記消費日還是付款日？信用卡帳單算哪一類？固定支出、預算、外幣怎麼設？這些問題我們被問了很多年，一次講清楚。
Do you log the day you bought it or the day you paid? Where does a credit-card bill go? How do recurring bills, budgets and foreign currencies work? Here are the answers, in one place.
先說一個故事。一位朋友接到母親的電話，說家裡的冰箱壞了。她準備出門選購，母親交代：買一台跟之前差不多大的就好，上一台是 12,300 元，記得錢帶夠。
她愣住了，那台冰箱買了很久很久，母親怎麼還記得價錢？母親把記帳本拿出來給她看，上面工整地寫著：民國 95 年 1 月 25 日，買冰箱，12,300 元。接著又搬出過去二十年、十幾本的帳本。「記帳我才會知道每天花了多少錢。」
這就是記帳真正的價值：不在記下去的那一刻，而在很久以後你還查得到。今天不必手抄二十年。在 App 裡用「搜尋記帳」輸入關鍵字（備註、店家）就能翻出那一筆，日期區間還可以選「全部」，從你的第一筆一路查到今天。
反過來說，這也決定了該怎麼記：多寫一點內容比只記金額有用。「冷氣機 28,000」十年後找得到，「電器 28,000」就不一定了。
常見的付款方式大致三種，記帳日期的原則是統一的：錢換成東西的那一天。
| 付款方式 | 常見例子 | 記在哪一天 |
|---|---|---|
| 先享受後付費 | 信用卡 | 刷卡消費那天，不是月底繳款那天 |
| 先付費後享受 | 悠遊卡、iCash 等儲值卡 | 真正拿卡去買東西那天，不是儲值那天 |
| 邊享受邊付費 | 現金、金融卡 | 當天，兩個日期本來就一樣 |
儲值卡最常被問：為什麼不在儲值當天直接記一筆「儲值 500 元」就好？當然可以，只是這麼記，你只知道有 500 元離開了口袋，不知道它變成了十杯咖啡還是二十趟公車。等到真正消費那天才記，錢才會落到正確的分類裡。
建議是：帳單本身不要記。
假設這期帳單 2,000 元，背後其實是「牛排大餐 1,500 元」和「看電影 500 元」兩筆。分開記，1,500 進「食」、500 進「樂」，報表才看得出錢花在哪裡。如果連帳單那筆 2,000 元也記一次，同一筆錢會被算兩次，這個月的支出就憑空多了一倍。
想知道哪些消費是刷卡付的？用標籤，往下看。
這是我們最常被問、也最常被抱怨的一件事：為什麼不能設現金帳戶、信用卡帳戶，然後在帳戶之間轉帳？
算一下就知道了。一個人平均有 6 到 8 個「帳戶」：現金、兩張信用卡、兩個銀行帳戶、悠遊卡、一卡通，還沒算外幣和其他卡片。做成帳戶架構，代表你每一筆帳都要多點一次「這筆錢從哪裡出去」，還得處理帳戶之間的轉帳。但我們自己做過的調查裡，超過七成的人記帳只想知道一件事：錢到底花到哪裡去了。
為了少數人想要的精準對帳，讓所有人每天多按好幾下，多數人會因此放棄記帳。所以哈啦Money 從第一天就選了最單純的流水帳：只記「什麼時候、花了多少、買了什麼」。想標記付款方式的人，用標籤一樣做得到。
分類回答「這是哪一類消費」，標籤回答其他所有問題，而且一筆帳可以同時貼好幾個。常見用法：
標籤可以在「設定 → 標籤管理」新增與整理，記帳時直接挑現有的標籤就好。之後在搜尋裡用標籤篩選，就能把同一個標籤的帳全部拉出來；報表裡的「標籤分析」也可以直接搜尋標籤看統計。標籤還能當預算的基礎，例如給「沖繩旅行」設一個預算，而不是給整個「食」設預算。
到量販店一次買了香蕉、咖啡、一本書、一把雨傘，結帳只有一張電子發票。記成一筆「賣場 1,280 元」最省事，但那四樣東西本質上分屬「食」「育」「住」，混成一筆，報表就看不出真相了。
也不需要自己一項一項敲進去。用 App 掃描發票上的 QR Code，一張發票會被拆成多筆品項，各自對應到自己的分類。詳細做法（包含品項掃不齊、想改分類）請看電子發票指南。
沒有人能每一筆都當天記完。補帳的做法很單純：先把那筆記下來（語音、掃描或手動都可以），再點進那筆記錄把日期改成正確的日期就好。用語音記的話，直接說「昨天午餐 120 元」或「6月5號早餐 60 元」，日期就會自動帶入（見語音記帳指南）。常常重複的消費，也可以直接把舊的那筆「複製」一份再改日期。
不過我們設計這個 App 的出發點，一直是希望你能當天記完。補帳能救急，但補久了就會漏。
老實說，這個功能我們一開始很排斥。如果連記帳都需要別人提醒，那不是很難養成習慣嗎？
直到一位使用者告訴我們，那是她人生第一次學記帳。在習慣還沒養成之前，她需要有人（或機器）在旁邊持續鼓勵她、提醒她。我們才想通：我們的責任不只是做一個 App 給已經有記帳習慣的人用，而是幫還沒有習慣的人養成習慣。
