Tracking accounts you can't connect, from property and vehicles to cash and private loans

Track what you can't connect by adding it as a manual account: a name, a side, and a balance you set by hand and update on a schedule. A home, a car, cash, a loan to or from a family member, and an account at an institution that doesn't support connections all belong in the picture, because net worth is wrong without them. The rule for each is a valuation method you can repeat and an update cadence that matches how fast the value changes: the home once a year, the car once a quarter, cash and private loans once a month.

Why the picture is wrong without them

The home is usually the largest asset a household owns, and the car the second largest outside retirement accounts. A loan from a parent is as real as a loan from a bank. Leave the assets out and net worth reads low; leave a private loan out and it reads high. Either way the number stops meaning what it should.

Two kinds of things can't be connected. Some aren't accounts at all: property, vehicles, cash, and anything else you own outright. Others are accounts at institutions that don't offer connections: a small credit union, some employer plans, a private loan with a handwritten schedule, a self-custody crypto wallet. Both kinds get the same treatment.

Value each one by a method you can repeat

The method matters more than the precision. A home valued by the same estimate each January shows a real trend; a home valued by whichever estimate was highest shows a wish.

Add a manual account, step by step

1. Name it the way you would say it. "House", "The car", "Loan from Mom".
2. Pick its side. An asset if you own it, a liability if you owe it. A loan you made is an asset; a loan you took is a liability.
3. Enter today's balance, by the method in the table, not the purchase price.
4. Decide whether it belongs in the budget. Usually not, since it has no transactions. Cash is the exception if you spend from it and want the withdrawals and purchases to net out.
5. Write down the update cadence and the source, and put the update on the same day as your monthly net worth check. See How often to check your net worth for that routine.
6. When it becomes connectable, or gets sold or paid off, retire it. Connect the real account and remove the manual one, or set the manual balance to zero and remove it, so nothing is counted twice or lingers.

A worked example

One household's manual accounts, beside a connected mortgage of $301,000.

Together the manual lines add $415,450 of assets and $9,000 of liabilities to the picture, a net $406,450 that a connected-accounts-only view would miss entirely. With the mortgage connected, the house contributes $84,000 of equity, and the two family loans, which no bank would ever report, are on the right sides at the right balances.

Keep them honest

Update on the schedule, by the same method. A manual balance is the easiest number in the picture to fool yourself with, because nothing checks it. The method and the cadence are the check.

Record private loan payments as they happen. A $200 payment received lowers the loan-to-sibling balance by $200 on the day it arrives, and a payment made lowers the loan-from-parents balance the same way. Interest on a family loan, if there is any, is added on the schedule you agreed.

Retire what is gone. A car that was sold, a loan that was repaid, and an account that got connected all come off the list the same month, so the picture doesn't carry a ghost.

Common mistakes

• Using the purchase price for the car or the home. The number is what it would sell for now.
• Forgetting the loan you owe to a family member, which understates what you owe by exactly its balance.
• A manual account that never gets updated, so the car is worth what it was worth three years ago.
• Counting things you would never sell, such as furniture and electronics, which pad the asset side with numbers that will never be cash.
• Double counting by keeping the manual account after connecting the real one.
• Putting a manual account in the budget when it has no transactions to contribute.

Common questions

How do I value my home? Use one method and repeat it: an online estimate from the same source each year, a recent comparable sale, or the assessed value adjusted the same way each time. The exact figure matters less than the consistency, because what you want from it is the trend and the equity.

Should I track cash at all? If the amount is meaningful to you, yes, as a manual account updated monthly by counting. If it is a few dollars in a drawer, leave it out. What matters is that a large cash reserve isn't invisible.

How do I handle a loan from family? As a liability at the balance you still owe, reduced by each payment you make and increased by any interest you agreed to. It is a real debt with a real balance, and net worth should show it.

What about a car I lease? Leave it out. A leased car isn't yours, so it isn't an asset, and the lease payments are an expense in the budget rather than a debt on the balance sheet.

What happens when the institution becomes connectable? Connect the real account, confirm its balance matches, and remove the manual one the same day. Keeping both counts the account twice.

How Zypper handles this

Zypper's manual accounts are the by-hand lines from this article. From the accounts page, add a new account, give it a name, and choose whether it should count toward your budget; its balance is whatever you set, and you update it whenever the real value changes. Manual accounts appear alongside connected ones and count toward net worth, which is why the net worth figure reads low without them, and because there is no live feed, their transactions and balances change only when you change them, so the update cadence above is yours to keep. If an institution you tracked by hand later becomes connectable, you can connect it and remove the manual account, and if your bank is missing from the connection search, try its full legal name, its abbreviation, or its parent company first, then track it by hand and tell support which institution you are missing. See Manual accounts, Supported account types, and Bank not listed for the details, or get started with Zypper to complete your own picture.