Where can I find MoneyWiz 2 guides?

MoneyWiz 2 was retired in 2018 but we still provide support for it. Check here for all MoneyWiz 2 guides.

Iliya Yordanov avatar
Written by Iliya Yordanov
Updated over a week ago

MoneyWiz 2 was retired in 2018 but we still provide email support for it. MoneyWiz 2 is no longer being updated and may stop working on newer operating systems. This single-page article contains all guides for MoneyWiz 2 combined.

Table of contents can be found below:

  • Manage Accounts and Groups

  • Working with Transactions

  • Split transactions

  • Online Banking Accounts

  • Investment accounts

  • Loan accounts

  • Working with Tags

  • Advanced Reconcile

  • Managing Budgets

  • Managing Scheduled Transactions

  • Reports overview

  • Import OFX, QFX, QIF, CSV and MT940 files from banks or other applications

Manage Accounts and Groups

The screenshots in this guide are made from an iPad device. Whenever there are differences between the platforms where MoneyWiz is available, these will be described. Please, do not hesitate to contact us in case you have any questions.

Adding an Account

Once you start MoneyWiz you will see a menu on the left hand side which provides access to all major sections in MoneyWiz. The Accounts section is one of those sections.

Note that if you use an iPad device in portrait you can show and hide this menu by swiping from the left side of the screen.

Click on it and you will see the list of all your accounts if you have any (please notice that this list is scrollable so if you don’t see all of your accounts, just scroll the list). If you are using MoneyWiz for the first time you can either sign in with existing SYNCbits! account or click the New account button right away.

MoneyWiz currently supports 5 types of accounts – Checking, Credit, Savings, Loan and Cash. Note that the Checking account might be called differently depending on where you live. For example it is called Current in the UK, Transactional in Australia, etc. Additionally MoneyWiz provides an option to connect with your online banking and download your transactions automatically. Please, note that this is a paid subscription service.

After creating the first account, you can create unlimited number of accounts in MoneyWiz. To access this feature, you can:

  • iOS and Android: go to Settings > Accounts & Budgets, then select New Account

  • iPhone and Android: Tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner in the list of accounts, then select New Account

  • Mac and Windows: right-click on Accounts section and select New Account

  • Mac and Windows: click the plus button in the bottom left corner and select New Account

  • Mac: from the menu – File > New > New Account

  • Mac: use the ⌘ cmd + ⇧ Shift + A shortcut

Each type of account in MoneyWiz has a different purpose and some accounts have unique features that allow you to achieve exactly what you need.

  • Online Account – an online account could be any type of account, the special feature here is that an online account downloads automatically the transactions from your online banking. It doesn’t require manual entry or import. For more information refer to the Online Accounts guide.

  • Checking Account – the Checking account might be called differently depending on where you live in. For example it’s Current in the UK, Transactional in Australia and Chequing in Canada. You would normally use such an account to receive a salary, pay various bills or withdraw cash at the ATM.

  • Credit Account – you can use the credit account to handle your credit cards, overdrafts and credit services that you use.

  • Savings Account – this account is primarily used to store money in it, mostly by transferring from other accounts, spendings out of a savings account are rather unusual, but possible.

  • Loan Account – a loan account is used to track your progress on paying off a loan; with a loan account in MoneyWiz you can keep track on various types of loans including mortgage and other liabilities. For more information please refer to the Loan Accounts guide.

  • Cash/Wallet Account – unlike all other account types, a cash account is not an actual bank account; in MoneyWiz it is used to keep track of the spendings that you make in cash.

  • Investment – this account can be used to track your shares and holdings – either automatically via Online Banking or manually. More information can be found in the Investments Accounts guide.

For the purpose of this guide we will create a Checking account.

Entering account details

You’ll be asked to enter some basic information about your account. For example for Checking, you will need to enter the following information:

  • Name: this is the name of the account. You can type in whatever feels descriptive enough. For example “HSBC” or “Bank of America”.

  • Opening Balance: this is the amount of money you currently have in this account. Please keep in mind that if you intend to enter past transactions after you create the account, you need to enter the Account Balance as it was on the date of the first transaction you’ll be creating. For example, if today is 1st of May, but you intend to enter the transactions starting from 1st of January, then you need to find out the balance as it was on 1st of January.

  • Currency: click the currency button to select the currency of this account. If you do not see your currency there, this would mean that you have to enable it first – see the Manage Currencies guide for instructions how.

  • Auto-clear transactions: some banks will hold a transaction as pending until you clear it with them. It means that this transaction is waiting for your approval before it is executed. If your bank doesn’t hold transactions as pending, you should keep this option set to ON. If this option is OFF, all transactions that you create will be pending by default, and you will have to clear them one by one manually.

Please, notice that on the top of this screen you have 2 buttons – Basic and Extended. MoneyWiz provides you with additional features that you can activate or deactivate in the Extended page. These are:

  • Additional information: this optional field allows you to include any notes you would like to store with the account.

  • Checkbook Register: enable this option if you plan on issuing checks from this account. Note that if you are importing a statement to MoneyWiz, checks will be imported even if the option is not enabled, but the check field will not be visible until you enable it from here.

  • Include in Net worth – by default all new accounts are included in the net worth calculations; you can disable it for example if you are keeping track of the finances of someone else (disabled relative or under-age child)

  • Put in Group – grouping of accounts will be discussed more thoroughly in the next section of this guide, but if you already have groups in MoneyWiz you can select the group which this account should be placed in.

  • Icon – all accounts are displayed with icon in the list of accounts, the default icon is in accordance with the account type, but you can select any other icon you’d like.

Completing the account creation

To complete the account creation, you can simply tap the tick mark button on the top right corner (iOS & Android). Please note that on Mac and Windows, this is the “Create” button on the bottom right.

Presentation

In the list of accounts, each account is presented with the following features:

  • Icon: the icon that you selected is colored in red or green, depending on the account current balance,

  • Name: the account name that you entered when filling the basic information.

Grouping of accounts

MoneyWiz is all about making your financial life better organized and clearly understandable. An important feature that helps you achieve this is Grouping of Accounts. You can create a new group if you:

  • iOS and Android: go to Settings > Accounts & Budgets, then select New Group,

  • iPhone and Android: Tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner in the list of accounts, then select New Group,

  • Mac and Windows: right-click on Accounts section and select New Group,

  • Mac and Windows: click the plus button in the bottom left corner and select New Group,

  • Mac: from the menu – File > New > New Group,

  • Mac: use the ⌘ cmd + ⇧ Shift + G shortcut.

Next you will be asked to enter a name of the new group and select the currency.

Creating groups is simple and convenient – once you enter the details, tap the tick mark button on the top right to create it (iOS & Android). Please, note that on Mac and Windows you should click the “Create” button on the bottom right.

Each group is presented in the list of accounts with:

  • Icon: a simple folder icon,

  • Name: the group name that you entered,

  • Balance: the combined balance of all accounts in the group in the select currency.

Editing Accounts and Groups

To edit an account or a group, you can:

  • iOS and Android: go to Settings > Accounts & Budgets, then select the account or group that needs changing,

  • iPhone and Android: Tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner in the list of accounts, select Edit list, then select the account or group that needs changing,

  • Mac and Windows: right-click on the account or group that needs changing and select Edit,

  • Mac and Windows: double-click on the account or group that needs changing.

Note that when editing an account, you will not be able to change the account’s currency if you already have transactions in this account. You can change everything else about it, though.

Deleting Accounts and Groups

To delete an account or a group, you can:

  • iOS and Android: Go to Settings > Accounts & Budgets, then tap on the red circular button on the left side of the account or group that needs deleting,

  • iPhone and Android: Tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner in the list of accounts, select Edit list, then tap on the red circular button on the left side of the account or group that needs deleting,

  • Mac and Windows: right-click on the account or group that needs deleting and select Delete.

An important note is that when you delete an account, all of the transactions in this account are deleted, including scheduled transactions and transfer transactions. This may also affect the balances of your other accounts. There is no undo of this operation.

If you deleted an account by mistake and you’ve done that recently, contact us by email – we might be able to help you recover the data that you lost. Make sure not to launch MoneyWiz on any other devices as their local data could be used as a backup.

However, deleting account groups does not cause accounts or transactions within a group to be deleted. If you delete an account group with accounts inside, the accounts will be moved out of that group before it is deleted automatically.

Reordering Accounts and Groups

If you need to change the order of your accounts and groups you can do this if you:

  • iOS and Android: go to Settings > Accounts & Budgets, then tap on any 3-lined button on the right side of each account or group and move it anywhere you need

  • iPhone and Android: Tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner in the list of accounts, select Edit list,then tap on any 3-lined button on the right side of each account or group and move it anywhere you need

  • Mac and Windows: Simply drag and drop the account or group to the position where it is supposed to be. To do that: a) Position the cursor on the account name. b) Click and hold for less than a second. c) While still holding the mouse button, move the cursor to a position above the first account. d) Release the mouse button to drop the account there.

