.

3. Enter Transaction Details

   Fill in the transaction template:

   • Title: Name for this recurrence (“Monthly Rent”)
   • Transaction Type: Withdrawal, Deposit, or Transfer
   • Source Account: Where money comes from
   • Destination Account: Where money goes to
   • Amount: Transaction amount
   • Description: Transaction description
4. Set Schedule

   Define when transactions are created:

   • First Date: When the first transaction should occur
   • Repeat Frequency: How often it repeats
   • Repetitions: How many times (or “Forever”)
   • End Date: When to stop (optional)
5. Configure Options

   • Apply Rules: Auto-apply rules to created transactions
   • Active: Enable/disable the recurrence
   • Category: Auto-assign category
   • Budget: Auto-assign budget
   • Tags: Auto-apply tags
6. Save

   Click Save to activate the recurring transaction.

Repetition Patterns

Firefly III supports various repetition schedules:

Common Frequencies

Daily

Every day or every X days

• Daily vitamins expense
• Daily coffee

Weekly

Every week on specific day(s)

• Weekly grocery shopping
• Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Monthly

Every month on specific date

• 1st of every month (rent)
• 15th of every month (subscriptions)
• Last day of month

Yearly

Once per year

• Birthday gift
• Annual insurance premium
• Yearly subscription renewal

Advanced Patterns

Every X weeks/months/years

Skip periods between repetitions:

• Every 2 weeks (bi-weekly paycheck)
• Every 3 months (quarterly payment)
• Every 6 months (semi-annual insurance)

Specific days of the week

Repeat on certain weekdays:

• Every Monday and Thursday
• Every Friday (weekly treat)
• Every weekend day

Day of month

Monthly on specific date:

• Every 1st (rent)
• Every 15th (credit card)
• Last day of month (subscriptions)

Setting Up Common Recurring Transactions

Bi-Weekly Salary

1. Transaction Type

   Deposit

2. Source

   Your employer (revenue account)

3. Destination

   Your checking account

4. Frequency

   Every 2 weeks

5. First Date

   Your next payday

6. Repetitions

   Forever

Monthly Rent

1. Transaction Type

   Withdrawal

2. Source

   Your checking account

3. Destination

   Your landlord (expense account)

4. Frequency

   Monthly, 1st of month

5. Category

   Housing

6. Budget

   Housing Budget

Automatic Savings

1. Transaction Type

   Transfer

2. Source

   Your checking account

3. Destination

   Your savings account

4. Frequency

   Same as your payday schedule

5. Amount

   Amount to save each period

Managing Recurring Transactions

Viewing Recurrences

The recurring transactions list shows:

• Active status: Green (active) or gray (inactive)
• Next occurrence: When the next transaction will be created
• Last created: When the most recent transaction was generated
• Repetitions remaining: How many more times it will run

Editing Recurrences

Editing a recurrence only affects future transactions. Past transactions created by this recurrence are not changed.

To modify a recurrence:

1. Open the recurring transaction
2. Click Edit
3. Make your changes
4. Save

Deleting Recurrences

Deleting a recurrence:

• Stops future transactions from being created
• Does NOT delete transactions already created
• Cannot be undone

Instead of deleting, consider marking the recurrence as inactive if you might need it again later.

Triggering Recurrences Manually

Test or force a recurrence to run:

1. Open Recurrence

   View the recurring transaction details.

2. Trigger Now

   Click Trigger Now or Test.

3. Review Created Transaction

   Firefly III creates the transaction immediately.

Manually triggering doesn’t affect the regular schedule. The next automatic transaction will still occur as scheduled.

Recurrence Options

Apply Rules

When enabled, Rules automatically process created transactions:

• Auto-categorize transactions
• Apply budgets
• Add tags
• Modify descriptions

Enable this if you have rules that should apply to these transactions. Disable it if the recurrence already sets all necessary fields.

