TidyOne Personal lets you track a one-time debt or an instalment plan, record each payment and compare actual repayments with a monthly budget. Debts tracks the amount still owed. When you record a payment, an optional checkbox also creates an expense in My Money under the existing “Rate / datorii” (instalments / debts) category. A debt with a due date can generate an in-app reminder, but that does not establish that email, SMS or push notifications are currently being delivered. Always compare your records with the actual contract and bank statement.
What this workflow solves—and what it does not
A bank loan, an instalment purchase or money borrowed from a friend has two separate numbers: the amount you still owe and the cash you have already paid. Recording only expenses loses the view of your outstanding obligation. Tracking only the remaining debt leaves a gap in your monthly spending report. TidyOne keeps debt balances and financial transactions separate, then lets you connect them when a real payment occurs.
This tutorial concerns the Personal workspace, not nonprofit bookkeeping. The examples use RON and are illustrative. TidyOne does not pay your creditor, direct-debit your bank account or confirm that the recipient received a transfer. Real agreements may involve interest, fees, penalties, insurance or a changing repayment schedule. Use your creditor’s documents to establish what is actually due; do not expect the app to recalculate those contractual terms automatically.
Before you start: gather verifiable details
Find the loan agreement or repayment arrangement, original amount, outstanding balance, currency, expected instalment and next due date. For a private loan, use only details that help you organize the obligation. A useful creditor name and a short note about the arrangement are usually enough. Avoid entering login credentials, account passwords or unrelated personal information in a notes field.
Distinguish original amount from remaining amount. If you borrowed 3,000 RON and repaid 600 RON before starting to use TidyOne, your opening values are 3,000 RON original and 2,400 RON outstanding. Do not also create a new 600 RON expense in the current month merely to show the earlier repayment. Start from evidence about when each actual cash movement happened.
Step 1 — Add the debt in Personal
Open Debts and choose + Datorie nouă (new debt). The current debt form still uses Romanian labels, even when the surrounding app is intended for an English-speaking audience. Fill in Cui trebuie să dai banii (creditor), Suma inițială (original amount), Cât mai ai de dat (amount remaining) and Monedă (currency). Select a repayment type that matches your actual arrangement.
For a single repayment, choose Plată unică and fill in Termen / data promisă (agreed due date). For an instalment plan, choose Rate, then enter Valoare rată (instalment amount), Frecvență (frequency) and Următoarea rată (next instalment date). The frequency choices in the current form are Lunar (monthly), Săptămânal (weekly) and Altă înțelegere (other arrangement).
For an irregular schedule, keep your agreement in the notes and verify each date manually. An unusual repayment contract cannot safely be represented by an invented monthly schedule. If the outstanding amount is set to zero, the record becomes paid. Choose Salvează and check the newly created debt card rather than assuming that saving also created an expense.
The top metrics show active debts, total outstanding and upcoming due dates. Different currencies remain separate rather than becoming one converted balance. The upcoming section displays up to six items; use the debt list to inspect every obligation.
Step 2 — Verify instalments and due dates
After saving, compare the creditor, original amount, outstanding amount and next due date against your evidence. A loan may have a regular nominal payment date but an exceptional first or final instalment. Use Editează (edit) to correct a record. Avoid deleting and recreating a debt just because a date changed, because that can make your repayment history harder to follow.
For monthly and weekly plans, the app can advance the next due date after you record a payment. Nevertheless, inspect the result. A partial payment, rescheduled instalment, contract amendment or smaller final instalment may require manual correction. With the Altă înțelegere (other arrangement) option, do not assume that the next date will advance automatically.
Step 3 — Confirm the linked reminder
When you save an active debt with a valid due date, TidyOne attempts to create or update a Personal reminder named “Plată: [creditor]”. Open Notes & Reminders, select Active and search for the creditor. If the reminder exists, check its date and time. If it does not, check whether the debt has a due date, whether the save message mentioned synchronization and whether your plan still allows another active reminder.