This way you can also move accounts in and out of groups. Also note that you can collapse and expand groups.

Net Worth feature

MoneyWiz has the ability to show you quickly what your Net Worth is. Net Worth is the that total amount in all of your accounts. It calculates the positive balances of all accounts, except Loans. The remaining balance of your loan accounts is deducted from your Net Worth.

The feature is conveniently located and for each platform it has a different place.

  • iOS & Android: when you are in the Accounts section, you will see it at the bottom of the list,

  • Mac and Windows: you will notice a small arrow pointing up at the bottom of the left side menu; click this arrow to see more about your finances, including your Net Worth.

Working with Transactions

A transaction may represent purchases, incomes and transfers you make. In the real world, transactions represent exactly the same thing as in MoneyWiz.

Expense transaction

When you go to the grocery store, you collect items and then pay for them using a card or cash. Either way, this should be considered as an expense, because your money goes to someone else.

Income transaction

If you are working for someone else, you get to be paid for your services. When your employer pays you, this should be considered as an income, because someone else’s money come to you.

Transfer transaction

If you have more than one account, for example checking and savings, you can transfer money between those accounts. This should be considered as a simple transfer, because your money stay with you, they are just transferred into a different account.

Refund transaction

When you purchase something and for any reason you decide to return it, in some occasions you are entitled to receive your money (or portion of your money) back. This is called a refund.

The screenshots in this guide are made from an iPad device. Whenever there are differences between the platforms where MoneyWiz is available, these will be described. Please, do not hesitate to contact us in case you have any questions.

Transactions Layout

In earlier versions of MoneyWiz we have gathered a lot of feedback from our customers regarding what information about a transactions should be entered and how it should be structured. The opinions on this topic are countless and Transactions Layout is the proof that we “listen” to every suggestion that you make.

If you go to Settings > Transactions Layout on Windows/iOS/Android or to Preferences > Transactions Layout on Mac, you will see a list of fields each transaction could have. To help you optimize your entry process, MoneyWiz allows you to create your own custom layout for transaction entries. You can change the order of the fields, enable and disable them, and choose from the different options that they provide. Reordering these also affects the way the information about a transaction is presented in the list of transactions. For example, if you select the order to be Category, followed by Payee, followed by Description, you will see them in the same order when you are viewing a transaction in the list of transactions.

It will be a good practice to start here and make the transaction forms to perfectly meet your needs even before you start entering your first transaction. After you enter just a few transactions you can come back here and re-adjust.

The fields are divided into two sections – Basic and Extended. When you start entering transactions, the basic fields will be presented on the first page, and you will need to swipe to the right to see the extended fields. This organization helps in the case where you have too many fields enabled and if you see them all in one page, it just looks overwhelming. You can put the fields that you use less often in the extended page and this way you will have them for convenience, but you will not see them, unless you have to.

Here is a list of all the fields and what happens when you enabled them, disable them and reorder them:

Account

When you initiate a transaction from any account, the account is pre-filled. If you keep this field enabled, you will be able to:

  • make split transactions by accounts – refer to the Split transactions guide,

  • change the account of a transaction – if you made a mistake and registered the transaction in the wrong account.

If you disable the field, you will not be able to use the above features, but if you do not need them, your transaction entry form will look less cluttered.

Amount

You cannot disable the amount field, but you can enable and disable some of its features, as well as set a proper position.

POS-style entering of amounts

This is a unique feature in MoneyWiz that allows you to enter decimal amounts without typing the decimal sign. If the amounts of your transactions usually have decimals, it may be beneficial for the speed of your entry process to enable this feature. MoneyWiz would know how many decimals are needed for your amounts, by the selected currency (different currencies have different number of decimals). If the feature is disabled, you can enter the amounts as you normally would – by typing the decimal sign too. Please, note that this feature doesn’t work with custom keyboards, but only with the keyboard that MoneyWiz provides internally (relevant only for mobile devices).

Currency

When you have the currency enabled you can make transactions in a currency different than the accounts currency. This could be useful when you travel and you are paying with your domestic debit/credit card, but you need to keep track of what the original amount was. If you don’t need this feature, you can safely disable the Currency option.

Category

Categories are important feature in MoneyWiz – if you have this field enabled you will be able to select one or more categories from your existing list of categories and create categories on the go. You can disable this feature if you do not need your transactions to be categorized.

Payee

Payees are all the people (or companies) you pay to. Payers are all the people or companies who pay to you. In MoneyWiz those two lists are combined and called just “Payees”. If you have this field enabled, when creating a transactions you will be able to choose from your existing payees and create new payees on the go. Note that MoneyWiz remembers what is the category and description that you last used with each existing payee (it does that per account for your convenience) so if you first choose the payee, you may not need to enter description and choose a category. You can disable this field in case you don’t need to track payees.

Description

Descriptions are usually short, but informative. MoneyWiz remembers the last 100 descriptions per transaction type and per account to help you enter the description faster. It also remembers the category and the payee that were used last with each description, so if you enter the description first you may not need to enter the category and the payee. You can disable this field in case you don’t need to enter this additional information.

Date

Each transaction must have a date, so that the app can present correct history of your transactions. If you disable both use date and use time, the date field will not appear at all and your transactions will be always created with today’s date and time 12 noon.

Use date

If you keep the Use date option enabled, you will be able to enter past or future date of your transactions. This may be helpful if you do not enter your transactions at the moment they happen, but after a short while. Disable this option and your transactions will be created with the default today’s date.

Use time

If you keep the Use time option enabled, you will be able to change the time of your transactions. If time of the transactions is important to you, keep this option enabled; alternatively – disable it and all new transactions will be created with time 12 noon.

Check #

Note: this field is disabled by default.

The check # field will appear only for accounts that have enabled checkbook register. You can’t enable or disable the check # field from Transactions Layout, but you can choose a proper position for it.

Memo

Note: this field is disabled by default.

The memo is a larger box that allows you to enter longer informative text on multiple lines. The memo field doesn’t have a limit for how much text you can enter or on how many lines. For your convenience you can choose how many lines of your text should be visible at the same time, with the options being 4, 6 and 8. Please, note that unlike the Description field, the Memo field is just text – it doesn’t have the special features as the description field (keeping history and links to categories and payees). You can, of course, disable the field altogether.

Tags

Note: this field is disabled by default.

Tags allow you to link together transactions from different accounts, categories and periods. You can read more in the Working with Tags guide.

Attach images

Note: this field is disabled by default.

It may be helpful sometimes to attach images to your transactions – a receipt for your accountant or a picture of the product you purchased as a reminder. It’s possible to attach more than one image to a transaction – simply proceed adding the next image after you’ve attached the first one in a similar fashion.

Creating new transactions

To initiate the creation of a new transaction in regular accounts you can do any of the following. For non-regular accounts (such as investments), the process is slightly different.

  • All platforms: Select any account, then press the + button on the bottom right corner.

  • If you have an online account you can access the option for manual transaction entry, if you select the account, then tap the 3-dotted button on the top right corner, then select New Transaction (available on iOS & Android), or right-click on the account, then select New Transaction (available on Mac and Windows).

  • For iPhone and Android, go to the main menu and tap on Expense or Income buttons on the bottom.

  • Use shortcuts: Mac: ⌘ cmd + E for Expense, ⌘ cmd + I for Income, ⌘ cmd + T for Transfer Windows: control + E for Expense, control + I for Income, control + T for Transfer.

The above actions will open up the transaction entry for with 3 tabs – Expense, Income and Transfer; Expense being selected by default.

This way as soon as you tap on the new transaction button, you can start filling the details of an Expense transaction – which is usually the most common type. Income and Transfer being just one tap away.

The fields in this form are ordered and configured in accordance to your settings in Transactions Layout. Please refer to the section above for more information.

Refunds

An exception to this approach is how you can create Refund transactions. Since refund transactions need to be linked with an expense transaction, what you have to do is to first find the expense transaction that you need to refund, then choose Options – then Refund. The transaction entry form is the same as for the other types.

Adjust balance

Since balance adjustments appear as transactions in your list of transaction, we should mention them here. You can use the Adjust balance feature in case you haven’t entered your transactions for a while and you wish to skip the long hours of importing data. With Adjust Balance you can simply state the new balance of the account and MoneyWiz will create either income or expense transaction, so you can see your correct balance. To initiate the adjust balance creation you should:

  • Select the account you need to adjust, then tap the 3-dotted button on the top right corner, then select Adjust Balance (available on iOS & Android).

  • Right-click on the account, then select Adjust Balance (available on Mac and Windows).

You can then simply enter the new balance of your account. Note that these are always created with today’s date and cannot be changed.

Converting between types of transactions

Usually you need to change the type of a transaction when you haven’t created it manually, but through import or online banking. The most common mistakes that automated processes make is importing a Refund transaction as an Income or a Transfer transaction as an Expense or Income.