所以有了「每日記帳提醒」。在設定裡打開，選一個你通常有空的時間（很多人選睡前），讓它提醒你三十天。三十天之後，你多半就不需要它了。
房租、電話費、保險、訂閱、薪水，每個月都一樣，不必每次重記。到「設定 → 帳務功能 → 定期交易」按「＋」新增，填好金額、分類、備註，再設三件事：
收入也一樣能設，分類選收入就好。更快的做法是打開一筆已經記好的帳，點上方的循環圖示「設為定期交易」，表單會直接帶入那筆的內容。
設好之後，到期的帳會由我們的伺服器自動幫你記上，清單上每一條規則都會顯示「下次記帳」的日期。不需要了可以從規則右邊的選單「暫停」或「刪除」；刪除規則不會刪掉已經記好的帳。兩件事要知道：
定期交易目前只能用台幣記。結束日期、次數怎麼算才不會多記或漏記，常見問題裡有詳細說明。
想看每一天：在「記帳」頁點右上角的月曆圖示（月曆檢視），整個月攤開，每天的收入與支出加總都寫在格子裡，點某一天就看到那天的每一筆。也可以到「報表 → 趨勢探索」選「日」，一天一根長條，看最近 30 天的起伏。
想看每個月：「報表 → 分類」左右切換月份，會列出這個月每一類花了多少，以及跟上個月比較；「趨勢探索」選「月」看最近 12 個月，「年度」則把一整年 12 個月的收入、支出、餘額排成一張表，附上年合計與年平均。
到「預算」頁按「＋」新增。每個預算只管一個範圍，三選一：
想同時管「食」和「手搖飲」，就建兩個預算；一個預算不能同時涵蓋好幾個分類。範圍建立後不能改，要換範圍就刪掉重建。預算以月為單位，打開「沿用到下個月」，下個月沒有設預算時會自動帶入同一筆。
進度看三個地方：「預算」頁每一筆的已用、剩餘、超支；「報表 → 預算」的預算與實際對照；以及「記帳」頁摘要面板的「本月預算」（顯示的是整體預算）。
如果你的「一個月」是從 25 號領薪水開始，到「設定 → 記帳偏好 → 每月起始日」選 25，記帳頁與分類報表的「這個月」就會從 25 號算到下個月 24 號。可以選 1 到 31 號，遇到天數不夠的月份，就從那個月的最後一天開始。
每一期以開始的那個月命名：起始日設 25 號時，「1 月」指的是 1 月 25 日到 2 月 24 日。
出國旅行、網購外幣，都可以直接用當地貨幣記：記帳時點金額左邊的幣別按鈕，選幣別，輸入當地金額就好。匯率由系統每天自動更新。
要知道的是：匯率在你存檔那一刻就固定了。那筆帳會以當天的匯率換算成台幣存下來，之後匯率再怎麼更新，已經存好的帳都不會跟著變；修改那筆帳時只要沒有換幣別，也會保留原本的匯率。所以如果某一筆當初的換算你覺得不對，更新匯率不會修正它，請直接點進去改金額。
「設定 → 記帳偏好 → 基礎幣別」決定的是兩件事：新增帳目時預設的幣別，以及總額用哪一種貨幣顯示。總額用今天的匯率換算給你看，帳本身不會被改寫，隨時換回台幣都一樣。
最常用的分類排前面，記帳時少滑幾下。到「設定 → 帳務功能 → 管理分類」，點右上角的排序圖示（調整順序）進入排序模式，拖曳調整，按打勾完成。順序會存在你的帳號裡，記帳時挑分類的清單就照這個順序排。目前可以排序的是系統內建的主分類，子分類和「我的分類」還不能排序。
標籤貼久了，就能回頭看。「報表 → 標籤分析」會列出每一個標籤這段期間花了多少、幾筆，以及佔所有貼了標籤的支出幾成。可以換日期區間、搜尋標籤、按金額或次數排序；點某個標籤，還能看它在時間上的變化與每一筆明細。收入不列入計算。
這就是為什麼前面建議用標籤記付款方式和專案：一趟旅行到底花了多少、這個月刷卡刷了多少，在這裡一眼就看得到。
「報表 → 群眾比較」會把你這個月每一類的支出，跟所有使用者在同一類的中位數放在一起，並算出你多花或少花了幾成。中位數是「排在正中間那個人」的金額，不會被少數花特別多的人拉高。
為了保護隱私，比較只用匯總後的數字，不會看到任何個人的資料；同一類至少要有 30 位使用者的資料才會顯示中位數，人數不夠時會顯示「資料不足，無法比較」，旁邊也會標出樣本大約有多少人（n=30+ 或 n=100+）。不想讓自己的資料參與統計，可以到設定關掉「貢獻匿名統計」，關掉之後你自己仍然看得到比較結果。
比較的用意不是比誰花得少，而是找出「這一類我是不是明顯偏高」，再回到上面的預算去管它。
想讓記帳更快，看語音記帳指南；想搞懂電子發票與手機條碼，看電子發票指南；想看懂首頁那幾個「餘額」，看看懂四種餘額。其他問題歡迎到常見問題，或到我們的 Facebook 粉絲專頁私訊小編。
A story first. A friend got a call from her mother: the fridge had died. As she headed out to buy a new one, her mother said, just get one about the same size as the old one, that one was 12,300 dollars, bring enough money.
