Use these resources when preparing data for Budgie’s general-purpose Single CSV importer. For the complete field reference and instructions for Spendee and ExpenseIQ, read Importing Data.
Downloadable examples#
- Ordinary transactions CSV — income and expense examples.
- Transfers CSV — linked transfers between accounts.
Both files use fictional information and can be opened in a spreadsheet or text editor. Save your edited copy as UTF-8 comma-separated CSV and retain the header row.
Required header#
ACCOUNT_FROM,DATE,CURRENCY,AMOUNT,PAYEE,CATEGORY,ACCOUNT_TO,TAGS,DESCRIPTIONEvery column must remain present, although optional fields may be empty. Header matching is case-insensitive. Avoid ambiguous numeric dates; YYYY-MM-DD is the safest portable format.
Preparation checklist#
- Make a Budgie ZIP backup before importing.
- Work on a copy of the source export.
- Use consistent account, category, payee, and tag names.
- Use ISO currency codes such as
AUD,EUR, orUSD. - Use negative amounts for expenses and positive amounts for income.
- For a transfer, provide
ACCOUNT_FROMandACCOUNT_TO; the amount’s sign does not reverse its direction. - Import a small sample before importing the complete history.
Validate the result#
After importing, review the import log, transaction count, account currencies, balances, dates, categories, and linked transfers. Budgie does not automatically identify rows imported previously, so importing the same file twice can create duplicates. Restoring the backup made immediately before the import is often the safest recovery method.