Accounts

Accounts represent where money lives (checking/savings) and where debt lives (credit cards). Alto uses account type to decide how balances move and what counts as “income” for Ready to Assign.

Account types

Checking
Primary spending account. Starting balance counts toward Ready to Assign.
Savings
Cash you still own, just parked. Starting balance counts toward Ready to Assign.
Credit card
Debt account. Starting balance does not count as income; it represents what you owe.

Manual vs Plaid-linked

  • Manual accounts: you maintain balances by entering transactions.
  • Plaid accounts: Alto can sync transactions and keep balances aligned with the institution.
  • Newly-linked Plaid accounts work out their own starting balance so Alto’s balance matches your bank’s “current balance”.

Starting balances

A “Starting Balance” transaction represents everything that happened before Alto started tracking the account. It is dated the day before you connected and updates the balance using the same rules as any other transaction.

For a connected bank account you never enter it. Connecting a bank does not import your old transactions — Alto starts tracking from the day you connect, and sets the starting balance to your bank’s current balance so the account matches straight away. Everything that happens from then on syncs in as normal.

A purchase you made shortly before connecting but which had not yet cleared still arrives on the day it posts, so it is not lost.

Manual accounts still use the balance you enter when you create them.

While that calculation runs, the account is locked and shows its progress. It only takes a few seconds. The lock exists because the starting balance is derived from every transaction on the account — a transaction added or edited midway through would be absorbed into it and lost.

Cash accounts (checking/savings)
  • A positive starting balance is stored as an inflow.
  • Cash starting balances count toward Total Income (and therefore Ready to Assign).
Credit cards
  • A positive starting balance represents debt and is stored as an outflow.
  • Credit-card starting balances do not count as income.

Net worth calculation

The Accounts page shows a net worth-style number by treating credit card balances as liabilities (subtracted) and cash balances as assets (added).

Credit card settings

Credit card accounts can store additional metadata to help you manage your cards:

  • Payment due day (1–31): The day of the month when your payment is due. Used for sorting cards and surfacing what's due sooner.
  • Minimum payment: Your minimum required payment amount.
  • Credit limit: The total credit limit on the card. Helpful for tracking utilization.
  • Interest rate: The APR on the card. Useful for prioritizing which cards to pay down first.

Deleting accounts

When you delete an account, Alto carefully handles the data to keep your budget balanced. Here's what happens:

Transfer handling
  • Payments to the deleted account (e.g., credit card payments) are converted to regular outflows on the source account. This keeps your checking account balance accurate.
  • Transfers from the deleted account are converted to inflows on the destination account.
Category activity preservation
  • Categorized transactions are preserved (without an account) to maintain accurate category "available" amounts.
  • This prevents your category balances from incorrectly increasing when you delete an account with spending history.
Credit card specific
  • Credit card payment envelopes are deleted along with the card.
  • Any direct assignments to the card are removed from the budget.
Important note

Deleting an account is permanent. The account's starting balance and uncategorized transactions will be removed from your budget history. If the account had significant income or spending, your Ready to Assign may change after deletion.