How does paying with installments work?

[Katarian]

I don't normally bother to pay for players in installments, but my current transfer budget was pretty low and I wanted to bring in three players.

First player I agreed to £2.5m up front, £3m over 24 months. I paid the player a loyalty bonus of £55k and an agent fee of £525k. The news item confirming the transfer said £3.8m will be deducted from the transfer budget.

Second player I agreed to £2m up front, £5m over 24 months. I paid the player a loyalty bonus of £25.5k and an agent fee of £180k. The news item confirming the transfer said £3.4m will be deducted from the transfer budget.

Now my original budget was £8.5m and I sold a player for £4m with 75% going to the transfer budget. So before the above two transfers I had £11.5m in my budget. To my surprise after confirming the first transfer the budget reduced to £5.8m and after the second one it was completely wiped out. Obviously I have no idea how installments work as I thought I would have £3m left over to buy a third player :o.

I should of paid more attention when I was making the deals as it gave much more detailed info then the news item confirming the transfers. It was stupid of me to try and do all the calculations in my head , but shouldn't the news item for confirming the transfer give the actual value of the transfer budget reduction?

[Cougar2010]

Would probably need to see the screenshots but I think something is missing.

On your sale was it payment up front or installments? 75% of £4m would only get added if it was all paid up front.

For your purchases you generally get the upfront cost, any installments due before the end of the season and any agent fees deducted from your budget. There maybe was another cost deducted?

[Katarian]

I got the £4m upfront, I always try to get money upfront for players. The only other transfer or contract activity at that point was a youngster I bought for £70k, and I sold another player for £200k.

I took the transfer budget values from the boardroom screen before and after the transfer occured. I've got no screenshots and I've progressed the save on, so you'll have to take my word that the first transfer took the budget from £11.5m to £5.8m, and the second from £5.8m to £0.

I did manage to get the third player I was after by adjusting my wage budget, so it all worked out in the end. I'd like to know where the budget went to, but I learnt my lesson and I'll just pay upfront for everyone as I have always done in the past rather then trying to guess how the installments will effect the budget.

[Cougar2010]

I don't think its a case of learning your lesson tbh.

I think you just need to take more time on the next sale to check all the figures and what comes out of your budget so you are more familiar with it or just in case you have spotted a bug.

Its difficult after its happened to identify everything thats gone on and much easier to deal with during the transaction when you know what to look for.