If you have an expense or an income transaction that you wish to convert to a transfer, you should simply open the transaction for edit and tap/click on the Transfer tab. All relevant data will appear – you just need to add few more details and save. More information on how to open a transaction for Edit could be found later in this guide.

If you have an income transaction, that you wish to convert to a refund, select the transaction, then select Options, then Convert to Refund. Transaction options are explained later in this guide. You will be presented with a window where you can select which expense you need to refund.

Presentation of transactions

When you register transactions manually, import or connect to online banking, a list of transactions appears in your accounts, budgets and reports.

Transaction details

In those lists, each transaction is presented with several features:

  • Green or red flag: Green flag indicates that the transaction is cleared, and red flag, that the transaction is pending. By clicking on the flag you can change the transaction’s status from pending to cleared and vice versa.

  • Category icon: the category icon informs you in which category you placed this transaction.

  • The Category, Payee, Description, Memo, Check # and Tags attributes are displayed in the same order as you had them set up in Transaction Layout (for more information refer to the section in the beginning of this guide). You may need to expand the transaction to see all of its details.

  • Date: the date of transaction, note that the date is always present, but if you disabled the Use time option, the time will not be displayed.

  • Amount: the amount you entered or if it was amount in different currency the amount after converting to the currency of this account.

  • Running balance: you can enabled running balance from Settings > General.

  • Red or green line on the right side: red line indicates that the transaction is an expense, while green line that the transaction is an income.

  • Attached images: if you have attached images a small indicator appears to show how many attachments you have for the selected transactions. Please, note that to see this indicator, you need to expand the transaction.

The above information is valid for all platforms. However, the Mac and Windows versions provide an additional view mode where you can see your transactions in a spreadsheet. To switch between list view and spreadsheet view use the 2 buttons located on the left side of the search bar.

Transaction options

When you click/tap on a transaction in the list of transactions (could be in accounts, budgets or reports) you will see 2 buttons – Duplicate and Options. If you tap/click the Options button you will see more options related to the selected transaction.

Duplicate

Select this option when you need to enter pretty much the same transaction again. That can save you time when you manually enter the purchases that you often do. For example, every day the coffee you buy in the morning probably has the same price, so why not just duplicate the transaction.

Edit

After you have created or imported a transaction, you may need to adjust some of its details. You can do that when you open the transaction for edit. Note that you can change everything about a transaction at any time – including its type (as explained earlier in this guide).

Delete

If you need to delete a transaction, this is how – press Options, then select Delete.

VOID Check

In the accounts that have enabled checkbook register, you can enter transactions with a check number. You can select the option VOID Check for such transactions – this way you get to keep the record of this check and the transaction amount will not affect the balance of your account.

Set as cleared / Set as pending

Depending on the current status of your transaction you will see either the Set as cleared (when the transaction is pending) or the Set as pending (when the transaction is cleared) option. Select this option to change the status of the transaction – note that this can also be done by pressing the red/green flag of the transaction.

Make scheduled

You can quickly create a repeatable scheduled transaction with the same details as any regular transaction, if you select the Make scheduled option. For more information on how to use scheduled transactions, please refer to the Scheduled Transactions guide.

Refund

This option appears only for Expense transactions. When you select it, you initiate the transaction entry form for a Refund transaction.

Convert to Refund

This option appears only for Income transactions. When you select it, you are taken to a process which allows you to convert an income transaction to refund transaction by selecting a referenced expense transaction. This is explained earlier in this guide.

Search, Sort & Filters

At the top of the list of transactions you will see the options to search, filter and sort your transactions.

In case you need to find a transaction in your list with transactions or a group of transactions, matching the same criteria you can use the search transactions functionality. Note that search is not available if you don’t have any transactions. You can also search using transaction amounts – use signs like > (greater that), < (lesser that) or = (equals). You are also provided with option to search only in the account you currently are or in All Accounts. On Mac OS this option is available through a small arrow button right next to the magnifying glass.

To exit from search, just delete all symbols in the search field (using backspace or the Cancel button on the right). If you’re on a Mac you switched to searching All Accounts, you might want to switch it back to Current – otherwise you will keep seeing all of your transactions.

Filters

To access the filters, please tap on the Funnel icon (iOS/Android) or click the Filters button (Mac and Windows).

You may filter transactions by Type:

  • Expenses

  • Incomes

  • Transfer

  • Refunds

  • And you can also see all types of transactions.

You may filter transactions by Date:

  • Last 7 days

  • Last 30 days

  • Last 90 days

  • And you can also see transactions all transactions.

You may filter transactions by Status:

  • Pending

  • Cleared

  • And you can also see transactions with both statuses.

Sort

You may sort transactions in Ascending or Descending order by:

  • Description

  • Amount

  • Date

  • Payee

To sort transactions in the List of transactions you will need to click on the Sort button, then set your preferences. The sort button on iOS & Android is presented with an arrow up and arrow down.

If you are using the spreadsheet view on Mac OS, you just need to click on a column title and the transactions will be sorted by the information in that column, click again to change between ascending and descending order.

Reconcile mode

If you wish to reconcile your Checking, Savings or Credit account against the official banks statements or your online banking, you can use the Reconcile Mode option. On iOS/Android it is available when you select an account, then tap the 3-dotted button on the top right corner and select Reconcile.

This will put the account in Reconcile mode, where you can tap each transaction to set it reconciled. All reconciled transactions have a tick ✓ mark in the middle. You can also set all transactions as reconciled at once.

Use the 3-dotted button in the top right corner – tap this button to see more options when in reconcile mode. One of the options is to exit this mode. If you are using MoneyWiz for Mac, note the checkbox column in Table View.

Mac and Windows versions also offer Advanced reconcile where you can enter opening/closing reconcile balance.

Split transactions

Not all transactions are simple and straightforward. For example, if you go to the Gas station and you purchase a couple of gallons of gas, a sandwich, some candies and a teddy bear for your kid you may want to split this transaction between different categories. The situation can get even more complicated if you decide to pay with some cash that you have in your wallet (get rid of the coins for example) and your checking account. And on top of that use the Cash Back service.

Please note that currently it is not possible to split transaction among tags.

The screenshots in this guide are made from an iPad device. Whenever there are differences between the platforms where MoneyWiz is available, these will be described. Please, do not hesitate to contact us in case you have any questions.

Splitting transactions between accounts

To split a transaction between accounts you have to start creating the transaction as usual – for more information please check the Working with Transactions guide.

The first button on the top shows the name of the account you are currently in. You can click/tap this button and a list with all your accounts will be revealed. Note that the account you are currently in, has a tick ✓ mark and the others don’t.

To split a transaction between multiple accounts, select all accounts that you used for this transaction. Then enter the details as usual, and the total amount of the transaction. Note that if you select more than one account here, the Done button changes to Next. This button is located on the top right corner for iOS/Android and bottom right for Mac OS. Click the Next button and you will be taken to additional screen where you can instruct MoneyWiz how exactly this transaction has to be split between accounts.

At this point you can always click Back and select only one account if you decide that you don’t need to split the transaction. By default MoneyWiz allocates equally the amount between all selected accounts. You may change the total amount as well as the allocated amounts. Notice that you can also use the calculator keyboard.

When you finish the adjustments you can click/tap Done and your transaction will be split between the selected accounts. Note that in each account the transaction appears with the amount spent from this account only.

Splitting transactions between categories

To split a transaction between categories you have to start creating the transaction as usual – for more information please check the Working with Transactions guide.

Locate the categories field and select as many categories as you want to.

To split a transaction between multiple categories, select all categories which apply to the transaction you are entering.

Then enter the details as usual, and the total amount of the transaction. Note that after you selected more than one category here, the Done button changes to Next.This button is located on the top right corner for iOS/Android and bottom right for Mac OS. Click the Next button and you will be taken to additional screen where you can instruct MoneyWiz how exactly this transaction has to be split between categories.

At this point you can always click back and select only one category if you decide that you don’t need to split the transaction. By default MoneyWiz allocates equally the amount between all selected accounts. You may change the total amount as well as the allocated amounts. Notice that you can also use the calculator keyboard.

When you finish the adjustments you can click Done and your transaction will be split between the selected categories. Note that the transaction will appear as one transaction in the account you select and as separate transactions in budgets which monitor those different categories.

Splitting transactions between both accounts and categories

In order to split a transaction between accounts and categories at the same time, you should just start to create expense transaction as usual, then select all relevant accounts and all relevant categories. On the next step you will be able to configure how the transaction should be split.

Reflecting cash backs

In some situations, we go to a store, buy something and use the Cashback service. This situation is handled easily with MoneyWiz. All you have to do is:

  1. Create expense transaction with the amount that you spent in the store.

  2. Create a transfer transaction between the account that you used to pay and your cash account with the amount of the cash back.

Online Banking Accounts

Online Accounts is a special feature in MoneyWiz which allows you to connect your online banking directly from the app and download the transaction as soon as they appear. MoneyWiz automatically checks with your bank for new transactions, imports them and sets a proper category and payee. In summary, this feature provides you effortless money management.