The current Personal FREE plan allows four active reminders; Personal PRO does not set a plan limit for this feature. Automatically synchronized debt reminders can use FREE slots. Do not add a second manual reminder with exactly the same purpose if the linked one is already present. To create a separate reminder for checking a bank statement, choose + Memento, enter the title, date, time, priority and, if applicable, recurrence.
The reminder form currently contains the option “Da, când activăm notificările”—yes, when notifications are enabled. This is not a promise that push, SMS or email delivery is already operational. For high-consequence due dates, use a reliable bank alert or calendar as well, and periodically review your reminders within TidyOne.
Step 4 — Record the payment after it actually happens
Once you have evidence that a payment was made, return to Debts and choose Plată (payment) on the relevant card. In the Înregistrează plată window, enter the Sumă (amount), Data (date) and an optional note. The amount must be greater than zero and cannot exceed the outstanding balance stored for that debt. The form may prefill the scheduled instalment; check it whenever you pay a different amount.
The checkbox “Adaugă această plată și la Cheltuieli, categoria «Rate / datorii»” means “also add this payment to Expenses in the instalments / debts category.” Leave it checked only if you want this real outgoing payment to create a matching expense in My Money and have not already entered that expense. If you manually logged the same bank transfer or created the transaction through another document workflow, clear the checkbox to avoid doubling monthly spending.
Choose Salvează plata, then inspect the new balance, payment history and next due date. If you encounter an error, do not repeatedly submit the same payment before checking both Plăți recente (recent payments) and My Money. The operation involves separate records: it is possible for an intermediate step to have succeeded even if a later step failed. Correct what was actually saved before making a new attempt.
Step 5 — Make actual repayments visible in a monthly budget
Open Budgets & Goals, select Bugete and choose + Buget. Create a budget named “Monthly debt payments” and enter the category Rate / datorii, a monthly spending limit and the currency of the repayments you intend to track. The category text matters: the budget matches recorded expenses by category and currency. It does not automatically calculate every outstanding loan or reserve money for future instalments.
The current budget screen evaluates expenses recorded in the current calendar month, using the matching category and currency. A 500 RON instalment due next month is not already a 500 RON expense this month. A general budget covering all expenses and a narrower debt-payment budget may both reflect the same actual payment. Their charts provide different views of your spending; you should not add their totals together as though the payment happened twice.
Use the upcoming-debts section to plan future obligations, and use My Money and Budgets to confirm what you really spent. If scheduled debt payments are higher than your planned monthly limit, review the real repayment agreements and the rest of your expenses. Raising a budget limit cosmetically does not change what you owe or the dates in a contract.
Worked example: a 3,000 RON loan with a 500 RON monthly instalment
Suppose you originally borrowed 3,000 RON and repaid 600 RON in earlier months. The outstanding balance is now 2,400 RON, and your next expected instalment is 500 RON. In Debts, enter 3,000 RON original, 2,400 RON remaining, select Rate, enter 500 RON as the instalment and choose the verified next due date. Save and inspect the linked reminder.
For this month you create a 700 RON budget in category Rate / datorii. You then make a real 500 RON payment through your bank. Back in TidyOne, you choose Payment on that debt, save the actual amount and date, and leave the expense checkbox selected because you have not logged this transfer elsewhere. The tracked debt balance falls by 500 RON and a 500 RON expense appears in My Money.
| Measure | Before payment | After the 500 RON payment |
|---|---|---|
| Original debt amount | 3,000 RON | 3,000 RON |
| Remaining debt balance | 2,400 RON | 1,900 RON |
| This payment's recorded expense this month | 0 RON | 500 RON |
| Instalments / debts monthly budget | 700 RON | 700 RON |
| Unspent category budget | 700 RON | 200 RON |
The 200 RON left in the category budget is not automatically a bank balance or an amount already saved. If you clear the expense checkbox and do not enter the transaction elsewhere, the debt balance falls but the budget will not show that 500 RON as spending. Clearing the checkbox is appropriate when you previously recorded the same outgoing transfer.
