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Most of Rocket Money's value comes from automatic transaction sync via Plaid — but two scenarios fall outside that loop: cash transactions (which never appear in any bank's API) and transactions on accounts you haven't linked (a credit card you don't want to track in detail, a small business account, a foreign account that Plaid doesn't support). For those cases, Rocket Money offers manual transaction entry — and it's a Premium-only feature.

This guide walks through the mobile-only workflow for adding and deleting manual transactions, and the practical scenarios where this is genuinely useful versus when other workarounds are cleaner.

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10M+ members · Owned by Rocket Companies (NYSE: RKT) · Bank connections via Plaid (read-only)

Verified workflow (from Rocket Money Help Center)

  1. Open the Rocket Money mobile app.
  2. Tap the + icon in the upper right.
  3. Choose Spend or Income depending on transaction type.
  4. Enter name, date, amount, and category.
  5. Tap Save. The transaction appears on the Transactions tab and in the budget.

Mobile app only — not available on Rocketmoney.com. Premium-only feature.

Source: Rocket Money Help Center — verified May 2026

What's in this guide

Manual transactions are Premium only

Per Rocket Money's Help Center: "Adding transactions manually is currently available for Premium users."

If you're on the free tier and you don't see a + icon when you go to the Transactions tab, that's why. The capability is gated behind Premium across both adding and deleting manual transactions.

Why is this Premium-only? Two reasons:

  1. Cost-to-serve. Manual transactions are noisy in product analytics — they can't be auto-matched to bank data, sometimes get duplicated when the user later links the relevant account, and require more support handling.
  2. Differentiation. Manual entry is a meaningful feature for users with cash-heavy spending or unlinked accounts, and Rocket Money positions it as part of the Premium value bundle alongside unlimited budgets, advanced reports, and the manual sync button.

For the Premium-vs-free decision overall, see Rocket Money Free vs Premium.

How to add a transaction manually

Per the Help Center, the mobile-only flow:

  1. Navigate to the Transactions tab.
  2. Tap + in the upper-right corner.
  3. Choose Spend or Income depending on the type of transaction.
  4. Fill in:
  5. Name of the transaction (the merchant or description).
  6. Date of the transaction.
  7. Amount.
  8. Category. (For income, the category is pre-selected to Income.)
  9. Tap Save.

The transaction immediately appears in your Transactions tab and counts toward your budget calculations going forward.

A few practical notes:

  • No web flow. Per the Help Center: "Adding a transaction manually is available exclusively on our mobile app — this feature is not available to complete the above instructions on our website, Rocketmoney.com."
  • No "account" field. Manual transactions don't get attached to a specific linked account because, by definition, they're for transactions outside the linked-account flow. They appear in your transaction history but aren't tagged to a bank.
  • Manual transactions count in budget calculations the same way auto-imported transactions do.
  • They're not detected as recurring by default. If you manually enter a recurring expense, you'll need to enter each occurrence — Rocket Money's subscription detection runs on linked-account data, not manual entries.

How to delete a manually-added transaction

Per the Help Center, deletion is also mobile-only:

  1. Navigate to the Transactions tab.
  2. Search by the name of the transaction you'd like to delete.
  3. Tap on the name of the transaction.
  4. Select Delete at the bottom of the screen.

Important: per the Help Center, "Removing a manually added transaction will also remove the transaction from your budgets." That's the expected behavior — deletion is a true delete, not a hide.

You can only delete transactions you manually added. Auto-imported transactions from a linked bank can't be deleted from Rocket Money (they're tied to the bank's data); you can ignore them or recategorize them, but the transaction itself stays as long as the account is linked.

When manual entry is the right tool (and when it isn't)

Manual entry is useful in a few specific scenarios — but is the wrong tool for several others.

Right tool for:

  • Cash purchases you want to track. You took $40 out of the ATM and spent it on lunch and parking. Add a manual transaction for $40 in the relevant category (or split it via How to Split Transactions if you want more detail).
  • Transactions on a small business account you don't want to fully link. You use a separate card for business expenses but don't want Rocket Money pulling the whole feed. Add the personal-relevant ones manually.
  • Transactions from a foreign or unsupported bank. Rocket Money doesn't support international banks (see Does Rocket Money Support International Banks?). For occasional charges from those accounts, manual entry is the only path.
  • Adjustments and corrections. A check you wrote that hasn't cleared but you want reflected in your budget.
  • One-off income. A side payment, a gift, a rebate that didn't flow through a linked deposit.