Subscription information

Online Accounts is a service that requires a paid subscription in MoneyWiz Standard. It’s included in your MoneyWiz Premium subscription fee so you don’t need to pay anything else if you’re already a Premium subscriber. More information can be found here.

The feature is available through an integration with SaltEdge and Yodlee provides connection to over 15,000 banks in over 43 countries. We are continuously working with SaltEdge to provide new connections on a daily basis. If your bank is not supported yet, please do let us know and we will provide information whether we have a scheduled integration and any other information you may be interested in.

Setting up Online Banking accounts

You can start this process the same way, as you would start setting up any new account. For more information please refer to the Managing Accounts guide.

On the Select Account Type page, please select Online Banking Account. It’s a guided process from here – you will be taken to a page where you can search for your bank. You need to type at least 3 letters. Please, note that you can search by the bank name, by the online banking URL as well as by the country code (i.e. FR for France).

Each available bank is displayed with its name and the country flag. If you see the bank name but the flag is different from the flag of your country, this means we have an integration with another branch of the same bank and the integration with the same bank in your country is not done yet.

There is one important thing to note regarding account types. If you are connecting through a Yodlee provider (you can see the provider name under the bank name) then you need to use the Bank nameBanking position on the list to connect your regular banking accounts, Bank nameCredit cards to connect credit cards, Bank nameInvestments to connect investments, etc. If you cannot see a particular suffix for your bank name (i.e. Credit cards) then it might mean that credit card feed for your bank is not supported even though the regular banking accounts can be tracked.

Our Salt Edge partner provides just one position for each bank, without showing different positions for different account types.

If you see your bank, just tap on its name and you will be taken to a new page, where you are asked to enter your online banking username and password. For the purpose of this guide, we will connect with CHASE (United States).

If you don’t already have the subscription, at this point MoneyWiz will request from you to subscribe (see Subscription information above).

Some banks may require more than just username and password – answers to security questions, jumping codes provided by a special device, etc. If your bank requires such items to login, the app will ask you to enter them as well.

Once you enter those, you will see a page similar to the one below. Please, wait until this completes and do not quit the app.

After this step completes MoneyWiz will show what accounts are available and what their balances are – basically what MoneyWiz would import if your decide to finish the process. If one or more of your accounts are not visible on this page, it means this account and the transactions in it will not be imported. Please, contact us if that is the case, we may be able to fix this integration.

Additionally on this page you can choose which accounts you want to import, as you may not need to import all of the available accounts. Also the app gives you the option to automatically put the accounts in group with the name of the bank.

If everything appears to be correct on this page you are safe to finish the process. To do that just press the Next button on the top right corner. Note that on MoneyWiz for Desktop, it is located at the bottom right.

If you do have the subscription, the app will finish the process and it will start importing the transactions. You do not need to do anything else, but since the process takes some time, please notice that the balance box of your accounts will show “Updating…” instead of an actual balance and the refresh button on the bottom right corner will be blue and rotating.

This is an indication that your accounts are still not ready. The refresh button will turn black and will stop rotating when the import process completes.

After this initial setup, the app will regularly check for transactions in those accounts. If you need to force the app to check for transactions, you can tap on the refresh button on the bottom right corner. You can’t request updates too often, so if the app needs more time, it will notify when is the next time you can request a refresh.

Editing transactions in Online Banking accounts

MoneyWiz has a number of algorithms to try and properly categorize your transactions. However, the system is not always correct, so you may want to edit your transactions and change the categories. Note that MoneyWiz learns how you link categories to transactions and it tries to give you better suggestions after every download it makes.

Same goes for providing you with payees – most banks do not provide payees, so MoneyWiz is trying to extract a payee name of the description of your transactions. This works much better if you already have a list of your most regular payees.

Additionally, you can change everything about your transactions in the online accounts, including to convert them to other types of transactions. There are no limitations. Please note that if you change or delete a transaction in your online account, MoneyWiz will not download the same transaction again. So please, be careful to not lose data.

Creating new transactions in Online Banking accounts

Unlike other applications, MoneyWiz allows you to keep your personal accounts in check and create transactions in those manually. To access this feature:

  • iOS & Android – select the account to see its list of transactions, then tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner; then select New Transaction,

  • Mac and Windows – right click on the account name in the left side menu, then select New Transaction.

Converting regular accounts to Online Banking accounts

If you have a regular account, that you used to enter transactions manually, you can always convert it to an online account. Simply open the account for edit and you will see a button titled “Connect to Online Banking”. For more information on how to open account for edit, please refer to the Managing Accounts guide.

Tap/click on this button and you will be taken through the exact same process as when setting up a new online banking account. There are few notes that are worth mentioning here:

At the end of the process you will be able to select just one account, so if you have to convert multiple accounts, you will have to go through this process multiple times.

MoneyWiz will only download transactions from the online banking that have more recent date than your most recent manually created transaction. If you don’t have a good history of your transactions, this may result in having a wrong account balance at the end of the process – the app will notify you about this.

Converting to online account requires the same subscription as when setting up new online bank accounts.

Disconnecting Online Banking accounts

If you have an online account and you no longer wish to use the service, the app allows you to disconnect it from online banking. Simply open the account for edit and you will see a button titled “Disconnect from Online Banking”. For more information on how to open account for edit, please refer to the Managing Accounts guide.

Tap on this button and you will be asked if you wish to delete the downloaded transactions or to leave them in the account. Please, note that if you want to delete the downloaded transactions, your manually created transactions will not be affected. However, if you had downloaded transactions and you manually changed them, those are still considered downloaded transactions and will be deleted if you choose this option.

Managing the subscriptions

MoneyWiz provides a convenient option to subscribe and manage your in-app purchases. You can access it via the Settings menu, then select Subscriptions (iOS and Android). On Desktop, this is located in the Preferences/Settings > Subscriptions.

On this page you can:

  • make a new subscription

  • change your existing subscription from monthly to yearly and vice versa

  • restore subscriptions made on another device with the same iTunes account

  • cancel subscriptions

Investment accounts

Investment accounts allow you to track your investments or retirement accounts such as brokerage accounts, commodities trading, 401k, IRA and others – basically any account that trades (Buy or Sell) any type of securities. For example, if you have a brokerage account you can add it to MoneyWiz to see how your investments are doing without logging into your trading platform.

Investments in MoneyWiz

MoneyWiz is not meant to be a trading platform – it doesn’t allow you to trade, it doesn’t give you advice what to trade. It’s a monitoring tool, meaning it just monitors your balances and helps you understand how they change and how they affect your overall Net Worth.

MoneyWiz support team is happy to help you with any questions you might have regarding this feature but we are not allowed to give advice on what or when to trade and will not provide guidance on that. Any investment decisions you make are entirely yours – so are both the gains and losses that your decisions result in. We take no responsibility for those.

Ways of tracking your holdings – automatic (online) and manual

There are two ways to track an investment account in MoneyWiz:

Automatic (via Online Banking feature you might be already familiar with)

We support over 3500 trading institutions. If your institution is supported, you can connect to it to automatically retrieve current balance, current holdings and past transactions. The full list of supported institutions is only available in the application itself – download the free version of MoneyWiz and search the list for yours!

Manual

In case your institution is not supported or you prefer not to connect to it via our Online Banking feature, you can manage your investments manually. You’ll be able to add buy, sell and other types of operations manually and still track the current worth of your capital.

For manual trading tracking we support accounts in any currency and any stock exchange and trading symbol that you can find on the Yahoo! Finance service – not just the New York Stock Exchange. This means that if you can find information on your stock exchange and stock symbols in Yahoo! Finance service, you will be able to manage it manually in MoneyWiz. Once you download MoneyWiz, be sure to search the list of Online Banking accounts for your trading platform though – perhaps it is supported for automatic tracking too!

What if neither my institution, nor my symbol is available?

If you cannot find your investment institution on the Online Banking services list and Yahoo! Finance does not have a record for the stock exchange and symbols you’re interested in you can still add the investment account to MoneyWiz, filling out all of the details about the stock manually. However, because MoneyWiz cannot download the current share prices from Yahoo! Finance, it will not be able to automatically update the value of your stock and generate the historical graph for you.

You can also place a request for your institution to be added to the Online Banking platform from here. Please note that while Salt Edge is our partner, they are a separate company so we have no knowledge or control over which banks are being added next so we cannot estimate when the integration with your institution might be completed.

Creating an Investment account

You can add multiple investment accounts to your MoneyWiz database – you are not limited to just one. This allows you to track your brokerage account separately from your retirement account for example.

Automatic tracking

To add an Investment account for automatic tracking, start adding new account in MoneyWiz then choose Online Banking Account type. Search the list for your trading institution to see if it’s available:

After you authenticate MoneyWiz will start downloading your current holdings. Once it finishes, you’ll be able to see all that data in MoneyWiz and have it contribute to your total Net Worth in the application.

