Paying for something in instalments

Split a purchase into equal monthly instalments or enter a custom payment schedule.

Use instalments when one purchase is paid in several parts: a laptop over twelve months, a course in three payments, or a sofa with a deposit and a final balance. Ebbe supports both even splits and custom schedules.

An even split

For equal monthly payments, one form is enough.

1. One-offs → New one-off.
2. Name, category, and the total amount — €1,800 for the laptop, not €150.
3. The date of the first payment.
4. Choose Split evenly and enter the number of instalments — 12.
5. Save.

Ebbe divides without losing a cent. €100 over three months is 33.34, 33.33, 33.33 — the odd cent goes to the first payment rather than disappearing.

The first payment keeps the exact date you chose. The rest fall on the same day of each following month, moved back in months that are too short: a purchase on 31 January pays its February instalment on the 28th. See rhythms and short months.

Up to 120 instalments.

An uneven one

For a deposit and a balance, or three builder’s invoices of different sizes.

Choose Enter each payment instead. You get a list of rows, each with a date and an amount, a + to add one and a × to remove one.

When you do this, the schedule is the truth: the total, the first date and the number of payments above become read-only, because they are now derived from what you wrote rather than something to fill in. Ebbe sorts the rows by date, so you can add them in any order.

Up to 120 payments here too.

Which one you have

Look at the Instalments column in the list. A single payment shows nothing there; a split one shows how many. Inside the forecast, a split payment is labelled with which one it is — “3 of 12” — so a month’s detail tells you where you are in the run without arithmetic.

What not to do

Do not enter it as a recurring item with an end date. It would produce almost the same payments, and it would be wrong in two ways: the total is not recorded anywhere, so the analysis screen cannot tell you what the laptop cost; and a recurring item is a commitment that continues, which is a different statement about your finances than a debt that is being retired.

Do not enter twelve separate one-offs. Same figures, twelve times the maintenance, and no way to see them as one purchase.

Do not enter the monthly figure as the total. The amount field is what the thing costs, and Ebbe does the dividing. Entering €150 with twelve instalments buys a laptop for €12.50 a month.

Interest

Ebbe has no notion of interest, and it does not need one: what you enter is what will leave your account. If a plan costs €1,800 in twelve payments of €162, the total is €1,944 and that is the number to enter — the interest is already inside it.

For a loan with a rate rather than a fixed schedule, a recurring item with the monthly payment and an end date is the honest model, and it is one of the few places where an end date beats an instalment count.