View income vs expense
Use Income vs expense on Reports when you want a period total of categorized income compared with categorized expenses across your accounts.
Prerequisites
- At least one active account with categorized transactions
- Transactions assigned to income and expense categories (see Categorization)
Steps
- Open Reports in the left navigation.
- Select Income vs expense.
- Choose a date range preset (or Custom range with From and To inclusive). See Choose a report date range.
- Optionally narrow accounts to include only selected accounts.
- Read the income, expense, and net totals (and any chart for the period).
- Confirm the short note on the report that explains what is excluded (see below).
What counts
| Counts toward… | Examples |
|---|---|
| Income | Paychecks and other categories marked as income |
| Expense | Groceries, rent, and other non-transfer expense categories |
What is excluded
These items do not inflate Income vs expense (or Spending) totals:
| Excluded | Why |
|---|---|
| Transfer In / Transfer Out (including Credit Card Payment and Savings) | Money moving between your own accounts — not new household spending |
| Linked transfer pairs | Never double-counted |
| Balance adjustment rows | Bookkeeping catch-up so the register matches the bank — not everyday spending |
Credit card purchases (for example groceries charged to a card) do count as expenses when they are categorized as spending. Paying the card from checking is a Credit Card Payment transfer and does not count again.
Debt payments that use purpose-specific categories (for example Mortgage or Car Loan) do appear as expenses until you import and link both sides of the loan. See Transfers.
Income vs expense can show expenses higher than income for a period even when a checking account still looks healthy — for example when spending posts on credit cards, income lands in another account, or you draw on an existing balance.
Expected result
- Reports → Income vs expense shows income, expense, and net for the selected range
- Transfer categories and Balance adjustment rows do not increase the expense (or income) totals
- A short exclusion note is visible on the report
- Changing the date range or account filter updates the totals
- With the same date range and accounts, Spending category totals agree with expense rules documented for Spending