What follows is a compendium of the terminology used in BuxxIQ.

Term	Meaning
Account	The place money flows to or from. Can be Bank, Credit or Cash accounts. Bank accounts accrue interest (maybe) and fees (probably). A checking account is a Bank account
Bank	A financial institution that houses one or more of your accounts. Fees accrue to banks as accounts are assessed fees and you transfer funds around
Budget	A normalized view of your planned inflows and outflows for your defined categories. Defined in local currency and converted to your settlement currency for tracking
Category	A bucket against which money inflows and outflows are tracked for comparison to a budgeted value
Currency	One of the ISO currencies, denoted by its three letter alphacode; eg USD, EUR, GBP…
Exchange Savings	As you spend in a local currency, the sum of the difference between your account’s settlement rate and the market rate. Allows you to see how well your managing exchange rate fluctuations
Reminder	A regularly scheduled transaction or transfer that you are reminded to enter
Settlement Currency	The single normalizing currency that all expenses are converted to so that you get a normalized view of your spending
Settlement Rate	The exchange rate at which your account’s money is converted to your settlement currency. May be better (or worse) than the current market rate. Each account denominated in a currency other than the settlement currency has its own settlement rate, and it changes over time as funds are added or transfered.
Transaction	An inflow or outflow event; where funds enter or leave the BuxxIQ system from/to outside the system.
Transfer	A moving of funds from one account to another inside the BuxxIQ system. This means that a credit card payment is a transfer of funds from your payment account to your credit account

Some more details

• Settlement Rate: when a BuxxIQ account is created in a currency other than the Settlement Currency, perhaps you know the exchange rate of the funds compared to the settlement currency. Or perhaps you don’t. If you do, when creating the account, you can set this rate. If not, BuxxIQ will use the mid-market rate as of the account’s initial balance date. This settlement rate is used to determine the exchange savings described below. If you transfer funds to another account, this settlement rate is used to calculate a new settlement rate for the destination account, as the funds in that destination account are now a function of two (or more) settlement rates. Thus, your settlement rates can change over time as you transfer funds.

• Exchange Savings - as you enter transactions, your spending is recorded in the account’s currency (so you can reconcile the account against your bank statement). BuxxIQ also internally converts the spending to the settlement currency at the account’s current settlement rate. Additionally, the spending is converted to the settlement currency at the current market rate, and the difference determined. If the account’s settlement rate is better than the current market rate, you saved some money(!), which gets added to the overall Exchange Savings. However, if the account’s settlement rate is worse than the current market rate, you’ll lose a little money :(, and this gets deducted from the overall Exchange Savings. When the rates are not in your favor, it may make sense to pay from a different account where the rates work in your favor.

• Bank Fees: as you transfer money, a bank may charge an ACH or wire fee. If the transfer involves a currency exchange, the bank may markup the rate it actually uses; meaning that given the fees and markup, you may end up with less of your target currency funds than expected. BuxxIQ allows you to enter the off-the-top fees (ACH or Wire), and assign those to the sending or receiving bank. It also does some arithmetic to figure out what rate you actually received. It then compares that to the midmarket rate for the transfer day in question to determine how much you may have lost due to rate markup. Note: given the rate fluctuations, it is imposssible to know exactly what rate the bank actually will use until it executes the transfer. BuxxIQ assumes the mid-market rate (for past dates) or the current spot rate (for today). This may be a bit more or less than what your bank will actually use. Consequently, it is possible for a given transfer to not lose, but actually gain. Regardless, this rate gain/loss is added to the ACH/Wire fees, and a running total for the bank determined. While not exact, this method does provide an apples-apples comparison of bank performance, so you can decide whether you’re being taken advantage of.

• Bank Efficiency: A running average of the transfer efficiency for the bank in question. Efficiency is a function of the normalized amount sent and amount received. This tracks how efficient your bank is being in transfers. A low efficiency means you’re losing your money to the bank. While you might not be ready or able to move to a new bank, at least you have data upon which to make a decision. As with the Bank Fees described above, this efficiency value is not exact, due to the underlying rate fluctuations described above. However, as the same algorithm is applied to all banks, the resulting efficiency metrics provide a sound apples-to-apples comparison of bank performance.

• As you spend money via credit card, money is leaving the BuxxIQ system, and you received a product or service in return. You also, eventually, receive your credit card statement. At this point, you have a negative balance on your credit card account (you owe money), so to pay the balance, you transfer money from your source account (perhaps a checking account) to the credit account. This offsets the credit card debit, returning the balance to zero (assuming you paid in full).

  • If, however, you are paying off an account that is not modeled in BuxxIQ, then yes, this is a Payment Transaction - money is moving out of the BuxxIQ system.