Paying off a loan or credit card with a Goal

For anyone using a Goal to pay down a debt (a credit card, a car loan, a personal loan, or a mortgage) who is not sure why a payment is not showing, or how the Goal tracks progress.

Short answer: a Pay Debt Goal follows the balance of the account you link to it. It does not add up your individual payments. When the linked account's balance goes down, your Goal moves forward. This article explains how that works and answers the most common questions.

How a Pay Debt Goal tracks progress

When you create a Pay Debt Goal, SortMe takes a snapshot of what you owe on that account right now. That snapshot becomes your starting balance, and your target is to get the account to zero.

From then on, your progress is simply how much the debt has shrunk:

• If you started at $8,000 owing and the account is now at $5,000 owing, the Goal shows $3,000 of progress.
• The Goal reads the account's current balance and compares it to your starting balance. That is the whole calculation.

The Goal also shows a suggested monthly payment. That is the amount you would need to pay each month to clear the debt by your target date.

Why my payment is not showing in the Goal

This is the most common question, so it is worth being clear.

Your Pay Debt Goal does not look for a single payment transaction (for example your $2,000 credit-card payment) and add it to the Goal. It only watches the account balance. So you will not see your $2,000 payment listed inside the Goal. Instead, you will see the account balance drop by $2,000, and the Goal move forward by the same amount.

If the Goal has not moved yet, the usual reason is timing:

• The Goal only updates after SortMe receives a fresh balance for that account from your bank.
• Balances update when your bank sends new data during a sync. Until the next successful sync shows the lower balance, the Goal will not change.
• Card and loan balances can take a day or so to settle at your bank before the new figure comes through.

So a payment you made today may not move the Goal until your bank reports the new, lower balance. Once that balance arrives, the Goal updates on its own. You do not need to do anything.

How to link a loan or liability to a Goal

1. Make sure the loan or credit card is connected to SortMe, or added as a manual liability in Net Worth.
2. Create a new Goal and choose Pay Debt Goal.
3. On the account step you will see Link liabilities to this goal. SortMe only lists accounts that are in debt here.
4. Pick the account you are paying off and save.

A few rules to know:

• You can only link an account that currently has a negative balance (money owing) to a Pay Debt Goal.
• One debt account can have one Pay Debt Goal. You cannot put two debt Goals on the same account.
• You cannot mix a debt Goal and a savings Goal on the same account. The balance is either growing or shrinking, so only one makes sense.

Paying down a debt vs normal spending

When you pay money from your everyday account into a loan or credit card that is also connected to SortMe, that is a transfer between your own accounts, not spending.

SortMe detects this kind of internal transfer and does not count it as an expense in your budget or Spend Overview. The same balance change is what moves your Pay Debt Goal forward. So one payment does two things: it lowers the debt (which the Goal picks up on the next sync), and it is treated as a transfer, not as everyday spending.

Frequently asked questions

Can I create a rule so a transaction reduces my car loan or liability?
No. Rules in SortMe can only categorise a transaction, add a tag, or ignore it. A rule cannot move money against a loan or change a Goal. Your loan balance goes down when your bank reports the new balance after your payment, and your Pay Debt Goal follows that balance automatically.

My connected loan balance dropped but the Goal did not count the payment. Is that a bug?
No. This is how Pay Debt Goals are designed to work. The Goal measures the balance change, not the payment. If the balance has dropped and the Goal has not caught up yet, wait for the next sync to bring the new balance through.

Can I track a loan that is not connected to my bank?
You can add it as a manual liability in Net Worth and update the balance by hand. See our Net Worth article for how to add and update a manual liability. A manual balance you update yourself will move a linked Pay Debt Goal when you change it.

What are the Goal types?
There are three: Savings Goal, Pay Debt Goal, and Retirement Goal. This article covers Pay Debt Goals. For the full picture, see How SortMe Goals Work.

Still stuck? Email us at support@sortme.com and we will take a look at your Goal and connection.