Handling credit card statement dates

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#1

I use two credit cards (Amex and Visa, with Visa being the fallback for places that don’t take Amex), and they both have slightly different billing cycles, one runs to the 10th, the other to the 12th. Both delay until the following Monday if they fall on a weekend. I pay them off in full every month.

What I need Nova to do is track how much I’ve spent on these cards, and alert me when I’m reaching the point where I won’t be able to pay it off in full every month (which would be salary - (bills+savings))

For now I’m trying to bodge it by setting my pay cycle to the 11th as a halfway point, but is there a way to set this on a per-card basis so Nova can track my monthly spending?

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#2

Hi @Lum and welcome on our forum. You need Nova to forecast if you’ll be able to fully repay your credit card balance by the end of the month. We’re going to release this feature by the end of the year as part of a the premium plan.

In the meantime, here are a couple of ways you could manage that:

  • In the Accounts screen, enable your current account(s), Amex and Visa and make sure that your total balance remains positive. As long as it’s positive (green), it means that you haven’t spent more than what you earned in the prior month. If negative (orange), it means that you’re in debt
  • If you have any residual debt that can’t be paid by the end of month, make it a top priority savings goal to repay it for next month. Nova will automatically reduce your Variable Expense budget accordingly. Then as long as you remain in the green zone, you’re on track.

Let me know if this helps :wink:

#3

It helps somewhat. The difficulty is that the spending that gets reported on the card does not need to be repaid until the statement date. This statement date is likely to be outside the current Nova billing/wages payment cycle.

It doesn’t matter that I can’t afford to repay my card in full with the available balance in my current account as I will be getting next months wages in before I have to pay off the rest.

If the monthly credit card spend is just steady state bill payment then there should be no surprises, as the amount to repay each month is going to be constant. It’s the one-offs that will catch you out!