A rent that goes up every year

Enter a yearly rent increase and check that it begins in the month you intended.

This example enters a rent of €1,220 on the first day of every month, with a 4% increase each July. The same steps work for other scheduled increases.

Enter it

1. Recurring → New recurring item.
2. Direction Expense. Name it. Category Housing.
3. Amount 1220 — the amount as it is today, not what it will be after the next raise. Ebbe works forward from here.
4. Rhythm Monthly, day of month 1.
5. Open More options.
6. Start date — the date this amount became the amount. If the rent has already risen twice since you moved in, either enter the original figure with the original start date and let Ebbe replay both raises, or enter today’s figure with a recent start date. The second is easier and is right for the forecast; the first is right if you want the history to be true.
7. Raise → Percent, value 4.
8. Raise month → July.
9. Save.

Check it

The preview in the form lists the next six dates, not amounts, so it confirms the rhythm and not the raise. To see the raise, go to the forecast and open the month it should land in.

If the item started in March of this year, the July row should show €1,269, not €1,220. If it started in September, the change belongs in July of next year — which is the rule about when the first one lands.

The recurring list continues to show €1,220 a month. This column shows the item’s current amount; future increases appear in the forecast.

Variations

A fixed increase instead of a percentage. Raise → Absolute, value the amount it goes up by each year. An insurance that adds €12 a year is 12.

No fixed month. Leave the raise month empty and the rise falls on the anniversary of the start date.

A rise you already know the size of, once. A raise is a repeating rule. If you know exactly what next year’s figure is and there is no rule behind it, an end date on the current item and a second item starting the month after is clearer than pretending it escalates.

A salary. Exactly the same, with direction Income. A pay rise agreed for ten months from now is either a raise, if it repeats, or a separate income item with a future start date, if it does not.

Why it compounds the way it does

Each year’s rise is taken on the previous year’s rounded amount, in sequence, rather than as one power of 1.04. That is not a rounding preference: it is how a landlord actually raises rent, and the figure Ebbe shows is the figure that will be asked for. The reasoning is in raises.