Manual tracking

To add an account for manual tracking start adding new account, scroll to the bottom and find “Investment” type. Tap on it and start filling out the details.

  • Account name – a name for this account that will help you identify it on the list. For example “E*Trade” or “401k”.

  • Cash Balance as of date – in the next field you need to enter your cash balance. Here you allocate the date to which your cash balance will be tied.

  • Cash Balance – enter your cash balance as of the date selected above (if you leave the date as today then enter your cash balance as of today). Tapping on the currency code would also allow you to choose a currency (we support investments in various currencies; if you don’t see your currency make sure it’s enabled in Settings -> Currencies).

If you swipe to the side in this view, you’ll see the Extended pane. Here you can modify more details:

  • Additional information – any additional information you might want to make a note of.

  • Checkbook register – whether transactions in this account should present you with a check number field.

  • Include in Net Worth – disabling this would cause MoneyWiz to ignore the balance of this account when calculating your total Net Worth.

  • Put in Group – you can add investment accounts to an account group, just like with other types.

  • Icon – optionally choose an icon for the account.

After you confirm those details, you’ll be asked to add investment positions to your investment account. For the purpose of this tutorial, we’ll populate a fictional portfolio. From the buttons at the bottom choose Add – a new screen will appear.

You’ll be asked to enter some information about your security. Note that only the first three on top and Buy date are required – the rest is optional.

  • Symbol – the symbol of your security. As you begin to type, MoneyWiz automatically searches the Yahoo! Finance database for the entered query and tries to pull the data for you. In order for MoneyWiz to be able to automatically refresh the stock price your symbol must be present in the Yahoo! Finance database.

  • Number of shares – the number of securities you’ve purchased. Note that it can be a negative number in case of borrowed shares or a fractional number if the Holding type is “Mutual Fund”.

  • Price per share – will be downloaded from Yahoo! Finance database if your symbol is recognised. You might to adjust it however as MoneyWiz presents you the current stock price – you are likely to have purchased it at a different price.

  • Total price – is calculated dynamically (Number of shares x Price per share).

  • Commission – here you can enter the commission you’ve paid when performing this buy operation.

  • Buy date – enter the date of this buy operation (defaults to today).

  • Description – description of this operation. By default it pulls the name of the stock from the symbol.

  • Holding type – the type of the security.

  • Asset class – classification of the security.

After you add the details you want, your security is ready to be added to your portfolio.

In our fictional portfolio, we’ve added several more stocks. Before you confirm account creation you can preview the securities you’ve added and their total value.

Once your investment account is created you can modify, change its position on the accounts list and delete just like any other account – see the Accounts guide for more information.

Transactions in Investment Accounts – Trades View

Now that our account is created we can see a beautiful summary of our portfolio:

First, we’ll cover how to make and manage operations to your portfolio. For that, let’s switch to Trades view – look for the buttons below the chart.

In this view, you can see all of your investment operations in one place. Every buy and sell operation but also regular incomes and expenses (useful for Dividends for example) as well as transfers and adjust balance transactions. This could be compared to the Account register of a regular account – a list of all operations in this account.

Our fictional portfolio is managed manually therefore we see 4 buy operations representing the buy operation for each of the 4 companies we’ve bought shares for. If you’ve connected your account to an online service, you might see more operations here already representing your historical operations.

If you want to make a new operation find the plus button in the bottom right of the screen. This will open new Buy/Sell screen. If you wish to enter other types of transactions (regular expense, income, transfer and more) please find the three-dotted button in the top-right (iOS and Android) or right-click on the account name in the sidebar (Mac/Windows). Below you can find each operation type explained:

  • Buy – allows you to buy more stock. Note that Buy to open and Buy to close are all the same in MoneyWiz.

  • Sell – allows you to sell some stock. Note that Sell to open and Sell to close are all the same in MoneyWiz.

  • Expense – allows you to enter a regular expense – for example to enter an extra commission.

  • Income – allows you to enter a regular income – for example to enter a dividend earning.

  • Transfer – just like with regular accounts, allows you to transfer money between accounts.

  • Adjust balance – just like with regular accounts, allows you to adjust account balance to a particular amount.

The Trades view behaves just like you’d expect from a list of transactions in MoneyWiz (something we call an Account register). This means that you can sort, filter and search your operations using the buttons at the top of the screen. In MoneyWiz for Desktop (Mac and Windows) the Trades view can be displayed in both simplified list and more detailed spreadsheet-like view. More on how to work with Account registers can be found in the Working with Transactions guide.

Adding an operation

To illustrate how you can add an operation to your portfolio, let’s purchase more stock to our fictional portfolio. To begin we click on the + button at the bottom and choose Buy. You’ll be presented with the view very much like the one we saw when adding stocks to our investment account when we were creating it. Once again you need to enter the symbol, number of shares and price per share. Other fields are optional. Adding a Sell operation works exactly the same way.

Other operations (Expense, Income, Transfer and Adjust balance) work just like they do in regular accounts. You can read more on those in the Working with Transactions guide.

Holdings in Investment Accounts – Portfolio View

Let us go back to the Portfolio view for a moment. To do that, simply find the buttons below the chart again. The Portfolio view is just a list of holding positions ordered alphabetically by symbol. Notice that the + button is still there at the bottom in case you want to add an operation (buy/sell) but you will need to switch to Trades view again in order to see the list of operations.

You can select your securities in this view to Sell them or access more options (Delete, Buy more and view Details). If you choose to Delete, you’ll be asked if you want to delete it just from the portfolio or also delete the whole operations history from Trades view.

Also notice the two arrows button to the right – clicking on this allows you to refresh the current market values for your portfolio. The date and time displayed next to it indicates the last refresh. There is no limit on how often you can refresh your market values (but remember that there is an hourly limit on how often you can refresh your Online Banking account, in case you’ve connected your Investment account to Online Banking service, just like with any other Online Banking account in MoneyWiz).

Another thing worth mentioning is that in the Portfolio view the buttons to sort, filter and search are hidden – those are only available from the Trades view.

Investments Chart

Let us now focus on the chart at the top. Above the chart you’ll see a couple of fields:

  • Cash – how much cash you have in your portfolio.

  • Market Value – the combined market value of all your securities.

  • Total Value: Cash + Market Value

  • Change Today: represents the difference between price when the position was opened and the current price.

Below those you’ll find buttons allowing you to manipulate the chart. To the left there are buttons that you can use to zoom the chart: see 1 month period (1m), 3 months (3m), 6 months (6m), year to date (YTD), 1 year (1y) or All to see all time (not the future unfortunately).

To the right you’ll see the date range for the chart which is also editable if you prefer to set a specific date frame instead of dragging and dropping the handles using the charts below.

The colourful lines on the chart below represent the performance of your shares. You can click and drag to check the market value for each on a given date. Please note that at this time you can only see 5 shares on the chart that have the highest value of your portfolio (the value of a position is comprised by 2 factors: stock price multiplied by (abs) number of shares).

Using the tool below the colourful chart you can tweak the period you’re looking at even further. Use the handles to the sides to either expand or compress the view and drag either by the blue region or the scroll bar below to move through time. You can also use the < and > buttons on the sides to move through time. The line in this chart represents the performance of your best-performing stock.

Loan accounts

Loan accounts in MoneyWiz are a complex and powerful tool to manage your debts. These are suitable for various types of loans, such as:

  • Mortgage

  • Student loan

  • Automobile lease and financing

  • Personal loan

  • Small business loan

  • Consolidated loan, etc.

Tracking your loans with MoneyWiz allows you to see the progress of your payments at any time, understand the real value of your purchases by tracking principal and interest separately and provide you with comprehensive reports.

Setting up a Loan account

You can start this process the same way, as you would start setting up any new account. For more information please refer to the Managing Accounts guide.

On the Select Account Type page, please select Loan Account. The information you are required to enter for a loan account is a lot more compared to the other account types, as important calculations are made based on these details.

Here is a description of why you need all of these properties:

  • Name: this is the name of the Loan account. You can type in whatever feels descriptive enough. For example “Auto Loan”,

  • Principal amount: that is the amount of loan which you signed a contract for with your banking or other financial institution; it doesn’t include any interests or down payments,

  • APR %: APR stands for “Annual percentage rate”, it usually includes both the interest and all additional bank fees around your loan,

  • Duration: most loans are paid off on a monthly basis, so set the duration with number of months,

  • Start date: this is the date when you signed the contract,

  • First due date: this is the date when you are required to make your first payment towards this loan; note that it’s important to set those correctly as even if you start date and first due date are different, you will be accountable for interests during the time between these two dates and that later affects your entire payment schedule.

In the Extended page, all options are the same as for the other types of accounts, but there is one additional option called “Payment Plan”. Without filling out the properties of your payment plan you will not be able to complete the Loan account creation.