She stopped. That fridge was ancient. How could her mother remember the price? Her mother fetched her notebook and showed her the line, neatly written: 25 January 2006, refrigerator, 12,300. Then she brought out twenty years of them, more than a dozen notebooks. "Writing it down is how I know what I spend."
That's what a ledger is really for. Not the moment you write the entry, but the day years later when you can still find it. You don't have to hand-copy twenty years any more: search your entries by keyword (memo, store name), and set the date range to "all" to search from your very first entry to today.
That also tells you how to write entries: a little detail beats a bare amount. "Air conditioner 28,000" is findable in ten years. "Appliance 28,000" may not be.
There are roughly three ways people pay, and the rule is the same for all of them: the day the money turned into something.
| How you pay | Typical example | Which date to log |
|---|---|---|
| Enjoy now, pay later | Credit card | The day you tapped the card, not the day the bill is due |
| Pay first, enjoy later | Stored-value cards (EasyCard, iCash) | The day you actually bought something, not the day you topped up |
| Pay as you go | Cash, debit card | The same day either way |
Stored-value cards raise the obvious question: why not just log "top-up 500" on the day you top up? You can, but then all you know is that 500 left your pocket. You won't know whether it became ten coffees or twenty bus rides. Log it on the day you spend it and the money lands in the right category.
Our advice: don't record the bill at all.
Say the statement is 2,000. Behind it are two real purchases: a 1,500 steak dinner and a 500 movie ticket. Record those two, one under food and one under entertainment, and your reports show where the money actually went. Record the 2,000 statement as well and the same money is counted twice, doubling the month out of thin air.
Want to know which purchases were on the card? Use tags — see below.
This is the question we get most, and the complaint we get most: why can't I set up a cash account and a credit-card account and move money between them?
Do the arithmetic. The average person has six to eight of these: cash, two credit cards, two bank accounts, an EasyCard, an iPass, before we even mention foreign currency or extra cards. Building the app around accounts means one extra tap on every single entry to say where the money came from, plus a whole transfer flow to maintain. But in our own surveys, more than seven in ten people track spending to answer exactly one question: where did my money go?
Making everyone tap more every day, so that a few can reconcile precisely, is how people give up on tracking altogether. So from day one SpendSay has been a plain running ledger: when, how much, what for. If you do want to note the payment method, tags handle it.
The category answers "what kind of spending is this". Tags answer everything else, and one entry can carry several at once. Common uses:
Create and tidy tags under Settings → tag management, then just pick an existing tag as you record. Later you can filter your search by tag to pull up everything carrying it, and the tag analysis report lets you search tags and see the totals. Tags can also be the basis for a budget — set one on "Okinawa trip" rather than on all of "food".
You go to the supermarket and come out with bananas, coffee, a book and an umbrella on a single e-invoice. Logging it as one "supermarket 1,280" is the easy way out, but those four things belong to food, education and household. Merge them and your reports stop telling the truth.
You also don't have to type them in one by one. Scan the QR code on the invoice and the app splits it into separate items, each filed under its own category. For the details (including partial scans and changing a category) see the e-invoice guide.
Nobody records every entry the same day. Catching up is simple: record the entry now (by voice, by scan, or by hand), then open it and change the date. By voice you can simply say the date along with the entry, and it's filled in for you (see the voice entry guide). For something you buy regularly, you can also duplicate an older entry and change its date.
