Personal expenses and bank sync

Personal is a private list of your own expenses. Nobody else sees it, not the other members of your groups and not the admin. It is in the bottom tab bar on a phone and the sidebar on a desktop.

#The ledger

Each expense has its own currency, whatever the currency of your groups, and is never converted. The top of the page shows this month's total by category, and the list below is grouped by month and shows 50 entries at a time, with a Load more button. Add, edit and delete work like in a group.

When you change an expense's category, a sheet lists your other expenses with the same description that sit under another category, so you can re-file them in one go. Untick any that don't belong.

The search box looks through descriptions as you type. Filter narrows the list by category, and by bank and by account once you have linked more than one bank account. The totals at the top follow what is shown.

Your own categories live at Categories (the ... menu in the header on a phone). Sort what's under Other there files the entries still under Other, using how you filed the same description before, then the keywords and your own categories.

#Set aside

Savings and investing, like a Revolut round-up sent to a robo portfolio, a vault, a livret or a PEA, are detected from the description, filed under Finance and counted apart from spending, as set aside, not spent. A switch in the expense sheet sets or clears it by hand.

#Insights

Insights (/personal/analytics, also in the header menu) shows, for a period, what you spent, what you set aside, a chart by day, week or month, and the breakdown by category and by folder. It only counts your main currency. With your months following your pay, the first period is Since payday; Custom picks any two days. With more than one account, By account shows where the spending came from.

#Month start

Paid on the 25th? Pick Month start in Personal's menu and choose the day your month starts, from 1 (calendar months, the default) to 28. Personal's "this month", its month headings ("25 Oct – 24 Nov"), Home and Personal Insights then count each month from that day to the day before it comes back. Groups keep calendar months.

Paid on a different day each month? Choose The day my pay comes in instead, then pick This is my pay in your salary's menu. Every income line with the same description is marked with it, and so are those the next bank syncs bring. Each month then opens the day your pay landed and runs until the next one: paid early on the 23rd, your new month starts on the 23rd. A second payment within three weeks stays in the same month. Before your first marked pay and while the next one hasn't landed, months fall on the same day of the month as the nearest pay. Not my pay undoes it.

The category bars on Personal's totals card count this month only, like the total above them; a folder or a search shows them for every month. Under the loans, fees and cash line, each series marked as a loan or as pay in instalments shows what it took this month.

#Rules

Rules in Personal's menu says once what a line means: every line whose description has some words in it (case, accents and plurals don't matter) gets a category, a tag, a recurring series, or counts as your pay. A rule applies to every line you already have when you save it, and to each new line from your bank. A newer rule wins over an older one; deleting a rule leaves the lines it filed as they are.

To sort in the same menu is an inbox of lines still under Other, one at a time: tap a category to file it, with Every line like it on to make a rule from its description at the same time (cut what changes each time, like a reference number). Skip for now moves to the next one.

Salary shows the next payday, the paydays found so far and the rules that say what your pay is. When your pay will land on another day than usual, set Expect the next one on: your month runs until then.

#Tags

Give any line tags in its sheet, separated by commas: they show under the line as #tag and ?tag= in the address narrows the list to one. The tag reimbursable marks money you paid and expect back, like a work lunch: it stays out of every total, and the totals card shows what is still waiting to be paid back. Tap that line to see those expenses; remove the tag once you're repaid and the expense counts again.

#Recurring

Pick Mark as recurring in any line's menu and give it a label, like Car loan or Music: that line and every line of the same kind with the same description join the series, and so do the ones later syncs bring. Two loans paid from the same bank keep apart as long as their descriptions differ. Pick a type (subscription, loan, pay in instalments or other), how often it comes back (read from the payments unless you say), and for a loan how many payments are left: OpenCount works out when it ends.

Recurring in Personal's menu lists every series with its amount, how often it comes, when it's next due, how many payments are left and the account it's paid from, with what they cost each month on top. A series charged twice within half its period is flagged Charged twice. Ended series fold away at the bottom. Not recurring on a line takes it and the lines like it out of their series; deleting a series keeps its payments.

Amounts show with a minus when money went out and a plus when it came in.

#Folders

A folder is a project inside Personal: a trip, a renovation. Create one with New folder in Personal's menu, then file an expense there with the expense sheet's Folder field or Move to folder in the expense's menu. Open a folder from Filter: its page has its total, this month, its top categories and its last 6 months, and its menu renames or deletes it. Deleting a folder keeps its expenses: they stay in Personal, out of any folder.

Split in a group takes a personal expense and adds it to one of your groups, paid by you and split equally between everyone. When its currency differs from the group's, it is converted at the European Central Bank's rate for its date (through Frankfurter). The personal expense is then marked Split in the group's name.

#Bank sync

Account, Bank sync has four tabs, cards on a phone: Linked banks, Bank sync (your keys), Home and Turn off. Once your keys are in (see below), link your own bank under Linked banks with Link a bank: pick a country and a bank, then confirm on the bank's own screen. OpenCount never sees your bank credentials. The consent lasts 90 days, after which you link again.

Personal opens on your accounts: All accounts with what they hold together, then each account with its logo and balance. Tap one to see only its lines, tap it again (or All accounts) to see everything. Right-click an account (long-press on a phone) to sync its bank now or mark it shared or only yours. Sync all accounts in Personal's menu asks every linked bank at once. A spinning one is syncing, a red dot means its bank's last sync failed.