Active vs. Inactive

• Active recurrences: Generate transactions automatically
• Inactive recurrences: Paused, don’t create transactions

Use inactive status for:

• Temporary pauses (salary during unpaid leave)
• Seasonal expenses (heating bills in summer)
• Suspended subscriptions

Title vs. Description

• Title: Internal name for the recurrence (“Netflix Subscription”)
• Description: What appears on created transactions (“Monthly streaming service”)

Handling Changes

Temporary Skip

To skip just one occurrence:

1. Don’t delete the recurrence
2. Wait for the unwanted transaction to be created
3. Delete that individual transaction
4. The recurrence continues normally

Amount Changes

When a recurring amount changes:

1. Edit the recurrence
2. Update the amount
3. Save changes
4. Future transactions use the new amount

Account Changes

If the account changes:

1. Mark the old recurrence as inactive
2. Create a new recurrence with the new account
3. Keep the old one for historical reference

Recurring Transaction History

View all transactions created by a recurrence:

1. Open the recurring transaction
2. View the Transactions tab
3. See chronological list of all created transactions

This helps:

• Verify transactions were created correctly
• Track history of recurring expenses
• Identify when amounts changed

Ending Recurring Transactions

Set End Date

For recurrences with a known end:

• Limited-term subscriptions
• Loan payments (final payment date)
• Promotional periods

Set the End Date or Repeat Until date.

Set Number of Repetitions

For a specific number of occurrences:

• “6 more times”
• “12 monthly payments”
• “24 bi-weekly deposits”

Set Repetitions to the count.

Forever vs. Limited

• Forever: For ongoing transactions with no end (salary, rent)
• Limited: For temporary or finite transactions (loan payments, limited subscriptions)

Best Practices

Start with Major Regular Transactions

Begin with the most predictable, frequent transactions:

• Salary/income
• Rent/mortgage
• Regular savings transfers
• Major subscriptions

Add others as you get comfortable.

Review Created Transactions

Regularly check that recurring transactions are being created correctly:

• Amounts are right
• Accounts are correct
• Categories and budgets apply properly

Use Realistic First Dates

Set the first date to the actual next occurrence:

• If creating on Jan 15 for a monthly bill due Jan 1, set first date to Feb 1
• Don’t backdate recurrences

Include Category and Budget

Pre-assign categories and budgets in the recurrence template:

• Saves time on each created transaction
• Ensures consistency
• Improves report accuracy

Name Clearly

Use descriptive titles:

• Good: “Bi-weekly Paycheck - Employer Name”
• Poor: “Deposit 1”

You’ll thank yourself when managing multiple recurrences.

Split Recurring Transactions

Create recurring transactions with splits:

1. Set up the recurrence normally
2. Add multiple transaction splits
3. Assign different categories/budgets to each split
4. Save

Use case: Split paycheck

Example - Bi-weekly paycheck with automatic splits:

• Main amount to checking account
• Split 1: $200 to savings (transfer)
• Split 2: $100 to investment account (transfer)

One recurrence creates multiple transactions.

Troubleshooting

Recurrence not creating transactions

Check:

• Recurrence is marked as Active
• First/next date is in the future (not past)
• Repetitions remaining > 0 (if limited)
• No end date, or end date is in the future
• Firefly III cron job is running (if self-hosted)

Wrong transaction created

If an incorrect transaction was created:

1. Delete or edit the incorrect transaction
2. Edit the recurrence to fix the template
3. Future transactions will be correct

Need to change past transactions

Recurrences don’t update past transactions. To change them:

• Edit each transaction individually
• Use bulk edit if many need changing
• Use rules to automatically fix future transactions

Duplicate transactions appearing

Possible causes:

• Recurrence is running AND you’re manually creating transactions
• Import tool is creating duplicates
• Multiple recurrences for the same thing

Solution: Disable or delete duplicate recurrences.

Recurring Transactions vs. Bills

Recurring Transactions

Creates transactions

• Automatically generates entries
• Reduces manual work
• Best for predictable transactions
• Runs on schedule

Bills

Tracks transactions

• Monitors if payment occurred
• Matches existing transactions
• Best for verifying expenses
• Alerts to missed payments

Use both together! Create a recurring transaction to auto-enter rent each month, and create a bill to verify the payment was actually made.

Advanced Features

Recurrence Metadata

Store additional information:

• Notes about the recurrence
• Why amounts changed
• Links to related documents

Foreign Currency Recurrences

Create recurring transactions in foreign currencies:

• Set the amount in the foreign currency
• Firefly III converts automatically
• Exchange rates applied at creation time

Piggy Bank Connections

Connect recurring transfers to piggy banks:

• Automatic savings toward goals
• Regular contributions
• Progress tracking

Related Features

• Transactions - What recurrences create
• Bills - Track expected recurring payments
• Rules - Automatically process recurring transactions
• Budgets - Plan for recurring expenses