Tier Availability
What Are Recurring Bills?
Recurring Bills is Purpose Budget's comprehensive system for tracking and managing your regular expenses and income. Unlike simple recurring transactions (which create templates), Recurring Bills combines multiple powerful features to give you complete visibility and control over your recurring financial obligations.
What's the difference?
Recurring Transactions: Manual templates that auto-create transaction entries on a schedule
Recurring Bills: Advanced system that detects bills from your bank transactions (Premium), suggests matches between transactions and expected bills, and provides calendar visualization of what's coming
The Five Tabs Explained
The Recurring Bills page is organized into five powerful tabs, each serving a specific purpose. Let's walk through each one:
1. Templates Tab
Purpose: Manually create recurring bill templates for expenses and income you expect regularly.
What you can do:
- Create manual bill templates (payee, amount, frequency, next date)
- Filter by frequency (Monthly, Weekly, Yearly, All)
- Edit or delete existing templates
- View next occurrence date for each bill
When to use:
- Bills that aren't auto-detected by Plaid (even if you have Premium)
- Annual subscriptions or irregular payments
- When you want to track expected bills before they occur
- As your only option if you have Essential tier (no bank sync)
Example: Creating a Template
Scenario: Your gym membership charges $49.99 on the 15th of every month
- 1. Navigate to Dashboard → Recurring → Templates tab
- 2. Click "+ Add New Template"
- 3. Fill in: Payee (Gym), Amount ($49.99), Frequency (Monthly), Next Date (15th)
- 4. Save template
- 5. Template now appears in Calendar view and can be matched to transactions
2. Detected Bills Tab
Purpose: View recurring bills that Plaid automatically detected from your bank transaction history.
How it works:
- Connect your bank accounts via Plaid (Premium feature)
- Plaid analyzes your transaction history using AI
- Identifies recurring patterns (same merchant, similar amounts, predictable dates)
- Creates "stream" records for detected bills
- You review and confirm or ignore each detected bill
Stream properties:
- Merchant Name: Who charges you
- Last Amount: Most recent transaction amount
- Frequency: Monthly, weekly, etc.
- Bill Type: Fixed (always same amount) or Variable (amount changes)
- Next Predicted Date: When Plaid expects the next charge
- Status: Active, Inactive, or Cancelled
Actions you can take:
- Refresh from Plaid: Manual sync to get latest detected bills
- Confirm Stream: Mark as "Active" to track this bill
- Ignore Stream: Mark as "Cancelled" to hide it
- Filter by Status: All, Active, Inactive, Cancelled
Premium Advantage: Plaid's detection is incredibly accurate. It can discover subscriptions you forgot about, identify variable bills like utilities, and give you a complete picture of your recurring expenses without any manual entry!
3. Matches Tab
Purpose: Review and approve AI-powered suggestions linking your actual transactions to expected bills (either detected streams or manual templates).
How matching works:
- New transaction syncs from your bank
- Purpose Budget's matching engine analyzes it
- Compares against all your recurring bills (streams + templates)
- Calculates similarity scores based on:
- Merchant name (fuzzy matching - "NETFLIX.COM" matches "Netflix")
- Amount similarity (within expected range)
- Date pattern (occurred when expected?)
- Creates match suggestion with confidence score (0-100%)
- You review in Matches tab and approve or reject
Confidence levels:
- High Confidence (≥80%): Very likely correct match - usually safe to approve
- Medium Confidence (60-79%): Probable match - review details
- Low Confidence (<60%): Uncertain match - verify carefully
Actions available:
- Approve Single: Confirm one match at a time
- Reject Single: Dismiss incorrect suggestion
- Select Multiple: Check boxes to select several matches
- Bulk Approve: Approve all selected matches at once (massive time-saver!)
What Happens When You Approve a Match?
- 1. Transaction gets linked to the recurring bill (stream or template)
- 2. Bill's "last payment date" updates to transaction date
- 3. Bill's "last amount" updates (if amount changed)
- 4. Match suggestion removed from pending queue
- 5. Bill status changes to "confirmed" (if it was a detected bill)
Important: Approving a match does NOT change the transaction's category. Category assignment is handled separately by Transaction Rules (if you've set them up).