Once a day the server fetches your booked transactions and adds them to your personal ledger, categorized like any expense, reusing how you filed the same description before. Money coming in (salary, top-ups, refunds) is imported as income: shown with a + in green and counted as came in, not as spending. Each line records its bank account, and rows show the bank and account when you have more than one. The first sync asks for all the history your bank keeps (often a year or more, sometimes only 90 days), later ones start 3 days before the previous one, and a transaction is never added twice. You get a notification when new ones arrive.

Linked banks lists each bank with where its sync stands: syncing, when it last synced and how many lines were new, how far back its history goes, until when the link lasts, or why the last sync failed. Its menu has Sync now, Fetch full history (asks again for everything the bank keeps; many banks only hand it over shortly after you confirm the link), Relink or change accounts and Unlink, which stops the sync.

Accounts, the first tab under Account, Bank sync (also in Personal's menu), lists every account with its balance: the one your bank reported at the last sync, or one you typed in with Set the balance when that is newer (handy when a bank reports none, or for an overdrawn account: type a minus). Each account has a type: everyday account, joint account, savings, investments or credit card. Savings and investments hold money set aside, so money moved into them counts as set aside, and a joint account is shared. The page splits your accounts into Mine and Shared with someone: Mark as shared moves any account there without changing its type, It's only mine moves it back. A shared account's lines count at half, and its balance stays out of your totals unless you switch Count shared accounts on (on Home; your choice stays on that device), then at half. Add an account adds one no bank reports, like cash or a broker: you keep its balance with Set the balance, it counts like any other, and it can be deleted. Rename gives any account your own name; for a bank's account, an empty name brings back the bank's.

Relink or change accounts sends you through the bank's consent screen again for the same bank: use it when the 90 days run out or to add or drop accounts (some banks let you pick them there, others share every account). The lines you already have stay put, and the bank's full history comes in again without doubling anything. A link where Enable Banking can read no account is refused with the reason, and nothing is linked.

Money moved between your own accounts, into savings or back, is hidden from the list: Show transfers between your accounts brings it back, both sides of a transfer as one row ("Everyday → Joint"). It never counts as spent or income; what went into savings shows as set aside.

A deferred debit card shows each purchase on its own day (a line ending in "CARTE 1234") and, once a month, the statement that takes their total from your account ("RELEVE CARTE"). Purchases count as spent on the day you made them; the statement never counts, so nothing is counted twice. Purchases made since the last statement are already spent but not yet taken from your balance. In the list a statement reads "not counted", with the account it was taken from, and Show the purchases lists the purchases it settles.

Delete an expense that came from your bank and it is hidden, so the next sync doesn't bring it back. A line from your bank keeps its amount, currency and description as the bank gave them: only its category, date, folder, set aside and note can change. A note shows under the line and search finds it, so "CB AMZN MKTP" can say what it was for. A sync never overwrites it.

#Money overview

Left until payday sits on top: what you can still spend until your next payday, and per day. A bar sets it against what came in since your last payday: green while the share of your income left is at least the share of the month still to go, red once you're spending faster than that. It's the balance of your everyday accounts and cards, minus the recurring payments due before payday from them and the deferred card purchases not yet taken from them. Tap it for the breakdown and to switch each account on or off (a joint account starts off and counts at half when on; savings and investments never count). Your choice stays on that device. With your months following your pay, payday is the next day your pay is expected; otherwise it's the start of your next month. AI apps get the same number from get_period_summary.

Once you have an account, linked or added by hand, the app opens on Home, your money, and Groups moves to its own tab: groups are for splitting with others, Home and Personal follow your own money. Switch it off with Open on my money under Account, Bank sync, Home to open on your groups again.

Home starts with On your accounts: what your own accounts hold together, split into what's there to spend and what's saved, then each account with its balance, everyday ones first, then savings and investments, then shared ones. Shared accounts stay out of the total unless you switch on Count shared accounts, which adds your half. Tap an account to see its lines. Below come Left until payday, then this month's spent, came in, set aside and left over, your pace against last month and a forecast for the month's end, yesterday's report, your biggest habit (something you pay for more than once a month), the top category against last month, payments that repeat every month and spending day by day.

#Setting it up

Bank sync goes through Enable Banking, an open-banking provider covering most European banks, Revolut included. It is per account: everyone uses their own Enable Banking application, and the admin configures nothing. In Account, Bank sync:

1. Press Create an app on Enable Banking: the control panel opens in a new tab and a step-by-step guide opens next to it. Sign in with your email, register a production application with the redirect URL the guide shows, and your browser downloads its private key, named after the application ID.
2. Paste its application ID and the RSA private key it gave you. The key is stored encrypted, never sent back to the browser, and the pair is checked against Enable Banking before it is saved.

Turn off forgets your keys: linked banks stop syncing, and a link whose keys are gone fails with a message until you set them up again. The expenses already imported stay.

Enable Banking's free "restricted" use only works for accounts you linked to your application in its control panel, so your own bank accounts must be linked there first; if you forget, the link is refused with that message. Link them, then press Relink or change accounts. A contract with Enable Banking lifts that. The server calls api.enablebanking.com for this, and only then. See Configuration.