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Raises

Model scheduled increases accurately, including their first date, rounding, and yearly compounding.

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Some amounts change on a predictable schedule: rent rises every July, an insurance premium gains twelve euros a year, or a salary changes on an anniversary. Ebbe can carry those increases through the whole forecast, so one recurring item is enough.

Under More options in the recurring item form: a raise of percent or absolute, a value, and optionally the month it takes effect.

The two kinds

Absolute adds a fixed amount each year. €1,200 a year with a raise of €120 becomes €1,320, then €1,440, then €1,560 — the same step every time.

Percent multiplies. 4% a year on €1,220 becomes €1,269, then €1,320, then €1,373 — a bigger step each time, because each year’s rise is taken on the raised amount.

When the first one lands

The rule is: on the raise month, in the first year where that month falls strictly later than the month the item started.

Two examples, both with the raise set to July:

  • An item starting March 2026 first rises in July 2026. July is later than March in the same year, so the first raise comes four months in.
  • An item starting September 2026 first rises in July 2027. July has already passed that year, so the first one waits.

If you leave the raise month empty, it falls on the anniversary of the start date instead. An item starting 14 March rises every 14 March.

The raise applies to the whole month it lands in, not to individual payments within it.

This is the part people misread, and it is worth checking once against the preview: the next six dates in the form are dates, not amounts, so the easiest confirmation is to look at the month table on the forecast and find the month the figure changes.

Why it compounds on the rounded amount

A percentage raise is applied one year at a time, to the amount as it actually stands, rounded to the cent each time:

year 1:  1220.00 × 1.04 = 1268.80  → 1268.80
year 2:  1268.80 × 1.04 = 1319.55  → 1319.55

and not as a single power — 1220 × 1.04² — which would give a figure that differs by a cent or two.

That is not pedantry about rounding. It is how a raise actually happens: a landlord raises this year’s rent by four per cent of this year’s rent, and next year raises that. The bill you receive is a whole number of cents, and the following year’s rise is taken on the bill you received. Ebbe reproduces the sequence rather than the formula, so the figure it shows is the figure that will be asked for.

What a raise does not touch

The per month and per year columns in the item lists describe an item as it stands today, with no escalation applied. A rent of €1,220 with a 4% raise reads as €1,220 a month, because that is what it costs now. The raise shows up where it belongs — in the forecast, in the months after it lands.

A raise also does nothing to a paused item, which produces no payments at all, and nothing after an end date.