Debts — what you owe, what you're owed

Debts is the one place for every balance you are paying down — a credit card, a car loan, a motorcycle instalment, money you borrowed from a friend — and for money other people owe you. It answers the two questions a note on your phone never quite answers: how much is actually left, and when does this end.

The balance is not a number you type once and then stop trusting. Pocketbird derives it from the payments you log, and re-bases it whenever you confirm a fresh figure from your bank app. On top of that ledger it builds a plan: a debt-free month, one debt to pay first, and a schedule of what you owe each month until you are clear.

• Everything here is private. Debts sync to your own devices and nowhere else — even a debt you create from a shop contact stays invisible to everyone in that shop.
• Money you owe is a liability and subtracts from your net worth. Money owed to you — "They owe you" / "เขาเป็นหนี้คุณ" — is an asset and adds to it.
• Every payment you log is an ordinary expense in the "Debt" / "หนี้" category, so it lands in your ledger and your Summary. It never reduces Safe-to-Spend, though — debt payments are amounts you choose on your own schedule, so they are deliberately kept out of the upcoming-fixed-costs maths.

Only two things are required: a name and the original amount. Everything else — the rate, the instalment, the due day — can be filled in later, and each one you add unlocks another part of the plan.

1. 1On the Debts hub, tap "+". The sheet opens titled "Add Debt" / "เพิ่มหนี้".
2. 2Name it under "Debt Name" / "ชื่อหนี้" — the placeholder suggests "e.g. Student Loan, Credit Card" / "เช่น กยศ., บัตรเครดิต".
3. 3Pick a "Type" / "ประเภท", and a "Bank" / "ธนาคาร" if the lender is one you want to see.
4. 4Set the "Direction" / "ทิศทาง" — "You owe them" / "คุณเป็นหนี้เขา" (the default) or "They owe you" / "เขาเป็นหนี้คุณ".
5. 5Choose the "Balance Type" / "ประเภทยอดหนี้", then fill in the "Amounts" / "ยอดหนี้" section.
6. 6Optionally add the "Annual Interest Rate" / "อัตราดอกเบี้ยต่อปี", a start date, and a "Payment Due Day" / "วันครบกำหนดชำระ".
7. 7Tap "Save" / "บันทึก".

The "Amounts" / "ยอดหนี้" section renames itself to match what you are recording. A fixed-total debt asks for "Original Amount (THB)" / "ยอดตั้งต้น (บาท)" and "Outstanding Balance (THB)" / "ยอดคงค้าง (บาท)". A reducing-balance loan asks for "Loan Amount (Original Principal)" / "ยอดกู้ตั้งต้น (เงินต้น)" and "Current Balance (From Your Bank App)" / "ยอดสินเชื่อคงเหลือจากแอปธนาคาร". A receivable asks what they owed you originally and what they still owe.

• The original amount is required — Save stays disabled while it is 0.
• Leave the current balance blank and it is taken as equal to the original amount.
• The monthly instalment is optional, and a blank or zero stores nothing — but a debt with no instalment is left out of the debt-free projection and out of the payment schedule.
• Negative amounts are impossible. Anything below zero is clamped to 0 as you type.

One choice on the form decides how the headline balance behaves for the rest of that debt's life, and there is no conversion step to fix it later. A ฿30,000 phone instalment and a ฿2,400,000 mortgage are not the same kind of number, and the app refuses to pretend they are.

A reducing-balance loan is kept honest by confirming, not by arithmetic. Whenever you change the current-balance field and save, the app files a dated confirmation and the headline moves to that figure.

• After a confirmation, a fixed-total debt reads as that confirmed figure minus any payments dated after it. A reducing-balance debt reads the latest confirmed figure and nothing else.
• Confirming twice on the same calendar day replaces that day's entry instead of stacking, so a session of fiddling leaves one clean figure.
• A confirmation is independent once written: editing or deleting the payment you entered it alongside will not undo it.
• Confirmed balances sync to your other devices along with the debt itself.

The Debts hub is a payoff queue, not an alphabetical list. Your liabilities sit in the order your chosen strategy says to attack them, with the totals and the debt-free date above, and anything owed to you kept in its own section below.

• "Total Outstanding Debt" / "หนี้คงค้างรวม" adds up your liabilities only. Receivables are totalled separately under "Owed to You" / "เงินที่คนอื่นค้างคุณ" and are never netted off, so the debt figure is never quietly flattered.
• "Debt-free by {month}" / "ปลอดหนี้ภายใน {…}" projects when the last debt clears. A "~" in front of it means the projection is incomplete, because at least one debt has no monthly instalment to project from.
• The whole summary block is hidden when you own no liabilities at all — a hub with nothing but receivables shows only the list.

