Monthly Installments - not enough funds?!

I've offered 3M up front + 8M over 18 months for a player, and my remaining transfer budget is currently 4.5M.

Still when it's time to confim the transfer, the game tells me I haven't enough funds for the transfer to go through and if I want to delay it.

Now this is odd... I though Monthly Installements were a "shortcut" to buy players without having to pay 'cash' the full fee... so why can't I complete the transfer if I have enough money to cover the up-front fee I've offered?

Because in that season you would have to pay £3m + £5.3m ish.. Off the installment.. Try it over 48 months should be fine then

Do it over 48 months

3+8 = 11 which is more than 4.5 the 18 months is only 1.25 seasons which in reality is not enough time to consider the budget. change it to 48.

3+8 = 11 which is more than 4.5 the 18 months is only 1.25 seasons which in reality is not enough time to consider the budget. change it to 48.

My maths was better!

But how can the game/board know I'm not going to get the remaining 7 odd millions in the next 1.5 season?

I thought it worked on a "gamble" policy, like "we'll pay them 8M over 18 months and if we don't have the money we'll just go Pompey"... Wasn't it like that last year?

It can only work with the money it sees. So you need enough to cover the seasons installments

But how can the game/board know I'm not going to get the remaining 7 odd millions in the next 1.5 season?

I thought it worked on a "gamble" policy, like "we'll pay them 8M over 18 months and if we don't have the money we'll just go Pompey"... Wasn't it like that last year?

Nope. To sign players in installments you have to have transfer budget. That's why you can't sign any player when you have £0 transfer budget. Even with installments.

But how can the game/board know I'm not going to get the remaining 7 odd millions in the next 1.5 season?

I thought it worked on a "gamble" policy, like "we'll pay them 8M over 18 months and if we don't have the money we'll just go Pompey"... Wasn't it like that last year?

thats not the issue, the issue is you would be over your seasonal budget by accepting that transfer.

But how can the game/board know I'm not going to get the remaining 7 odd millions in the next 1.5 season?

I thought it worked on a "gamble" policy, like "we'll pay them 8M over 18 months and if we don't have the money we'll just go Pompey"... Wasn't it like that last year?

No. You always need and needed to have in your budget what's payable until the end of the season.

I.e. in your case 3m plus 5.33m if the offer is made in June or plus 2.66 if you made the offer in January.

If you offered instalments over 48 months it would just be 3m plus 2m, which however would not change anything with a 4.5m budget

But even this way you can easily do a Portsmouth. If you buy each and every player on 48 months instalments for consecutive years, you'll end up spending 4 times your budget every year and spending loads on instalments. The only thing to save you there would be regular CL revenues which weren't there before.

But how can the game/board know I'm not going to get the remaining 7 odd millions in the next 1.5 season?

I thought it worked on a "gamble" policy, like "we'll pay them 8M over 18 months and if we don't have the money we'll just go Pompey"... Wasn't it like that last year?

Prob best to show with an example.

So say you agree a fee of £3.5m up front then £8m over 48 months (4 years) at the start of the season.

Year/season 1 - Initial payment of £3.5m + £2m in installments = £5.5m

Year/season 2 - £2m in installments

Year/season 3 - £2m in installments

Year/season 4 - £2m in installments

Your transfer budget is for a year/season so as others have said you need to be able to cover all the transfer payments that are due within that timeframe - ie £5.5m in the example.

At the start of the second season your budget will be reviewed and based on your current financial situation at that point in time (including any agreed transfers costs/installments). So for example in the second season your board might have been willing to give you a budget of £3m but because you have £2m of installments to pay the budget would be dropped to £1m.