Wrong tool for:

  • Bulk historical transactions. If you want years of history from a now-unlinked account, manual entry of every transaction is impractical. Either accept the gap or look for a CSV-import-based app instead (Rocket Money doesn't support transaction CSV import outside the legacy certain premium credit cards flow).
  • Transactions you'll later link. If you're considering adding the bank to Rocket Money soon, wait — manually entered transactions can become duplicates with the auto-imported versions, requiring cleanup.
  • Estimating future spending. Manual transactions are real (already-occurred) entries. To plan future spending, use the budget category limits and projected savings.
  • Tracking pending charges. Rocket Money's auto-import handles pending → posted transitions cleanly. If you manually enter a pending charge that later auto-imports, you'll have a duplicate.

Workarounds for free-tier users

If you're on the free tier and need to track transactions outside your linked accounts:

Use a separate spreadsheet for cash. A simple Google Sheet with date / amount / category columns serves as a cash log. Reconcile against your Rocket Money budget categories monthly.

Link the unlinked account if possible. If the friction is "I don't want to share credentials," remember that Plaid is read-only — your bank credentials aren't seen by Rocket Money, and no one can move money or change settings via the connection. See Is Rocket Money Safe? for the security walkthrough.

Use the Net Worth manual account feature. If your concern is total net worth visibility (rather than transaction-level tracking), you can add an account with just a balance to Net Worth. See How to Set Up Rocket Money Net Worth Dashboard.

Adjust the budget category limit to account for cash spending. If you spend ~$200/month in cash that you can't track, just lower your relevant budget category by $200 to reflect the budget reality of the cash outflow.

Upgrade to Premium for manual entry. If manual transaction entry is the deciding feature, that's a clear use case for Premium.

Manual entry pushed you to Premium? Premium also adds: unlimited budget categories, the manual Sync button for instant balance refresh, custom categories, advanced reports, and the website-based budget editor. Often worth more than just the manual-entry feature alone.

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How this compares to YNAB and Monarch

Manual transaction entry is one of those features that splits budgeting apps cleanly:

Rocket Money. Premium-only, mobile-only. Functional but limited compared to YNAB. Reflects Rocket Money's bank-link-first design philosophy.

YNAB. Manual entry is core to the YNAB workflow. Many YNAB users enter every transaction manually because the discipline of typing it in builds awareness. Direct Import (auto-sync) is optional. No tier distinction — every paid YNAB user has full manual entry on web and mobile.

Empower. Manual transactions supported but minimally. Investment-focused, so transaction-level manual entry isn't a primary feature.

Monarch. Manual entry on standard plan, available on web and mobile. Cleaner UX than Rocket Money for adding many manual transactions in a session. Strong fit if cash-heavy or unlinked-account-heavy spending is your situation.

If manual entry is a frequent need (you're cash-heavy, you have multiple unlinked accounts, you prefer the typing-in-yourself discipline), YNAB or Monarch are stronger fits than Rocket Money. Rocket Money's manual entry is a bolt-on, not a core feature.

Try Rocket Money Free tier identifies recurring charges, helps you spot subscriptions to cancel, and includes bill negotiation (available to all users — Rocket Money charges a 35-60% success fee on first-year savings only when negotiation succeeds). Premium ($7-$14/month sliding scale) adds Smart Savings, Concierge cancellation help, real-time sync, and detailed credit-score reporting. Try Rocket Money →

FAQ

Why don't I see the + button on the Transactions tab? You're on the free tier. Manual transaction entry is a Premium feature.

Can I add a transaction in the past? Yes. The Date field accepts any date. Useful for catching up on cash or unlinked-account transactions weeks after the fact.

Will my manual transaction be detected as a subscription? No. Subscription detection runs on patterns from linked-account data. Manual transactions don't feed the detection system.

Can I edit a manual transaction after I've added it? Yes. Tap the transaction in the Transactions tab and edit any field — name, date, amount, category. Same edit flow as for auto-imported transactions.

What account does a manual transaction get attached to? None. Manual transactions live in your Rocket Money account but aren't tied to a specific linked bank. They appear in the Transactions tab but won't show up under any specific Linked Account view.

Will deleting a manual transaction affect my historical reports? Yes — per the Help Center, deletion removes the transaction from your budgets and reports. If you want to exclude a manual transaction from current totals but keep it on record, edit it to "Ignored" instead of deleting.

Can I bulk import manual transactions? No. Rocket Money doesn't support CSV bulk import for manual transactions (outside the legacy certain premium credit cards CSV flow, which is being phased out). Each manual transaction must be added individually.

Are manual transactions counted in subscription cancellation features? No. Subscription cancellation works only on detected subscriptions from linked-account data.

Related reading:

Not financial, legal, or tax advice. We earn a commission if you sign up for Rocket Money through a link on this page; the price is the same. Every claim is verified against Rocket Money's official Help Center documentation and the December 12, 2025 Content Affiliate Talking Points where applicable.