• Each row leads with the bank avatar or the type icon, the name, and the balance remaining as the headline number.
• A status chip appears when there is something to say: "Paid off!" / "ปิดหนี้แล้ว!" (or "Settled up!" / "เคลียร์แล้ว!" on a receivable), "Pay This First" / "แนะนำให้จ่ายก่อน", or the due chip.
• A progress bar sits under it, with "{N}% paid off" / "ผ่อนแล้ว {N}%" on a debt and "{N}% collected" / "เก็บแล้ว {N}%" on a receivable.
• On the right, "{฿X} / mo" / "{฿X} / เดือน" when the debt has a monthly instalment, or "{X}% interest" / "ดอกเบี้ย {X}%" when it has no instalment but does carry a rate.

One action does two jobs: it moves the debt's balance and it books the expense in your ledger. You never record a debt payment twice.

1. 1Open the payment sheet — swipe a row right on the hub, or tap "Log this installment · {฿X}" / "บันทึกการชำระงวดนี้ · {฿X}" (or "Record Payment" / "บันทึกการจ่าย") on the debt's detail screen.
2. 2The amount is already filled in and the keypad is already up. Adjust it if this month was different.
3. 3Set the "Date" / "วันที่" if it was not today, and add a "Note (optional)" / "โน้ต (ไม่บังคับ)" if it helps.
4. 4Change "Pay from" / "จ่ายจาก" if the preselected account is not the one you used.
5. 5Tap "Pay" / "ชำระ".

• A payment that covers the entire remaining balance asks first: "Pay off this debt?" / "ปิดยอดหนี้นี้หรือไม่?", with "Pay Off" / "ชำระปิดยอด" to go ahead.
• Anything under 0.005 baht counts as nothing, and the save is refused with "Nothing to pay right now." / "ตอนนี้ไม่มียอดที่ต้องจ่าย".
• Opening the sheet on a debt that is already settled shows only "This debt is fully paid off." / "หนี้ก้อนนี้จ่ายหมดแล้ว", with the button disabled.
• Clearing a debt you owe is celebrated: a checkmark, confetti and a haptic captioned "Debt paid off!" / "ปลดหนี้สำเร็จ!" appear on the hub and on Debt Insights and clear themselves after about 1.6 seconds. Under Reduce Motion the badge and the haptic still land, without the animation. Receivables are not celebrated.
• Clearing a debt also cancels its pending bill-due reminder on the spot, so a paid-off loan never pings you.

The debt's detail screen lists every payment made against it under "Payment history" / "ประวัติการชำระ", newest first, with a footer reading "Paid {฿X} · {N} payments" / "จ่ายแล้ว {฿X} · {N} รายการ".

• Each row carries an "Installment {N}" / "งวดที่ {N}" badge. The number is derived, oldest payment first, so deleting an early payment renumbers every row after it.
• The newest payment gets a "Closes debt" / "ปิดหนี้" badge once the balance reaches zero, and loses it by itself if a later edit re-opens the balance.
• When the progress bar implies more paydown than the listed rows account for, a second footer line says so: "{฿X} was already counted in your opening or confirmed balance". That is the normal case for a debt you entered already part-paid.
• Deleting a payment restores the balance by itself, because the balance is derived from the payments that still exist. It does not undo a confirmed balance, and it never moves a reducing-balance headline.

Give a debt you owe a "Payment Due Day" / "วันครบกำหนดชำระ" and the app starts telling you where you stand this month, in one small chip on the row and in the debt's header. Without a due day there is no chip to give.

• A due date that lands on a Saturday, a Sunday or one of your own holiday entries is moved back to the previous working day — for everyone, with no setting to switch on.
• Day 31 anchors to the last day of short months, so February reads as the 28th or 29th.
• A settled debt shows no chip at all — "Paid off!" / "ปิดหนี้แล้ว!" covers it.
• A debt with no due day can only ever show "Paid this month", or nothing. It can never read "Overdue".
• Overdue is suppressed while you are demonstrably current: any due date on or before your latest payment, your latest confirmed balance, or the day you created the debt is treated as already handled. A loan you keep current by pasting the bank's balance therefore never nags you.

1. 1Set a "Payment Due Day" / "วันครบกำหนดชำระ" on the debt.
2. 2Go to More → Settings → Profile & Budget Cycle and turn on "Bill-Due Reminder" / "เตือนบิลครบกำหนด".
3. 3Make sure notifications are already allowed for Pocketbird — this screen never asks for the permission itself.

• It is not a debts-only switch. The same toggle arms credit-card due days and the reminders for recurring expense rules, so turning it off quietens all three.
• No reminder is ever scheduled for a receivable, or for a debt whose balance is already zero.
• Reminders are re-armed whenever you save a debt, clear a debt, or bring the app back to the foreground.

Two people with identical debts can pay them off in different orders and get different results: one gets the satisfaction of finishing something sooner, the other pays less interest overall. Pocketbird starts you on the first of those and lets you switch to the second, and everything else follows that choice.

The picker sits in the summary block at the top of the Debts hub, under "Payoff Strategy" / "กลยุทธ์ปลดหนี้" (a menu on iPad). Changing it immediately reorders the list, moves the "Pay This First" / "แนะนำให้จ่ายก่อน" tag, and rewrites the payoff order and the projections on Debt Insights.

