Pots

A pot is a named set-aside of money in your operating account. It's cash that's in the account but not free to spend, because you've committed it for something specific, such as an emergency fund, a holiday in March, the laptop you need to replace next quarter, or a rates bill you'd rather not be surprised by.

Coffer doesn't move money. A pot is just a number you type in, with a label. The dashboard subtracts your pots from “Available to spend” alongside your IRD ringfence, so the headline number you see is the cash that's genuinely yours to use.

How pots affect Available to spend

Your dashboard's “Available to spend” calculation is:

• Spending room (latest bank balance + arranged overdraft)
• Minus your ringfenced GST
• Minus your ringfenced income tax
• Minus the total of every pot you've set up

If you add a $5,000 pot called “Emergency fund”, your Available drops by $5,000. If you delete the pot, your Available goes back up. If you edit the amount, Available adjusts straight away.

Adding a pot

The Add pot button at the top of the Pots page opens a dialog with three fields:

• Name. What this set-aside is for, such as “Emergency fund”, “Holiday: Queenstown”, or “ACC”. Coffer doesn't suggest names, so pick something that will still make sense to you in three months when you come back to it.
• Amount. The dollar value to set aside. You can edit it any time; the dashboard adjusts instantly.
• Lock this pot. Optional toggle. Locked pots take an extra unlock step before you can edit or delete them. See the next section for the full behavior.

Editing and deleting

Each row has Edit and Delete actions. Editing opens the same dialog as Add, pre-filled. Deleting removes the pot from your set-asides; your Available immediately reflects the removed amount.

Both actions are available without confirmation on unlocked pots. Locked pots take an extra step; see below.

Locked vs unlocked

Every pot has a locked toggle. The behaviour:

• Unlocked (default): you can edit the amount, rename, or delete the pot freely from the Pots page.
• Locked: the pot still deducts from Available exactly the same way, but editing or deleting it requires an explicit Unlock step first. This is useful for amounts you want to protect, such as an emergency fund you don't want to dip into for non-emergencies.

The lock is just a safeguard in the interface. It doesn't change the math or prevent any other action, and you can always unlock and edit if you need to. It adds a small step of friction rather than stopping you outright.

Pots vs IRD ringfences

Coffer has two separate flavours of “money set aside” on the dashboard:

• IRD ringfence: GST and income tax, computed automatically from paid invoices and tax events you've logged. You don't edit it directly; it moves as your invoices get paid and as you log payments to IRD.
• Pots: manual set-asides for everything else. You decide what they're for, how much they contain, and when to spend them down. Coffer leaves those choices to you.

Both deduct from your Available the same way. The difference is who manages them. Coffer's math handles the IRD ringfence, and you handle the pots.

A few pots worth considering

Coffer doesn't set up any pots for you, and the Pots page starts empty until you add one. Here are a handful that tend to be useful for contractors:

• Emergency fund: three to six months of living costs, kept locked.
• Other annual bills: Coffer already ringfences your ACC levy automatically alongside GST and income tax (see how Coffer handles ACC), so a pot here is for the other once-a-year costs, such as insurance, subscriptions, and professional fees, that you'd rather not have surprise your Available.
• Equipment fund: laptops, monitors, and the ergonomic chair you're putting off buying. Top it up each month, and draw it down when you replace something.
• Holiday: pick a destination and an amount, and fund it month by month.
• Accountant fees: end-of-year filing has a cost, and a small recurring pot spreads it out over the year.