Step 6 — Reconcile My Money and your monthly Analysis
Open My Money and filter for expenses. Find the debt-payment transaction, date, correct currency and Rate / datorii category. If you saved a bank confirmation in Documents, compare it with the amount and date. Visit Analysis & Savings to review the month. These figures come from recorded financial transactions, not from an assumption that every active debt is due or has been paid this month.
When the final payment takes the tracked balance to zero, the debt should move to the paid state and the synchronized reminder should be removed or closed. Confirm that the creditor's real statement also shows the obligation settled. Unrecorded interest, late charges or a payment that has not yet cleared can explain a difference between the app's tracked figure and the legally outstanding amount.
Troubleshooting: when figures or reminders do not agree
| What you notice | Possible reason | How to investigate |
|---|---|---|
| The budget does not change after a payment. | No expense was created; the category, currency or calendar month differs. | Inspect My Money and add only a genuinely missing expense. |
| The same instalment appears twice. | You manually entered it and kept the additional-expense checkbox selected. | Compare the evidence and remove the duplicate financial transaction, preserving the correct debt history. |
| The linked reminder is missing. | No valid date, a synchronization failure or the plan's active-reminder limit. | Inspect Notes & Reminders and the original save message before adding anything new. |
| The next instalment date is wrong. | A reschedule, partial payment or unusual contract arrangement. | Check the agreement and use Edit to correct the actual due date. |
| Saving a payment produces an error. | A multi-record operation or reminder synchronization may have been interrupted. | Check recent payments and My Money before submitting again. |
| The outstanding total differs from the bank. | Contractual costs or changes are not automatically imported into the app. | Reconcile against the creditor's real statement and correct only verified values. |
Key limitations: automation, privacy and plan allowances
The automatic debt reminder uses the due date already stored in the debt. If synchronization fails, the debt itself may still save successfully. Notes & Reminders also offers daily, weekly, monthly and annual recurrence for manually created reminders. These are planning records, not proof that money moved. Avoid sharing the names of private creditors or details of personal agreements unnecessarily.
In the current app configuration, Personal FREE allows four active reminders and two active budgets; Personal PRO has no plan cap for either. Active debt-linked reminders can count against your FREE reminder allowance. If you reach a limit, finish obsolete reminders or review the available plan rather than marking an unpaid debt as settled or inventing false transactions to make the numbers fit.
TidyOne does not automatically calculate contractual interest, penalties, insurance or the total cost of credit, and this guide is not individual financial or legal advice. If repayment is becoming difficult, discuss the real options with the creditor or a qualified adviser in your jurisdiction. No AI suggestion or attractive budget chart changes a binding repayment arrangement.
Monthly checklist: eight checks for debt and instalments
Frequently asked questions
Does adding a debt automatically reduce the My Money balance?
No. Debt records track obligations separately. When recording a payment, you can also create the matching expense.
Will TidyOne send the instalment to my lender?
No. Pay through your usual banking or payment method, verify the transaction, then record it in TidyOne.
Should I always keep the additional-expense checkbox selected?
No. Clear it if you have already entered the same payment manually or through another workflow. Do not clear it merely to hide real spending from the monthly budget.
Why am I not receiving a notification on my phone?
The current form refers to notifications being enabled in the future. Saving an in-app reminder does not prove that push, SMS or email delivery is already functional.
Why does next month's instalment not appear as spent in this month's budget?
Budgets evaluate recorded expenses from the current calendar month with the matching category and currency. Scheduled debt payments are displayed separately as upcoming obligations.
Can I track a RON instalment plan and a EUR loan?
Yes. Debt totals are separated by currency; a budget is also currency-specific. Use actual bank statements for conversion costs and exchange rates.
What happens when I make the final payment?
When the recorded balance reaches zero, the app marks the debt as paid and attempts to close or remove its linked reminder. Check the lender's actual confirmation too.
Can I track recurring bills that are not loans?
Yes. Create a manual reminder with a due date and suitable recurrence. Record the financial expense when the bill is paid; the reminder itself does not make the payment or expense.
Continue with Personal guides
Enter a verified balance and due date, check the linked reminder and record each completed repayment exactly once. At month-end, reconcile against the bank statement and adjust your budget using the expenses that actually occurred.