How trips and projects work

A trip or project is a name, usually with dates, that you attach spending to. Spending on it is set apart from your everyday spending: your budgets and your spending insights do not count it. Everything else still does. The money still leaves your wallets, and it still shows up in Spending and Money out. Trips and projects are free on every plan.

Trip or project

There is one feature, and the two names describe how you use it.

• A trip has an end date no more than 60 days after its start. Tavala adds every expense dated inside those dates for you.
• A project has no end date, or a span longer than 60 days, such as a new apartment or a wedding. Dates do not add anything. You add entries yourself.

What counts where

Each budget screen names what it leaves out. Under the monthly budget you may read "Lisbon €180.00 · outside budgets", and under a category budget "Lisbon €180.00 outside budgets". With more than two trips it names the two largest and then "+1 more". Home's Money out card adds "Money out includes €180.00 for Lisbon".

The What the numbers mean sheet defines Everyday spending as "What this month cost without trips & projects" and adds that Spending still counts everything. The sheet shows the Everyday spending line only while at least one trip or project exists.

Example

You have a €400 Food & Dining budget. This month you spend €62.40 on groceries at home and €180.00 on dinners dated inside your Lisbon trip.

• The budget shows €62.40 spent, and "Lisbon €180.00 outside budgets".
• Reports shows Spending €242.40, with Everyday €62.40 and Lisbon €180.00 beside it.
• Both amounts left your wallets, so What's Left is lower by €242.40.

What joins a trip or project

1. Your choice always wins. An entry you attach to a trip stays there. An entry you mark Everyday stays out, even if the dates cover it, and even for a trip you create later.
2. Dates, for a trip. An expense dated inside a trip's dates, both ends included, joins it. Entries you add later still join. A refund follows the expense it undoes.
3. Never by date: income, transfers between your wallets, loan interest, bills that post from a recurring rule, and connected-bank rows that are transfers or loan payments. You can attach any of these by hand, except transfers and loan interest.
4. Overlaps. If two trips cover the same day, the shorter one takes the entry.
5. Projects take only what you attach, what you add with Add entries, and entries whose merchant a project already holds. A new entry with the same merchant is pre-selected for you.

Details are in put spending on a trip or a project.

Set aside

A trip or project can have an optional Set aside amount. It is shown as a fact on its page ("€1,300.00 of €1,500.00 set aside") and never becomes a limit. There is no warning and no "over". It is not a budget. If you want a limit, use a budget.

Good to know

• Shared spaces. In a shared space, a trip with dates takes in matching expenses from everyone in the space, not only yours.
• Removing a trip. Remove keeps every entry. They count as everyday again, or join another trip whose dates cover them. Undo brings the trip back with its entries.
• No separate wallet. A trip does not hold money. You can set a Spend from wallet so the capture bar and the form start on it.
• Reports and exports. The Reports screen splits Spending into Everyday and each trip. CSV and PDF exports carry the split, and the CSV has a Trip or project column.