Payment plan

Here you will be required to fill out:

  • Account used for payments: this is necessary so that MoneyWiz can automatically create for you a scheduled transfer and register your past payments towards this loan

  • Category for principal: based on the transaction amounts towards the principal category, the app will calculate the balance of your loan account; this is needed because you make payments consisted of principal and interest, but only the principal part is affecting your remaining balance

  • Category for interest: this is needed so that app can make reports regarding your interest payments – this can help you make important decisions about your finances. Please note that it cannot be the same as the category for Principal.

  • Payee: this is an optional field; you may want to select as payee your banking institution.

  • Plan type: there are 2 options here – Equal payments and Custom plan, these will be explained later in this guide

  • Payment schedule: with the information that you’ve entered so far MoneyWiz can make a good prediction of what your payments should look like. The payments are calculated as an amortizing loan – more on this particular type of loan will be explained later in this guide.

Payment schedule

When you select Payment schedule, you will see a list of your entire payment schedule where all payments will be listed with date, principal amount, interest amount and total amount. At the bottom of this page you will be able to see your total interest, principal and amount.

The monthly payments are calculated as an Amortizing loan. You can refer to wikipedia to find out what exactly that means if you are not already familiar with the term. Please, note this algorithm takes your principal amount, annual rate and number of monthly payments and additionally we include the extra interest that you pay for the period between the start date and the first due date.

Please, contact us in case you have a loan that is not an amortizing loan – we are open to providing more algorithms for calculating the loan payments.

Monthly payment

You can tap on each monthly payment and it will be opened in a new page and allow you to change it. If you selected “Equal payments” for plan type, you will not be able to change the Payment amount of any monthly payment. If you selected “Custom plan” you are allowed to change everything about all of your payments.

In both cases in order to save the entire payment schedule, please make sure the total principal amount on the bottom of the list is equal to the principal amount that you initially entered.

To create the account press the Done button on the top right corner for iOS and Android and on the bottom right for Desktop. MoneyWiz asks you if you would like to automatically register your previous payments.

Please, note that if you choose to register those payments, this will affect the balance of the Account for payments. For the purpose of this guide, we will select the Register option.

Note that the balance of the Loan account is affected only by the amounts in the principal category, while the balance of the account used for payments is affected by the full amount of the payments.

Transactions towards Loan accounts

The transactions towards Loan accounts are a special type of transactions – these are transfers which allow you to enter category and payee and be split by categories to handle separately principal and interest.

You can manually create transactions towards Loan accounts and enter principal only or interest only payments. Additionally you can create more scheduled transactions towards your loan account (in case you and your spouse are paying off a loan together, but from separate accounts).

You can also modify the Scheduled transfer that is created for your loan to make an interest-free payment.

Paying off a Loan

Once you are done paying off your loan the balance of the Loan account in MoneyWiz will reach 0. Please, note that deleting the Loan account at this point is not a good option since it contains transfer transactions and deleting those will affect the balances of your other accounts. A better option is moving the account to a group where you keep your retired accounts (old and no longer used accounts). This way the paid off loan will not get in the way of your daily operations, but you will get to keep the history of your transactions.

Working with Tags

Tags provide an additional way of classifying transactions in MoneyWiz.

Some transactions might be related but do not necessarily go into the same category (i.e. you can use Transportation category in your everyday life, but also while on vacation). In these situations tags come handy, as you can use them to group transactions for any specific event.

Understanding the difference between Tags and Categories in MoneyWiz

  • Tags allow you to track your expenses in more easy and flexible way, comparing to Categories. For example if you were to use only categories to separate the expenses for your vacations, you would need to create multiple versions of the same categories (Dining out Paris, Dining Out New York, Hotel Paris and Hotel New York, etc), which is cumbersome. With Tags you can use only one Category, for example Hotel, and tag it depending on your vacation location Paris or New York, etc.

  • You can assign Tags to transactions without assigning a Category.

  • You can assign Tags to transfer transactions to show the purpose of the transfer.

  • Tags and Categories used together, provide you with much more flexible reporting.

Enabling Tags

In order to start using Tags, you need to enable them first. For this you need to:

  • Go to MoneyWiz Settings

  • To Transactions Layout menu

  • Scroll down and enable Tags option

  • Choose preferrable Tags separator (; or ,). By default it is set to ;

Using Tags

Once you enabled Tags, you can start tagging your first transactions.

For this, start creating a new transaction or editing an existing one, enter all needed details for transaction such as amount, category, payee and description and specify a Tag for it.

Please note that you can create Tags either on the go, while creating/editing transaction by simply typing a name of Tag in the corresponding field, or prepare list of your Tags in Settings -> Tags menu.

In case you want to add two or more Tags into a single transaction, after you typed a name of the first Tag, click on Tag separator button (; – semicolon or , – comma, depending on your preference) and start typing a name of second Tag and so on.

Deleting and editing Tags

To delete or edit an existing Tag, you need to:

  1. Go to MoneyWiz Settings

  2. Tags menu

  3. Click/tap on Tag you wish to Delete or change name for

Generating Reports based on Tags

Using Tags can provide you with more flexible reporting.

For example you were on vacation in New York recently, and want to find out how much you’ve spent in total while staying in New York (assuming you were tagging all your expenses while staying there). For this you need to navigate to Reports section and generate Expense Tag Over Time report, and select a Tag you want to see in the report (in our case New York).

After the report is generated MoneyWiz will show you all your expenses, which were made while staying in New York.

However at the same time you want to find out how much you’ve spent, let’s say on Dining Out, while on your vacation.

In this case you’ll need Breakdown Categories Over Tags report. In the settings of report you need to select a Category (Dining Out) and a Tag (New York).

After report is generated, MoneyWiz will show you how much you’ve spent on Dining Out, while staying in New York.

Advanced reconcile

The advanced reconcile feature is used to reconcile the transaction within any account in MoneyWiz with a real bank statement for this account.

This feature is used to reconcile your MoneyWiz account and transactions within it, with your real banking account and its transactions. Usually people receive their paper bank statements (or they can generate such statements in their online banking account) once a month and they would like to reconcile the transactions in MoneyWiz against the transactions in bank statement. So the reconcile feature allows them to put checkmarks on each transaction in MoneyWiz and they do the same on each transaction on the statement. Once everything in MoneyWiz and on the paper is check-marked, the reconcile process is done. Reconciling helps you detect frauds and unwanted charges. If you don’t do reconciling for any reason, you can simply ignore this feature, or you can regularly mark everything as reconciled. Whether a transaction is reconciled or not doesn’t affect the final balance of the account.

Please note that this Advanced reconcile feature is not yet available on iOS and Android. However there is still a way to reconcile on these platforms. In the end of this guide you can find out how.

Using Advanced Reconcile

To access this feature please open MoneyWiz and proceed to the account you wish to reconcile. On the top right corner of MoneyWiz screen you will see a scales icon. By clicking it you will enter the Advanced Reconcile mode.

Once you entered Advance Reconcile mode you will be presented with a new view. This means that, if your transactions were displayed in a List View mode, after you access Reconcile mode they will become displayed in Table View mode (but once you quit Advanced Reconcile mode, the app will bring you back to List View mode). In addition you will find some new fields here:

  • Opening date – in this field you set the start date of your bank statement

  • Closing date – in this field you set the end date of your bank statement

Please note that, when you enter Reconcile mode, MoneyWiz by default sets the Start Date as the date of the last Reconciled transaction + 1 day, while the End Date is 1 month later. This means that if the date of your last reconciled transaction in this account is 19th of October 2015, MoneyWiz will automatically set the Start Date of reconciling as 20th of October (a day after last reconciled transaction) and the End Date as 19th of November 2015 (1 month from the last reconciled transaction).

  • Opening balance – in this field you enter the start balance of your bank statement

  • Closing balance – in this field you enter the end balance of your bank statement

Basically MoneyWiz already should know the opening and closing balance and set it automatically for you, but it never hurts to check. Plus, if the balance that MoneyWiz suggests is different than your statement balances, that could be a reason for concern and you should carefully reconcile to find that reason for this discrepancy.

Please also note that MoneyWiz will show unreconciled transactions from the previous statement periods as you may find it useful to make sure there are no missed transactions between the current and the previous statement.

  • Reconciled/Unreconciled – these numbers show how many transactions there were reconciled (check-marked), and how many are left to reconcile.

  • Left to reconcile – as you put check marks in front of your transactions, you will see this figure changing (it can increase or decrease depending on which transactions – incomes or expenses you are check-marking). Ideally, when the reconcile process is done, there is 0.00 left to reconcile.

  • Show reconciled/Show un-reconciled – by selecting/deselecting these options you can tell MoneyWiz whether to show reconciled transactions or not, and whether to show un-reconciled transactions or not.

After you finished reconciling you simply click Done and that’s it. After this you will find your reconciled transactions in the account register all check marked (you can only see it in Table View mode).