4. Calendar Tab
Purpose: Unified timeline view showing ALL upcoming bills from ALL sources in chronological order.
What's included:
- Manual templates (from Templates tab)
- Detected bills (from Detected Bills tab - Premium only)
- Credit card bills (from Credit Cards tab)
Features:
- Month Navigation: Previous/Next month arrows, "Today" button
- Date Grouping: Bills organized by due date
- Bill Details: Merchant, amount, source (template/stream/CC bill), status
- Visual Timeline: See the entire month at a glance
Why it's valuable:
- Know exactly what bills are coming this month
- Plan your budget allocation around due dates
- Spot missing payments (expected bill didn't occur)
- See total recurring expenses for planning
Pro Tip: Review your Calendar view at the beginning of each month during your budgeting session. This ensures you've allocated enough funds to cover all upcoming bills and can adjust categories if needed.
5. Credit Cards Tab
Purpose: Track credit card statement due dates and payment schedules (separate from tracking individual purchases).
Important Distinction:
Credit Card Bill ≠ Credit Card Transactions
- Credit Card Transactions: Individual purchases on your card (tracked in Transactions page, covered by CC Payment category)
- Credit Card Bill: The monthly statement payment due date reminder (tracked here in Recurring Bills)
What you track:
- Account: Which credit card
- Statement Balance: Total amount due
- Due Date: Payment deadline
- Statement Closing Date: When billing cycle ended
- Payment Status: Paid or Unpaid
Use cases:
- Never miss a credit card payment deadline
- Track multiple cards with different due dates
- Mark as paid when you submit payment
- See upcoming CC bills in Calendar view
Essential vs Premium: What's Different?
| Feature | Essential | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Manual Templates | ✅ | ✅ |
| Calendar View | ✅ | ✅ |
| Credit Card Bills | ✅ | ✅ |
| Auto-Detection (Plaid) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Smart Match Suggestions | ❌ | ✅ |
| Bulk Approve Matches | ❌ | ✅ |
| Plaid Sync | ❌ | ✅ |
| Detected Bills Tab | ❌ Not visible | ✅ Visible |
Summary: Essential users can manually track bills using templates and view them in Calendar. Premium users get automatic bill detection, smart matching, and powerful automation features powered by Plaid.
💡 Want automatic bill detection and smart matching?
Upgrade to Premium to unlock Plaid-powered auto-detection, match suggestions, and save hours every month. No more manual tracking - Purpose Budget does the work for you!
View Premium Features →Recurring Bills vs Transaction Rules
These two features work together but solve different problems. Here's how they differ and complement each other:
| Aspect | Recurring Bills | Transaction Rules |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Track and confirm recurring bill payments | Auto-categorize transactions |
| When Applied | Only for recurring expenses/income | Every transaction (recurring and one-time) |
| What It Does | Links transaction to expected bill, updates bill status | Assigns category to transaction |
| Goal | Know what bills are coming, confirm they were paid | Save time on categorization |
They work together perfectly!
Example transaction flow: "NETFLIX.COM $15.99"
- 1.Transaction Rule assigns "Subscriptions" category ✅
- 2.Recurring Bills matches to "Netflix bill due Nov 15" ✅
- 3. Result: Transaction is categorized AND linked to recurring bill
Both pieces of data enhance your budget - category for budgeting, bill link for payment tracking.
