Credit Card Buckets, Referrals & Cash Out - Beacon Budget v0.19.0

Credit card buckets now follow your card, and you can invite a friend to Beacon Budget so you both get $10.

✨ Features

Credit card buckets now follow your card. Credit card buckets used to come down only when Beacon could match a payment on your checking account, which didn't work for every setup, especially when the account making the payment wasn't connected. Now the card's own transactions drive the bucket, so payments, refunds, and rewards all adjust it whether or not the account you paid from is connected.

A few things to know.
- When your card reports a payment before the money leaves your checking account, Beacon waits up to three days for the withdrawal before taking the payment out of your card bucket. Free to Spend stays put in between instead of jumping.
- You can still assign the payment yourself. Assign the checking withdrawal to your card bucket and the bucket comes down right away. If the card already handled it, the assignment still sticks and your bucket balance stays the same. Either way, a payment only comes out of your bucket once.
- This only applies going forward. If your bucket currently holds more or less than your card owes, that difference stays. You can fix it by transferring between the bucket and Free to Spend, just as you always could.
- Your bucket target doesn't change, only the amount held in it.
Card payments show as a transfer. A payment on your credit card account now reads as a transfer to your card, since a payment isn't spending. Instead of a Spending From picker, it shows which card bucket the payment came out of. The same payment on your checking account works as before.
See when a card payment is waiting. When Beacon is holding a card payment for the withdrawal, the transaction now says so and shows how much your card bucket will come down and when. If you pay your card from an account Beacon can't see, tap Release now to end the wait. The payment comes out of your card bucket and goes back to Free to Spend.
Invite friends, give $10 and get $10. Beacon now has a referral program. Share your invite link from the side panel. Your friend gets $10 off their first year when they start an annual plan, and you earn $10 once they've been paying for 75 days. Your link works whether or not your friend already has the app, and the referral carries through the install. The Invite Friends page shows your Available, On Hold, Paid Out, and Earned All Time totals, along with every invite and its current status. Current subscribers, and anyone whose paid access ended within the last 180 days, can't be referred.
Cash out your rewards to your bank. Tap Cash Out on the Invite Friends page to set up payouts. Setup runs through Stripe, which collects your bank details so Beacon never sees them. Payouts are US only, start at $10, and go in $10 increments. The Payouts list shows where each payout stands, from Requested through Paid.

⚡ Improvements

Home's recurring suggestions and the onboarding expenses step now show at most 5 suggestions and leave out sinking funds with no detected schedule. "More suggestions" still lists everything.

🛠 Bug Fixes

Refunds, rewards, and statement credits on a credit card show Spending From again, so you can move one that landed in the wrong bucket.
Buckets and paychecks created from suggestions now show the day they're actually due instead of a day early for users west of UTC, and use the same funding amount per paycheck as ones you build yourself. Existing buckets and schedules are unchanged.

Thanks for continuing to provide feedback and helping improve Beacon Budget 🚀

Shane at Beacon Budget