Are your Money Forward ME numbers off? 3 customization techniques to prevent double counting and automatically optimize for your personal needs

Hello, this is Ikupapa.

"I linked my accounts to Money Forward ME, but credit card payments and electronic money charges are being counted twice as 'expenses'."

"There are too many categories I don't use, and I'm not sure where to classify things."

When you first started using a household account book app, have you ever been confused by this kind of 'initial setting noise' or 'discrepancies in numbers'?

However, to conclude, as explained by Ryo-gakucho,by performing 'customizations tailored to yourself (transfer settings, category optimization, automatic rule settings)', you can grow Money Forward ME into your own personal dashboard that significantly reduces manual corrections.

After linking my bank, securities, card, and loan accounts to Money Forward ME, I didn't just look at the displayed numbers; I adjusted 'what to treat as a transfer' and 'what to view as an expense' to match my own household finances.

In this article, I will introduce three customizations to optimize Money Forward ME for your personal needs.

1. Three customization techniques to revolutionize Money Forward ME

By configuring the following three settings from the default state immediately after linking the app, you can reduce numerical discrepancies and manual corrections.

• ① Settings for 'Transfers' and 'Exclude from calculations' to prevent 'double counting'

  • When credit card payments are made from a bank account, or when charging electronic money (like Suica) or moving funds to a securities account, some can be treated as 'transfers (movement of assets)' rather than 'expenses'.

  • For example, if a purchase is already recorded as an expense when you use your credit card, counting it as an 'expense' again when the payment is deducted from your bank account later results in the same consumption being counted twice.

  • Organizing these fund movements makes it easier for your actual living expenses to be reflected in the graphs.

• ② Optimization of 'categories (major and medium classifications)' that you need

  • There is no need to force yourself to match expense items you don't use (e.g., car expenses for someone who doesn't drive). Organize them according to the items you use frequently or the axes you want to check, such as fixed costs, variable costs, and self-investment.

  • I try not to make the granularity of classification an end in itself. If you find yourself worrying 'Which one is this?' every time, that's a sign that you've divided them a bit too finely.

  • A household account book is not an accounting ledger. For some items, it is enough to categorize them roughly to the extent that you can change your own behavior.

• 3. Create "Automatic Learning Rules (Automatic Transfer Rules)" to reduce manual corrections

  • For example, you can set it so that once you correct a transaction, such as "XX Supermarket -> Food Expenses" or "XX Electric -> Utilities," it will be categorized the same way from the next time onwards.

  • Since you don't have to correct the same transaction every month, the more you use it, the more it becomes a household account book that you only need to "check."

  • However, after creating an automatic rule, I make it a point to check for a while to ensure that unintended transactions aren't being classified into the same category.Automation is convenient, but I feel it's best not to "set it and forget it," but rather to check the results just for the first few times.

2. My personal experience and approach

I have also linked my bank, securities, card, and loan data to Money Forward ME, and have organized my transfer settings, categories, and automatic classification rules.

What changed the most during that process was not the asset amount itself, but rather my behavior when opening the app in the morning.

Before settings: "Correcting numbers" rather than "Looking at numbers"

At the stage where I had only linked all my accounts, even when I opened the screen, I would think:

"Is this really an expense?"

"Does this withdrawal overlap with my card usage?"

Before even looking at the displayed numbers as they were, I was concerned about the classifications and transfers.

Even though I'm getting the data automatically, it's a bit counterproductive if I have to check the meaning of the numbers every time.

After settings: From "Correction" to "Confirmation"

Once I adjusted the transfers and categories to fit my household finances and gradually taught it the automatic classifications, my morning routine changed.

Previously, it was:

But now, the order is:

This is the order now.

For me, this difference was the biggest achievement of customization.

It's easier to keep going if you don't aim for "100% accuracy"

On the other hand, if you make the settings too detailed, the settings themselves become a chore.

I don't use Money Forward ME to create a household account book, but rather to judge the state of my own finances instead.

Therefore, even if there are transactions that are somewhat confusing to categorize, I don't dig too deep if it doesn't change my overall assessment of the household budget.

When I open it in the morning, I can naturally look at it and think, "How is my current status?" rather than, "Are there things I need to fix today?"

Once it reaches that point, it's enough for me.

3. Summary and the "Money Forward Customization Homework" to start today

A household account book app won't become easy to use for you just by installing it and linking your accounts.

By taking a little time at the beginning to adjust

• transfers

• categories

• automatic categorization

to match your own household budget, you will reduce the need to repeat the same corrections every month.

And what I want to aim for is not a "perfect household account book down to the last yen."

It is to know where my money stands the moment I open the app.

That is what this tuning is for.

Thank you very much for reading until the end.

For smarter household budget management, why not start the following "customization homework" today?

1. Open your Money Forward ME history and check if credit card withdrawals are set as "transfers" instead of "expenses"

2. If there are any recent transactions that have been automatically categorized incorrectly, correct them to the right expense item to help with future automatic categorization

3. Search for "Libedai Money Forward Customization" on YouTube and watch one explanatory video on settings to review

I, too, will continue to maintain a state where, when I open Money Forward ME every morning, I don't have to "fix numbers" but can simply check the changes in my household budget.

The goal of setting up and keeping a household account book is not the creation process itself.

If you can make the necessary decisions without hesitation, that is enough.

I hope this article helps reduce the frustration with the numbers in Money Forward ME and serves as a step toward a household budget that you can understand just by looking at it.

Let's continue to work through our to-do lists calmly and in good spirits today as well.

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