How to reconcile on iOS and Android

In order to access reconcile mode on iOS and Android please access the account you wish to reconcile. On the top right corner you will see 3 vertical dots button. Click on it and choose Reconcile Mode. You can currently compare the opening and closing balance from the statement with the one on MoneyWiz by looking at the Running balance entries for the same date and see if they match (on an iOS and Android devices you need to enable the Running Balance option from Settings > General > Show Running Balance).

If the balances match, you can just set all transaction within the period as reconciled by taping 3-dots button again and choosing option “Set all as reconciled”, if not you have to go though all transactions and compare them one by one, side by side with those on the statement, unless the difference is a single transaction. Once you are done with reconciling click on the same button as before and click “Exit Reconcile Mode”.

Managing Budgets

One of the main purposes of using a personal finance manager is budgeting and planning. When you plan your spending, you allocate certain amount of money for each purpose like Food, Bills, Car, Kids, etc. You should be very careful to make your budgets doable and at the same time your salary should cover all of them. MoneyWiz makes it really easy to manage your budgets.

Adding a budget

If you have already set up at least one account, you should be able to access the Budgets section in the left panel just below the Accounts section. Click on it and you will see all your budgets if you have any. Please note that if you have many budgets the list will become scrollable.

To create any type of budget you need to click the New Budget button. You can do this in one of the following ways.

  • iOS and Android: go to Settings > Accounts & Budgets > Budgets, then select New Budget

  • iOS and Android: tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner in the list of budgets, then select New Budget

  • Mac and Windows: right-click on the Budgets section and select New Budget

  • Mac and Windows: click the plus button in the bottom left corner and select New Budget

  • Mac and Windows: from the menu – File > New > New Budget

  • Mac: use the ⌘ cmd + ⇧ Shift + B shortcut

Enter budget details

You’ll be asked to configure your budget.

  • Name: enter the name of your budget (“Entertainment” for example).

  • Amount: enter the maximum amount of money you think you should spend on this budget.

  • Currency: you can also select currency. By default the local currency is selected.

  • Accounts: select the accounts that this budget should monitor. This means that the budget will include all expenses in any of these accounts. All other expenses are excluded from this specific budget.

  • Categories: select one or more categories that this budget will monitor. This means that the budget will include all expenses in any of these categories. All other expenses are excluded from this specific budget.

  • Icon: choose a budget icon and the app will use this icon to represent the budget in the list of budgets.

  • Start date: this is the date when the budget will start looking for expenses. If you set a date in the past, the budget will get all expenses that appeared in the past starting from that selected date. If you set a date in the future, the budget will be inactive until this date arrives.

  • Repeat: if you make expenses covered by this budget on regular basis, you should set Repeat to ON. On the other hand, if you intend to use this budget for something temporarily, for example birthday party or vacation, you may need to set Repeat to OFF.

  • Frequency: if Repeat is set to ON, indicate how often the budget should restart. You can choose between days, weeks, months and years and you can enter any value you want. For example if you choose 1 Month, this means that the budget will repeat monthly (set this way by default); if you choose 1 week, the budget will repeat weekly; and if you choose 3 months, the budget will repeat quarterly.

  • Rollover: this is a special feature in MoneyWiz that helps keeping you motivated to fit in the budget. If you overspend a budget with enabled rollover, your allowance for the next month will be less. If you underspend, your allowance for the next month will be more.

  • Carried balance: if you already used a service which provides rollover, you are likely to have a balance that you need to transfer into MoneyWiz.

  • End date: if you set the Repeat to OFF, then you need to select when this budget ends. The budget will only monitor expenses made during the period between the start date and end date.

Click the tick mark button of the top right to complete the budget creation (iOS & Android). Note that this would be the “Create” button on the bottom right for Mac and Windows.

In MoneyWiz you do not need to enter the transactions separately in your accounts and then again in your budgets. The budgets are smart enough to automatically monitor the transactions from the accounts and categories that you entered manually or imported, or downloaded from your online accounts.

Presentation

In the list of budgets, each budget is presented with the following features:

  • Icon: the icon that you selected is colored in blue,

  • Name: the budget name that you entered when setting it up,

  • Balance: the budget balance at the beginning of the current budget period,

  • Progress bar: a progress bar that indicates how your budget is progressing for the current period,

  • Used amount: the progress bar provides you with a quick overview, but if you need to know the exact used amount, just check the small number in the right part of the progress bar,

  • Time progress indicator: a subtle vertical line indicates what part of the budget period has passed and what remains.

Editing a budget

To edit a budget, you can:

  • iOS and Android: go to Settings > Accounts & Budgets > Budgets, then select the budget that needs changing,

  • iOS and Android: Tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner in the list of budgets, select Edit list, then select the budget that needs changing,

  • Mac and Windows: right-click on the budget that needs changing and select Edit,

  • Mac and Windows: double-click on the budget that needs changing.

Note that when editing a budget, you will be able to change everything about this budget. Once you press Save button (top right corner on iPhone and iPad, bottom right on Mac), the budget will recalculate to include or exclude any transactions that it has to.

Deleting a budget

To delete a budget, you can:

  • iOS and Android: go to Settings > Accounts & Budgets > Budgets, then tap on the red circular button on the left side of the budget that needs deleting,

  • iOS and Android: Tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner in the list of accounts, select Edit list, then tap on the red circular button on the left side of the budget that needs deleting,

  • Mac and Windows: right-click on the budget that needs deleting and select Delete.

An important note is that when you delete a budget the balances of your other budgets may be affected – that happens only if the budget you are deleting includes budget transfers to and from other budgets. These budget transfers will be deleted.

Unlike with accounts, deleting a budget doesn’t delete the transactions in it. You can safely delete budgets and create new ones if you need to. You can create an unlimited number of budgets.

Reordering budgets

If you need to change the order of your budgets:

  • iOS and Android: go to Settings > Accounts & Budgets > Budgets, then tap on any 3-lined button on the right side of each budget and move it anywhere you need,

  • iOS and Android: tap on the 3-dotted button on the top right corner in the list of budgets, select Edit list,then tap on any 3-lined button on the right side of each budget and move it anywhere you need,

  • Mac and Windows: Simply drag and drop the budget to the position where it is supposed to be. To do that: a) Position the cursor on the budget name. b) Click and hold for less than a second. c) While still holding the mouse button, move the cursor to a position above the first account. d) Release the mouse button to drop the account there.

Budget Indicators

Each budget has indicators, which you can see on the bottom of the application window when you select the budget. You can choose what you want to see in these indicators from the following options:

  • Remaining: it shows you the amount of money that you allowed yourself to spend in this area.

  • Used: it shows you the amount of money that you have already spent in this area.

  • Days left: it shows you in how many days the budget will restart.

  • Daily Allowance: it shows you how much you should spend on an average day if you don’t want to overspend.

Please, note that on iPhone & Android there is space for only one indicator.

Additionally, you can tap/click on the green/red flags to select whether the budget balance should be calculated including or excluding pending transactions.

MoneyWiz has the ability to show you quickly your Total budgeted amount as well as Total used and Total remaining.

The feature is conveniently located and for each platform it has a different place.

  • iPhone and Android: when you are in the Budgets section, you will see it at the bottom of the list,

  • iPad: in the list of Budgets above the first budget – just pull the list down and you will see it,

  • Mac and Windows: you will notice a small arrow pointing up at the bottom of the left side menu; click this arrow to see more about your finances, including your Net Worth.

Rollover

This is a special feature in MoneyWiz that helps keeping you motivated to fit in the budget. If you overspend a budget with enabled rollover, your allowance for the next month will be less. If you underspend, your allowance for the next month will be more.

For clarification, here is a good example – imagine you have a monthly budget which starts on January 1, with amount $100 and enabled rollover. In January you spent $80 and in February you spent $150. This means that in March you will have $70 to spend. Here is why:

  • January start balance = 100

  • January end balance = 100 – 80 = +20

  • This is added to your February balance, so

  • February start balance = 100 + 20 = 120

  • February end balance = 120 – 150 = -30

  • This is added to your March balance, so

  • March start balance = 100 – 30 = 70

Budget Transfers

If you are using your budgets for financial planning, most likely you have already set the budget balances in such a way that you neither overspent often, nor get into debts. However, every now and then something unexpected comes up and no matter how good your plan was, the budget that is supposed to cover the expense is just not sufficient. Budget transfers come handy in this situation.

To initiate a budget transfer transaction you can:

  • iOS & Android: in the list of transactions for a budget, tap the 3-dotted button on the top right corner, then select Budget Transfer,

  • Mac and Windows: right-click on the budget, then select Budget Transfer.

A budget transfer increases the used amount of the From budget and therefore decreases its remaining amount. It also increases the remaining amount of the To budget.

Managing Scheduled Transactions

Scheduled transactions in MoneyWiz are used to represent expenses and incomes which occur on a regular basis or transactions that are planned for the future. An example of a scheduled expense would be a phone bill and an example of a scheduled income would be your salary. These type of transactions are called recurring. There are also other transactions that you know you will pay in the future but probably just once. They fall into the category of scheduled and recurring transactions too.

