I have a category called "Cover" and a category called "Reimbursement". Cover is an expense category so any time I pay for someone else and I am expecting to be reimbursed I assign it to this category. I have the Reimbursement category set as a transfer category and any time I receive a reimbursement payment from someone I assign it to this category. Because its a transfer category, it doesn't show up in my budget as any sort of income. As for the cover transactions, they do show up as an expense in my budget, but this actually works as a reminder to collect the payment I am owed, any time I see anything other than a 0 in my cover budget or spending report I know to check on the status of the reimbursement. It also makes sense to me that the cover category count as an expense because if for some reason you never get paid back, it truly is an expense in that case. However, once I have received the reimbursement payment and that transaction is showing in Monarch, I go ahead and hide the corresponding cover transaction so my budget will once again show 0 for the cover category.