Actual Budget is a budgeting app. You give every dollar a job, record what you spend, and see where you stand each month. Your budget lives in your terrarium, not with a bank or an advertiser.
Sign in
Open Actual Budget from its card on your dashboard. It shows a sign-in page with one button. Press it, and Terrarium signs you in as yourself, with no separate password.
In a household, the account holder has to sign in first. Actual Budget makes the first person who signs in its owner, with full control over it, so members can't open it until the account holder has. Until then, members see "The owner of this app needs to sign in to it first."
Make your first budget
- Create a new budget when Actual Budget asks.
- Add your accounts, such as checking, savings and credit cards, each with its current balance.
- Make a few broad categories, like rent, groceries and fun money.
- In the Budgeted column, assign your money to the categories until all of it has a job.
From then on, record what you spend as you spend it, or import it from your bank.
Import from your bank
Most banks let you download your transactions as a file. Open the account in Actual Budget, press Import, and choose the file.
Actual Budget reads OFX, QFX, QIF, CSV and CAMT files. OFX or QFX works best. A CSV file asks you to match up its columns the first time.
Share a budget with your household
Everyone in a household gets their own account in Actual Budget, and nobody sees anyone else's budgets at first. To share one, its owner opens it and gives the other person access from User Access Management in Actual Budget's menu. That person has to have signed in to Actual Budget once before they appear in the list.
Members can also make budgets of their own.