Pots

A pot is a named set-aside of money in your operating account. It's cash that's technically in the account but not free to spend, because you've committed it for something specific: an emergency fund, a holiday in March, the laptop you need to replace next quarter, 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

Add a $5,000 pot called “Emergency fund” and your Available drops by $5,000. Delete the pot and your Available bounces back. Edit the amount and Available adjusts in real time.

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 (“Emergency fund”, “Holiday: Queenstown”, “ACC”). Coffer doesn't suggest names; pick something that'll mean something 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 requires an explicit Unlock step in the UI first. Useful for amounts you actively want to protect from yourself in a moment of weakness (an emergency fund you keep rationalising raiding for non-emergencies).

The lock is purely a UX guard. It doesn't change the math or prevent any other action; you can always unlock and edit if you genuinely need to. The point is friction, not enforcement.

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 doesn't have an opinion.

Both deduct from your Available the same way. The distinction is who's in charge: Coffer's math handles the IRD ringfence; you handle the pots.

A few pots worth considering

Coffer doesn't pre-populate any pots; the Pots page starts empty until you add one. A handful that tend to earn their keep for contractors:

• Emergency fund: three to six months of living costs. 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, insurance, subscriptions, professional fees, that you'd rather not have surprise your Available.
• Equipment fund: laptops, monitors, the ergonomic chair you're putting off buying. Top up monthly, drain when you replace something.
• Holiday: pick a destination, pick a number, fund it month by month.
• Accountant fees: end-of-year filing isn't free. A small recurring pot smooths it out.