How your balance works

The number at the top of your wallet is not an estimate and not a cache — it is the arithmetic result of every recorded movement in and out, from your first shilling to a moment ago. Understanding that removes most balance mysteries before they start.

Balance changes are events, not edits

Nothing ever adjusts your balance directly. Money you receive is an event; money you send is an event; each event is written to the ledger as a new entry, and the balance is what those events add up to. That is why reading the history explains the balance — the second follows from the first.

Things that look like balance changes but are not

• A payment request you received: nothing moves until you approve it in your own app. The request waits; the balance does not care.
• A payment you scheduled for later: it is a plan, visible in the app, and only becomes a movement when it runs. Cancel it before it runs and the balance never notices.
• A repeating plan you paused: paused means no executions, which means no events, which means no change.
• A request you sent someone else: their approval, not your hope, is what eventually creates the event.

When you and a friend compare screens

A direct transfer between Kit Pay users is written as one transaction with two sides — the sender's movement and the receiver's. Some kinds of transfer on the way, like ones that wait to be claimed, record the sender's side first and complete when the receiver accepts. Either way, the rule for you is the same: money is yours when it is in your history. If a payment someone claims to have sent is not there, it has not reached your wallet, whatever screenshot they show — screenshots can be forged, and your own history is the record that counts. That single habit defeats a whole family of scams described in scam warning signs.

For planning around money that will move later, see scheduled payments — the balance stays honest about the present while your plans describe the future.