How bills work in Cowry

A bill in Cowry is money that will leave on a date, regardless of behaviour — rent, insurance, the phone plan, the quarterly water bill. That's different from a budget, which is a ceiling you're choosing to stay under. Modelling a fixed $1,720 annual insurance charge as a "budget" makes a single expected payment read like a catastrophe; modelling it as a bill makes it a known fact the plan already accounts for.

Bills live on Plan, first in the same equation that drives Today:

Income − bills − budgets − goals = what's left

Bills come out before budgets and goals get a say — they're the least optional part of the pool, and they land first in the safe-to-spend number. For how the rest of the equation works, see How budgets work in Cowry and How savings goals work in Cowry.

Two ways a bill gets on Plan

Detected automatically

Open Plan → Bills → Scan for recurring and Cowry looks at your transaction history for charges that repeat — same merchant, similar amount, a regular cadence. Each one shows up with a confidence percentage so you can:

• Confirm — it's right; Cowry turns it into one of your bills (editable, reminders, same as hand-added)
• Correct — fix the amount or due date if it varies (like an energy bill)
• Dismiss — it's not really a bill; drop it

A detected bill counts toward what's left even before you confirm it — predicted, not invisible. Once you confirm, it becomes a custom bill and is treated as certain.

When you add something under Budgets that Cowry recognises as a fixed charge (rent, insurance, a subscription), it asks whether to track it as a bill. Saying yes creates a real bill you can edit later — tagged From budget on Plan — instead of leaving a budget row that only looks like a bill.

Added by hand

Use Add bill for anything the transaction history can't see yet — a new lease, an annual policy you haven't paid on Cowry, a one-off amount due next Tuesday. Set a name, amount, and cadence (one-off, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, or annual), plus a due date. Recurring cadences anchor to that date going forward.

You can turn on an email reminder — sent a few days ahead of each due date — so a charge already spoken for doesn't catch your safe-to-spend off guard.

Counted once, never twice

If Cowry detects a charge that matches a bill you already added by hand — merchant and amount close enough — they link instead of stacking. The hand-added bill is marked verified by a real charge, and the detected duplicate drops out of the pool. Rent showing up as $970 twice would quietly halve your safe-to-spend; this is the guardrail against that.

Some existing budgets get folded in the same way. A budget category that reads as fixed and dated — rent, electricity, insurance, a subscription, a recurring charge with a set day of the month — is treated as a bill in the pool automatically, even before you convert it. Genuinely discretionary categories (groceries, dining, transport) are never reclassified this way.

When does a bill charge this period?

• Weekly, fortnightly, monthly — counts every period, since it recurs at least that often
• Quarterly, annual, one-off — only counts in the period its due date actually falls in

That's why a $1,200 annual insurance bill doesn't quietly shrink safe-to-spend all year — it lands, once, in the period it's due.

The "Paid" tag

A bill that's already left your account shows a faded Paid badge on Plan instead of counting toward "still to leave this period." Today, that only happens for the budget-turned-bill case — rent, electricity, insurance, a subscription, or any other category Cowry has folded in as fixed and dated — and it flips once real categorised spending lands against that category.

Bills you added by hand or confirmed from a scan don't get this reconciliation yet: they stay listed as due for the rest of the period even after the real charge clears your account, since nothing currently matches them back to the transaction that paid them. Don't rely on the badge as a payment tracker for those — it's a signal for the reclassified case, not a universal one.

Coming up: the early warning for lumpy bills

Because quarterly and annual bills only enter the equation in the month they land, they can go unseen for months and then hit all at once. Today surfaces them ahead of time under Coming up: any lumpy bill due within the next few months, with a suggested amount to set aside per week between now and then, so the charge is already covered when it lands instead of arriving as a surprise.

Bill or budget? You can change your mind

Filed something wrong? On a bill's card, This is actually a budget converts it, and budgets have the mirror action for a charge that should've been a bill. Either way, the pool recomputes so what's left stays honest — see Budgets vs bills for the full distinction.

Try it

1. Open Plan — open Bills and run Scan for recurring.
2. Confirm or correct anything that looks right; dismiss anything that isn't a real bill.
3. Add one bill by hand — a quarterly or annual one is the best test of the early-warning feature.
4. Open Today — if it's a lumpy bill due within the horizon, it should show up under Coming up with a weekly set-aside figure.

A quick note

This article is educational. Cowry is not a licensed financial adviser, and nothing here is financial, tax, investment, or legal advice. Bills reflect obligations you've told Cowry about or that showed up in real transactions — not a prediction of what you'll be charged.

Cowry — The clearest mirror of your money. Know what's spoken for. Know what's safe to spend.