That said, the app was designed around recording the same day. Catching up rescues the odd entry; do it for weeks and things start going missing.
Honestly, we resisted building this. If you need someone to remind you to track your spending, isn't the habit doomed anyway?
Then a user told us this was the first time in her life she had tried to keep a ledger, and that until the habit formed she needed something beside her, encouraging and reminding her. That changed our minds. Our job isn't only to build an app for people who already track their spending; it's to help people become those people.
Hence the daily reminder. Turn it on in settings and pick a time you're usually free (many people choose just before bed), and let it nudge you for thirty days. After thirty days you probably won't need it.
Rent, phone bill, insurance, subscriptions, salary: the same every month, so don't record them by hand. Go to Settings → account features → recurring transactions, tap "+", fill in the amount, category and memo, then set three things:
Income works too: just pick an income category. Faster still, open an entry you've already recorded and tap the repeat icon at the top ("make recurring"); the form starts with that entry's details.
From then on our server records each entry when it falls due, and every rule in the list shows its next date. When you no longer need one, use the menu on its right to pause or delete it; deleting a rule doesn't delete entries it already recorded. Two things to know:
Recurring transactions are recorded in New Taiwan dollars for now. For exactly how end dates and counts work, so nothing is missed or doubled, see the FAQ.
Day by day: on the ledger tab, tap the calendar icon at the top right (calendar view). The whole month is laid out with each day's income and spending totals in its square; tap a day to see its entries. Or go to Reports → trend explorer and choose "day" for one bar per day over the last 30 days.
Month by month: Reports → category lets you step through months and shows what each category took, compared with the month before. Trend explorer on "month" shows the last 12 months, and "yearly" lays out a whole year's income, spending and balance month by month, with the year's total and average.
On the Budgets tab, tap "+". Every budget covers one scope, one of three:
To watch both food and bubble tea, create two budgets; one budget can't span several categories. The scope is fixed once created; to change it, delete the budget and make a new one. Budgets are monthly, and with "carry over to next month" on, the same budget is copied into any following month that has none.
Progress shows in three places: each budget's spent, remaining and over-budget figures on the Budgets tab; budget versus actual under Reports → budgets; and "this month's budget" in the ledger's summary panel (that one is the overall budget).
If your month really starts when you're paid on the 25th, go to Settings → bookkeeping preferences → month start day and choose 25. "This month" on the ledger and the category report then runs from the 25th to the 24th of the next month. Any day from 1 to 31 works; in a month too short for it, the period starts on that month's last day.
Each period is named after the month it starts in: with the 25th as start day, "January" means 25 January to 24 February.
Travelling, or buying something online in another currency? Record it in that currency: tap the currency button to the left of the amount, pick the currency and type the local amount. Exchange rates are updated automatically every day.
What to know: the rate is fixed the moment you save. The entry is stored converted to New Taiwan dollars at that day's rate, and later rate updates never change entries already saved. Editing the entry without changing its currency keeps the original rate too. So if a conversion looks wrong, a rate refresh won't fix it; open the entry and correct the amount.
Settings → bookkeeping preferences → base currency decides two things: the default currency for new entries, and which currency totals are displayed in. Totals are converted at today's rate for display; your entries are not rewritten, and switching back changes nothing.
Put the categories you use most at the top and you scroll less while recording. Go to Settings → account features → manage categories, tap the reorder icon at the top right, drag the categories into place, and tap the tick to finish. The order is saved to your account, and the category list you pick from when recording follows it. For now the built-in main categories can be reordered; subcategories and your own categories can't yet.
Once you've been tagging for a while, you can look back. Reports → tag analysis lists each tag with what it took over the period, how many entries, and its share of all tagged spending. Change the date range, search tags, sort by amount or by count, and tap a tag to see it over time with every entry. Income isn't counted.
That's the reason to tag payment methods and projects: how much the trip really cost, or how much went on the card this month, is right there.
Reports → peer comparison puts this month's spending in each of your categories next to the median for all users in that category, and shows how far above or below it you are. The median is what the person exactly in the middle spends, so a few big spenders can't drag it up.
To protect privacy the comparison only uses aggregated figures and nobody's individual data is visible. A category needs data from at least 30 users before a median is shown; below that you'll see "not enough data to compare", and each row notes the rough sample size (n=30+ or n=100+). If you'd rather your data not be counted, turn off "contribute anonymous statistics" in settings; you'll still see your own comparison.
The point isn't to win at spending less. It's to spot the category where you're clearly high, then put a budget on it.
To record faster, read the voice entry guide. For Taiwan e-invoices and the carrier barcode, read the e-invoice guide. To decode the balances on your ledger screen, read the four balances. Anything else, see the FAQ or message us on our Facebook page.