• Fully paid debts always sink to the bottom of the list, whichever strategy is on.
• Receivables are never ordered by strategy and never enter the payoff projection. Money owed to you is not a debt to attack.
• With no interest rate anywhere in your debts, the app makes no savings claim at all: the Avalanche-versus-Snowball comparison does not appear at all, because with nothing to compare it would be inventing a number.

Debt Insights is the motivational half of the feature: when you will be free, what an extra ฿500 a month would actually buy you, and — if your debts carry rates — what the interest is costing. Open it from the chart icon in the Debts hub's nav bar.

The icon only appears once you owe something — a hub with nothing but receivables does not show it — and the whole screen ignores receivables, so every number on it is about money you owe.

• "Debt-free date" / "วันปลอดหนี้" leads: a big months-to-go number and the month you clear. When some debt cannot be projected, a "so far" / "ถึงตอนนี้" tag sits beside it.
• "What if you pay extra?" / "ถ้าจ่ายเพิ่มจะเป็นยังไง?" — a stepper from ฿0 to ฿20,000 in ฿500 steps. Raise it and the card answers with "Finishes {N} months sooner" / "ปลอดหนี้เร็วขึ้น {N} เดือน", the new debt-free date, and — only when a debt carries a rate — "Saves about {฿X} in interest" / "ประหยัดดอกเบี้ยได้ประมาณ {฿X}". The stepper is transient: it resets to ฿0 every time you open the screen.
• "Your progress" / "ความคืบหน้าของคุณ" gives one ring per unsettled debt, nearest-to-finished first, each linking straight to that debt.
• "Balance over time" / "ยอดคงเหลือตามเวลา" charts the trailing 12 months of total balance, and appears once there are at least two monthly points to draw.
• "Debts cleared" / "หนี้ที่ปิดแล้ว" counts how many are done out of how many, and "What your debt costs" / "ต้นทุนหนี้ของคุณ" shows the interest baked into your remaining payments — the latter only when a debt carries a rate.

• Only debts with both a positive balance and a monthly instalment can be projected. Any other debt is listed with "Add an installment to project" / "ใส่ค่างวดเพื่อดูประมาณการ", and the headline date is marked as partial rather than quietly wrong.
• Each month every debt pays its own instalment, and when one clears, its payment — plus any overshoot and your extra — rolls into the next debt in strategy order. That rollover is why the last debt finishes far faster than its own arithmetic suggests.
• A reducing-balance debt with a rate accrues interest month by month inside the projection, so its payoff comes out realistically long. Fixed-total debts accrue nothing.
• The projection stops at 600 months — 50 years. Anything that does not finish inside that window is reported as not finishing within the view, never as an invented date.

• The schedule has two tabs: "Overview" / "ภาพรวม" — this month's total, the stepped chart and the list of moments your load eases — and "By month" / "รายเดือน", one card per stretch where the payment stays flat.
• The relief list shows at most 10 steps, with "+{N} more" / "อีก {N} รายการ" beneath it, and the last one reads "You're debt-free 🎉" / "คุณปลอดหนี้แล้ว 🎉".
• The same staircase reappears on Summary's financial outlook, as a "Debt payments" / "ยอดผ่อน" outflow row and an ease timeline — the identical projection, in the context of your whole cash flow.

• Summary: "Include Debts in Net Worth" / "รวมหนี้ในยอดสุทธิ" in Settings is off by default. Off, the headline stays "Total Balance" / "ยอดเงินสุทธิ" with separate "Outstanding Debt" / "หนี้สินคงเหลือ" and "Owed to You" cards. On, it becomes "Net Worth" / "ความมั่งคั่งสุทธิ" — your balance minus debt plus receivables — explained by "After subtracting {฿X} of debt" / "หลังหักหนี้ {฿X}".
• The Insights section on Summary carries four read-only debt cards: the debt-free date, monthly debt payments as a share of income, your overall progress, and what is due this month. Unlike the Debt Insights screen, these count receivables in their totals too.
• Two home-screen widgets, both Small and Medium: "Pocketbird Debt-Free Countdown" / "Pocketbird นับถอยหลังปลอดหนี้" and "Pocketbird Next Payment" / "Pocketbird ยอดชำระถัดไป". The next-payment ring fills over a 30-day horizon and turns amber at three days out, red once overdue. Both open the Debts tab when tapped.
• The Summary pie shows a "Debt" / "หนี้" slice for your payments, and expanding it breaks down by debt kind — สินเชื่อบ้าน, บัตรเครดิต and so on — instead of by subcategory. Those rows expand only; they do not drill through.
• Every debt payment in your Transactions list carries a small chip with the debt's kind, and your CSV export has a "debt" column holding the debt's name. Delete the debt and the chip and the cell go empty, but the transactions stay.
• Ask Pocketbird can answer "how much do I owe", "who owes me" and "when is {debt} due" from your debts — with one caveat: the due date it quotes is a plain day of the month, without the weekend and holiday shift every in-app surface applies.
• If you have logged two or more payments in the Debt category in the last 60 days while tracking no debts at all, an insight card "Track your debts" / "ติดตามหนี้สินของคุณ" offers to get you started. It disappears the moment you create your first debt.