Switching Expense Trackers? Here's How to Bring Your History With You

The reason people stay in an expense app they've stopped liking is rarely the app. It's the history. Two years of logged spending feels like something you'd be throwing away, so the switch never happens.

You wouldn't be throwing it away. Almost every tracker can hand you a CSV, and reading that file is a solved problem.

Get the file out first

Before you install anything, export from the app you're leaving. Every tracker words it differently, but it's usually under Settings, Backup, or Data.

• Money Manager exports an Excel or CSV file from its backup screen.
• Wallet by BudgetBakers exports CSV from the web app.
• Finny exports CSV from its settings.
• Anything else almost certainly has a CSV export somewhere. If it doesn't, that's worth knowing about the app you're leaving.

Save it where your phone can reach it. That's the whole preparation step.

What happens when you import it

Open Settings → Import from statement in SpendSmart AI and pick the file.

If it came from one of the three apps above, we recognize the header row and the columns are already filled in. If it came from somewhere else, we make our best guess and show it to you: this column is the date, this one is the description, this one is the amount. You either agree or you fix it.

Either way you confirm before anything is saved. A preset fills the form in, it never skips it. If a competitor quietly changes one column in their export, the worst that happens is you look at a mapping that's wrong and correct it, instead of four hundred rows landing in the wrong place.

Confirm once and we remember that shape, so the next export from the same app goes straight through.

Then you check the rows

Nothing is written until you say so. You get the parsed transactions in a list with a category on each one, and you can untick anything you don't want and fix any category that looks off. Rows that look like something you've already got are flagged and left unticked.

Your history doesn't cost you anything

CSV files are read on your device. So are OFX and QFX, which is what your bank means by "download to Quicken". None of them are uploaded anywhere, and there's no monthly limit on how many you import, on the free plan or on Pro.

Only a PDF is different. A PDF statement has no structure to read, so it goes to the AI, and the free plan includes one of those a month. If your bank offers OFX or QFX, take that instead. It's free, it's unlimited, and it stays on your phone.

The one thing that doesn't come across

Your old categories.

We could map them, and we've decided not to. Another app's taxonomy almost never lines up with ours, a lookup table would be wrong for most people, and being wrong quietly is worse than being empty loudly. So every imported row gets categorized by our own rules and you correct what's off in the review step.

For a couple of hundred transactions that's a minute of tapping, and you end up with a set of categories that means something to you rather than an inherited one you never chose.

Why people are leaving in the first place

Usually one of three things: the app started asking for a bank login, the free tier got worse, or it stopped existing. If it's the first one, that's the whole reason SpendSmart AI works the way it does. We don't connect to a bank, we don't use an aggregator, and there's no banking credential to leak because we never asked for one. More on that in how to track expenses without linking your bank and should you link your bank to a budgeting app?.

Bottom line

Export a CSV, check the columns once, review the rows, fix a few categories. Your history moves and the only thing you leave behind is a taxonomy you probably didn't like anyway. SpendSmart AI is free to start, and importing your old file doesn't cost you anything at all.

Frequently asked

Which files can SpendSmart AI read? OFX, QFX and CSV are read on your device, with no limit on either plan. PDF statements go to the AI, and the free plan includes one of those a month.

Do I need to match up the columns myself? Only if we get it wrong. Exports from Money Manager, Wallet by BudgetBakers and Finny are recognized automatically, and any other CSV gets a proposed mapping you confirm or correct.

Will my old categories come across? No. Every row is categorized by SpendSmart AI's own rules and you adjust them in the review step before anything is saved.

Is my file uploaded anywhere? Not for OFX, QFX or CSV. Those are parsed entirely on your phone. A PDF has to be sent for AI parsing, and it isn't stored after it's read.