Posted vs. Pending: A Posted transaction has fully cleared your account and is reflected in your current bank balance. A Pending transaction has been initiated — the charge or transfer is visible — but has not yet settled. Pending transactions are on their way; Posted transactions have already arrived.
The Five Transaction States
Posted
Definition: A transaction that has fully cleared and settled in your account.Example: Your payroll deposit of $4,500 lands on Friday and appears as cleared in your bank — that is a Posted transaction.How Finluency uses it: Posted transactions form the baseline of your current balance. They are confirmed facts, not projections, so Finluency uses them as the starting point for all forward balance calculations.
Pending
Definition: A transaction that has been initiated but has not yet cleared or settled.Example: You pay a vendor $850 online on Monday. The charge appears in your account but hasn’t fully processed — it sits as Pending until it settles, typically within one to three business days.How Finluency uses it: Pending transactions are factored into your near-term forward balance immediately. Finluency treats them as highly likely to clear, so your projected balance already accounts for them before they officially post.
Recurring
Definition: A scheduled, repeating transaction that occurs on a predictable cadence — weekly, monthly, annually, or on any fixed schedule.Example: A $1,200 rent payment that posts on the 1st of every month is a Recurring transaction. So is a $49/month SaaS subscription or weekly payroll you run every Friday.How Finluency uses it: Recurring transactions are the engine of your forward model. Finluency automatically projects them across your chosen time horizon so you can see upcoming obligations — rent, subscriptions, loan payments, payroll — without entering them manually each time.
Budget
Definition: Planned spending for one or more categories over a repeating period — weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or a custom schedule. Each period appears as a budget transaction dated at the end of the period.Example: You set a $500 monthly budget for your contractor category. You know you’ll spend it, but you haven’t scheduled specific payments yet. If you pay $200 to contractors mid-month, $300 stays reserved.How Finluency uses it: Transactions in the budget’s categories during the period count against it. Finluency reserves only the unspent remainder, never less than zero, in your forward balance. This gives you a more conservative — and realistic — view of available cash. See Budgets to set one up.
Forecasted
Definition: An expected future transaction — income or expense — that Finluency or you project based on known patterns or manual input.Example: You expect a $3,000 client invoice to be paid around the 15th of next month. You add it as a Forecasted income transaction so your forward balance reflects that expected inflow.How Finluency uses it: Forecasted transactions extend your visibility beyond confirmed data. Whether Finluency detects a likely pattern or you add one manually, these entries let you model “what I expect to happen” alongside what is already scheduled.
How the Five States Work Together
No single state tells the whole story. Your bank balance only reflects what has Posted — it is blind to everything else. Finluency combines all five states across a forward time horizon to answer the question your bank account never can: “Am I actually going to be okay?” Here is how they layer together:
When all five are in place, your forward balance reflects the most complete picture of cash and credit availability Finluency can give you. Remove any one layer and you are flying with less information.
Ready to see how these states combine into a single projected number? Learn how Finluency calculates your forward balance.