Anticipating reimbursement

Feedback & Ideas
1

Recently I have several cases of expenditure for which in expecting to receive a rebursement soon. Examples:

  • ferry crossing cancelled by the ferry company, refund promised in the next few days
  • dental bill covered by insurance, claim sent
  • business expense incurred on my own account, which I’m expecting my employer to reimburse
  • membership cancelled, refund of current months fee (paid in advance) promised in the next few days
  • Covid travel insurance claim approved and expecting to be paid out in the next few days

While I’m waiting for the reimbursements I’m sometimes temporarily over budget, but would only worry if I were over budget after the expected reimbursement. And obviously I’m keen to spot and check off these refunds as they come in, and want to keep track of the refunds I’m still waiting for - it’s important that I chase any that don’t arrive as promised.

I’m currently doing this outside Emma (regularly checking Emma vs my to do list), and manually checking if I’m really over budget, but I wondered if anyone knows of a way to do it inside Emma?

2

I don’t know if this is the best way to manage it, but i’ve created a “refund” custom category.

When I know i’m expecting a refund on any transaction, I move it into that category.

That way nothing shows under my budget, and I have all my expected reimbursements in one place.

Interested to see how others might manage this though!

3

Hey @slewis,

this is the best way to manage the use case: https://help.emma-app.com/en/article/handling-refunds-xfv1e3/. :slight_smile:

If they come outside of the budgeting period, just change the date of the transaction.

4

I think that works for when the refund arrives - I was more concerned with what happens between me becoming aware that refund is due (but there’s nothing in Emma, yet) and it arriving.

During that period (which should be just a matter of days IF all goes well) I need to deal with a) appearing to be over budget and b) worrying whether the refund has/will arrive.

I think Rebekah’s suggestion may work - recategorising the spend transaction will act as a reminder that a refund is due and prevent me from forgetting it and appearing to be over budget until it arrives.

With Rebekah’s idea, once the refund arrives I COULD move the spend AND the refund back to their correct spend category (cancelling each other out), however I think it may be better to “exclude” them both which will be better for budget tracking when the refund is the month after the spend. I haven’t tried splitting transactions yet, but I’ll give it a go to see if that will allow me to address the “partial refund” use case.

5

Yeah and then once you’ve had the refund confirmed and money is back in your account you can move them into the correct category so then your “refund” category is clear with only pending refunds :blush::crossed_fingers:

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