Credit Card Account Balance Alerts

Applies to Excel template: "Georges Budget for Excel v20",

Credit card balance alerts are a great way to keep you up to date on the status of your credit cards whether you are tracking your personal credit cards or business credit cards.

How to set up credit card high balance alerts

To set up credit card account register balance alerts in the checkbook software or budget spreadsheet:

In the Accounts Summary, click the "Set Account Alerts" button
In the "Register Balance Alerts" worksheet, click Yes if you want the cells containing credit card register running balance amounts to be color shaded light blue if they meet the high balance alert amount that you set.
In the "Register Balance Alerts" worksheet, click Yes if you want to show a red Flag indicator next to the "Register Balance" amounts in the Accounts Summary and the "Register Balance" amount at the top of the registers if they meet the high balance alert amount that you set.
Enter a dollar amount for each register that will trigger the alerts to show for register amounts that are less than the amount that you enter.

Benefits of credit card alerts

Credit card alerts that you set up in your online banking can help you prevent credit card fraud and identify theft, budget your money better, prevent late payments and fees, and stay on top of your personal finances better.
Credit card alerts that you set up in the checkbook app or budget spreadsheet can alert you via indicators within the spreadsheet templates about the owed on your credit card based on your credit card register balance which can help you better monitor your spending, stay within your available credit, and prevent credit card fees associated with spending more than your credit card limit, and improve credit card account reconciliation.

What are credit card alerts

Credit Card Alerts set up within online banking

Credit card alerts are notifications that you can set up with your online banking that can be sent to you by email, text messages or push notification via an mobile banking app. There are different types of alerts that can be set up. Some of the key alerts include fraud alerts where you will be notified by your credit card company of suspicious activity or purchases on your cred card account. You can also set high balance alerts, alerts for purchases over a certain amount, payment due alerts, statement is available alerts, and more.

Credit card alerts set up within the checkbook spreadsheet

Currently, you can set up high balance credit card alerts / indicators.

Comparing Online Banking Alerts with the Checkbook Spreadsheet Alerts

Important: In the budget spreadsheet and checkbook software, you enter your credit card purchases as negative amounts and credit card payments as positive amounts, so a negative register balance in the checkbook app means that you owe that amount on your credit card. This means that in the checkbook spreadsheet, for credit card accounts (and other liability accounts), the smaller your negative register balance, the more money that you owe on your credit card. For example, in the checkbook app template, if the credit card register balance is -$1,000, then you owe the credit card company $1,000. If your credit card register balance is -$2,000.00 (-$2,000 is a smaller number than -$1,000) (-$2,000 is less than -$1,000) then you owe the credit card company $2,000.

In the checkbook software, if you want to be alerted when you owe the credit card company more than $3,000, you would set the register balance alert in the checkbook software to be displayed and show when your register balance is less than -$3,000.

Typically, your credit card company will display your credit card purchases and your credit card balance owed as positive amounts in online banking which is the opposite of how the checkbook software tracks those amounts. So with your credit card online banking or credit card statement, typically the more money that you owe on your credit card, the higher your credit card balance, hence the term high credit card balance alerts.

Check out the many other types of account alerts to help you manage your money.

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