Common Workflows
Essential User Workflow (No Bank Sync)
- Initial Setup:
- Go to Templates tab
- Create templates for all your known recurring bills (rent, utilities, subscriptions)
- Set frequency and next occurrence date for each
- Add Credit Card Reminders:
- Go to Credit Cards tab
- Add bill for each credit card with due date and statement balance
- Monthly Review:
- Check Calendar view at month start
- See all upcoming bills for the month
- Budget accordingly in your categories
- Mark credit card bills as paid when you pay them
- Maintenance:
- Update template amounts when bills change
- Delete cancelled subscriptions
- Add new recurring expenses as they occur
Premium User Workflow (With Bank Sync)
- Initial Setup:
- Connect bank accounts via Plaid (enables auto-detection)
- Go to Detected Bills tab
- Review all bills Plaid discovered from your history
- Confirm bills you want to track, ignore ones you don't care about
- Fill Gaps with Templates:
- Go to Templates tab
- Create manual templates for bills Plaid didn't detect (annual subscriptions, irregular bills)
- Weekly Match Approval (Recommended):
- Go to Matches tab
- Review pending match suggestions
- Select all high-confidence matches (≥80%)
- Click "Approve Selected" to bulk approve
- Review medium/low confidence manually
- Monthly Planning:
- Check Calendar view at month start
- See ALL bills (detected, templates, CC bills) in timeline
- Budget for upcoming expenses
- Spot any missing expected payments
- Ongoing:
- System auto-creates match suggestions for new transactions
- Approve matches as they appear (takes 30 seconds)
- Refresh Plaid sync if you notice missing bills
Time Savings with Premium:
Manual tracking (Essential): ~15-20 minutes per month creating and updating templates
Auto-detection + matching (Premium): ~2-3 minutes per week approving matches (80% reduction!)
Best Practices
For All Users
- Review Calendar monthly: At the start of each month, check what bills are coming
- Keep templates updated: When bill amounts change, update your templates immediately
- Use consistent naming: Always "Netflix" not varying between "Netflix Inc." and "Netflix Subscription"
- Track credit card due dates: Never miss a payment deadline
- Combine with category targets: Set targets to automatically save for bills
For Premium Users
- Approve matches regularly: Don't let pending matches pile up - review weekly
- Bulk approve high confidence: Safe to approve all matches ≥80% at once
- Confirm detected bills early: Review new detected bills within first week
- Sync Plaid when needed: If you notice missing bills, use manual refresh
- Let automation work: Trust the AI - Plaid's detection is very accurate
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- ❌Creating duplicate templates: If Premium, Plaid already detected it
- ❌Ignoring match suggestions: They pile up and lose value
- ❌Not confirming detected bills: Leaves them as "inactive" so they won't match
- ❌Forgetting to update amounts: Templates with wrong amounts create false matches
- ❌Confusing bill tracking with categorization: Remember, these are separate systems
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What's the difference between recurring transactions and recurring bills?
A: Recurring transactions create transaction templates that auto-enter on a schedule. Recurring bills is a comprehensive system that includes templates, auto-detection (Premium), smart matching, and calendar views. Think of recurring transactions as one piece of the larger recurring bills feature.
Q: Do I need Premium to use recurring bills?
A: No! Essential users can create manual templates, track credit card bills, and use the calendar view. Premium adds auto-detection, smart matching, and Plaid sync for automation.
Q: How accurate is Plaid's bill detection?
A: Very accurate! Plaid uses AI to analyze your transaction history and identifies recurring patterns with 90%+ accuracy. It can detect both fixed bills (always same amount) and variable bills (utilities that change).
Q: What if I have both a manual template AND Plaid detected the same bill?
A: The system will show a "merge notification banner" with three options: (1) Merge and use Plaid detection, (2) Keep both separate, or (3) Delete the manual template. We recommend merging to avoid duplicates.
Q: Does approving a match change my transaction's category?
A: No! Approving a match only links the transaction to the recurring bill for payment tracking. Category assignment is handled separately by Transaction Rules (if you've set them up). A transaction can have BOTH a category AND a link to a recurring bill - they're complementary data.
Q: What confidence score should I trust for auto-approval?
A: High confidence (≥80%) matches are safe to bulk approve. Medium (60-79%) should be reviewed. Low (<60%) require careful verification. The system learns over time, so confidence improves as you approve more matches.
Q: Can I use recurring bills for income too?
A: Yes! Create templates for regular paychecks, freelance retainers, or any recurring income. Plaid will also detect recurring deposits for Premium users.
Q: What if my bill amount changes every month (like utilities)?
A: Perfect use case for Premium! Plaid detects variable bills and updates the expected amount based on your history. For Essential users, create a template with an average amount and the matching system will still suggest matches even if the amount varies slightly.
Ready to Master Your Recurring Bills?
Whether you track bills manually with Essential or let Premium automate it with Plaid detection, Recurring Bills gives you complete visibility and control over your regular expenses. Combined with category targets and transaction rules, you can fully automate your budgeting!