Scheduled expense transaction

When you pay someone on a regular basis, your electricity bill for example, this is an expense for you and since you pay it each month, this makes it a recurring expense.

Scheduled income transaction

When someone pays you on a regular basis, your employer pays you the salary for example, this is an income for you, and because you get paid each month, this is a recurring income.

Scheduled transfer transaction

If you have two accounts, for example Checking and Savings account and you put money in the savings account regularly, this is considered a recurring transfer.

In MoneyWiz these transactions are managed in the Scheduled section.

Creating new scheduled transactions

If you’ve created at least one account already, you will be able to create scheduled transactions for it. All scheduled transactions appear with a dot on the calendar and in the list below. If you don’t have any scheduled transactions yet, you will see the scheduled transactions help window.

Scheduled transactions are created in one of the following ways:

  • Click on the + plus button from the bottom bar (available on all platforms)

  • Use a shortcut (available on Mac OS) – if you are in the Scheduled section MoneyWiz will open up the screen for scheduled transaction. Use: ⌘ cmd + E for Scheduled Expense, ⌘ cmd + I for Scheduled Income, ⌘ cmd + T for Scheduled Transfer

This will open a screen where you can enter your transaction details. For consistency throughout the app, all transactions are provided the same set of fields. Refer to the Working with Transactions guide to understand how to configure the Transactions Layout so it works best for your needs.

In addition to the fields that are available for regular transactions, for scheduled transactions you can also configure if, how often and until when your scheduled transactions should repeat. Here is how:

  • Auto-Pay (available in accounts managed manually): select when you want MoneyWiz to automatically pay the scheduled transaction for you, without your interaction. Please note that if you select this option, the transaction will be executed automatically, with the amount that you have set up during the creation of the scheduled transaction. You can change the amount at a later point by locating the readily executed transactions in the Account view when the transaction has been processed.

  • Auto-Skip (available in accounts connected to Online Banking): even with transactions being downloaded to your accounts automatically, it’s still good idea to create Scheduled transactions so that they can improve forecasting calculations. What you do not want, however, is duplicate transactions appearing in your Account register (the one from Scheduled transaction and the one from Online Banking). If you enable this option when a Scheduled transaction becomes due, MoneyWiz will check if this transaction already exists (by looking for a transaction with exactly the same amount and a date within 3 days range, either way – to account for weekends). If it finds one, it’ll update it with fields from the Scheduled transaction (if necessary) and then skip the Scheduled transaction for the next period. If it does not find any, it’ll execute the Scheduled transaction in order to make your balance correct. Later when the transaction comes from Online Banking, MoneyWiz will check for duplicates before posting the online transaction using the same method which the Scheduled transaction used to check if the transaction was posted already. This means that you’ll only get duplicates as a result of this feature if there’s no match between Scheduled transaction details and Online Banking transaction – in that case, we suggest you disable this feature and skip the Scheduled transaction manually when it becomes due.

  • Repeat: for recurring transactions you need to set this to ON. On the other hand, if you need this transaction to occur just once, you can set it to OFF.

  • Frequency: indicate how often the transaction should repeat. You can choose between days, weeks, months and years and you can enter any value you want. For example if you choose 1 Month, this means that the transaction will repeat monthly (set this way by default); if you choose 4 weeks, the transaction will repeat fortnightly; and if you choose 3 months, the transaction will repeat quarterly.

  • End: specify after how many repeats this transaction will end. If you set Never, this transaction will repeat until you delete or edit it.

Converting between types of transactions

The same way you can convert between types of regular transactions, you can convert between types of scheduled transactions too. You just have to open a transaction for edit, then select any of the other tabs on the top – choose between Expense, Income and Transfer type. If you select a different type, all relevant data will be moved to the new type so you just have to enter some more details and save.

For example, when converting an expense to a transfer – just select the To account and it’s ready to save.

Presentation of scheduled transactions

When in the Scheduled section, MoneyWiz will allow you to see your scheduled transactions in a calendar.

You can click each day on the Calendar and MoneyWiz will show you the transactions you have scheduled for that day. You may navigate months back and forth by clicking on the arrows on the two sides of the name of the current month – this is located in the top bar. You can also do that by swiping the calendar left and right.

In the bottom bar there are two adjustable indicators. These indicators will show you the total amount of your scheduled expenses for the period of time you have assigned to them.

You will notice, in time, some green, red and grey dots in the calendar. These dots indicate the days of the month that have scheduled transactions.

  • Green dot means that your transaction is in the future.

  • Red dot means that your transaction is already (over)due and you have to pay it.

  • Grey dot means that your transaction is already paid.

Right below the Calendar you should be able to see the transactions which appear on the selected day. If you scroll down a bit more you will see all other scheduled transactions as a list. Note that these transactions are filtered and sorted as per your preferences.

Each scheduled transaction is represented in a square shape (tile) and presents some important information.

  • Next due date: this is the next date when the transaction becomes due, this appears at the top.

  • Due payments badge: if the transactions is already due, a red badge with the number of due payments appears on the top right corner.

  • Amount: the amount of the transaction. Note, that if there are no more payments scheduled for this transaction, MoneyWiz will strike through the amount.

  • Repeat: an indication of how often the transaction repeats

  • Account: the account of the transaction

  • Additional information: any additional information you may have entered for this transaction – payee, category, description, etc.

Scheduled transaction options

When you click/tap on a scheduled transaction tile, you will be presented with the available options for this scheduled transaction.

Pay

You can pay scheduled transactions at any time, even if the transaction is not yet due. Scheduled transactions in MoneyWiz are not automatically paid (unless they are set to do so). Each transaction (of any type) requires your confirmation for correct amount, date, etc, in order to be paid. Press on the Pay button and MoneyWiz will open a screen which will allow you to change the transaction properties before you pay it. Please note that this screen works the same way as when registering a regular transaction.

If you have set a scheduled transaction to be for more than one category, the Done button (on the top right corner for iOS & Android and on the bottom right for Mac OS) will change to Next, and on the next screen you will be able to split the amount between the categories/accounts just as with regular split payments. Please check the Split Transactions guide. The paid scheduled transactions will appear in your accounts and budgets just like regular transactions.

Skip

If you decide to skip a scheduled payment you can do that. If you select Skip, the app will notify which payment you are going to skip and it will show you the date of the next occurrence. If everything appears to be correct, confirm by clicking the Skip button.

Edit

If you have an existing scheduled transaction, you may need to adjust some of its details. You can do that when you open the transaction for edit. Note that you can change everything about a transaction at any time – including its type (as explained earlier in this guide).

Delete

If you need to delete a scheduled transaction, this is how – just press Delete.

Duplicate

Select this option when you need to enter pretty much the same scheduled transaction again. This is especially useful for families where multiple transactions have almost the same details, only the account is different.

Search, Sort & Filters

You can use the search, sort and filters the same way as in the lists of regular transactions. Please, note that only the filter by type is relevant for scheduled transactions and that is why it’s the only one available here.

Financial Forecast

In the Scheduled transactions section you are able to see a Financial Forecast. The Forecast takes all your scheduled incomes, expenses and transfers and calculates the balances of your accounts for a selected date. It also shows you a Forecast for your Net Worth. To use this feature tap/click and hold on any future date on the calendar.

Notifications for due scheduled transactions

MoneyWiz is equipped to send you notifications whenever the transactions become due. Please, note that the notifications arrive on the day and at the time you have set your scheduled transaction to become due. If you need the reminder to come earlier, just set an earlier date and time of the scheduled transaction.

Please, make sure you have authorized the application to send notifications. You can verify this if you go to the iOS/Android Settings application, select Notifications and make sure that MoneyWiz is in the INCLUDE list of applications.

You can do the same for Mac OS, if you open the System Preferences application, then visit the Notifications section.

When a notification arrives it looks like this:

Reports overview

With MoneyWiz you can generate various reports which help you understand your financial status. Different reports are used to show you different type of information. For example, Compare Budgets report shows you the areas you spend most, while Net Worth report shows you the graph of your finances for some period. Depending on what you are interested in you can generate various reports in order to find the information that you need.

Orientation

The screenshots in this guide are made from an iPad device. Whenever there are differences between the platforms where MoneyWiz is available, these will be described. Please, do not hesitate to contact us in case you have any questions.

Reports overview

Reports are only meaningful when you have entered transactions for at least some small period of time. You will not be able to generate an account balance report if you don’t have any transactions in this account. The same is valid for Budgets and Categories.

When you land in the Reports section you will see that they are divided into 3 major parts:

  • Predefined reports – quick view of your overall financial picture, you can swipe through 3 carefully selected reports (this section is not available on iPhone and Android).

  • Templates – you can choose between 28 templates and also access the custom reports feature.

  • Saved reports – you can save the reports that you want to see regularly and access them at any time you need without need to configure them again.

With MoneyWiz we made sure that you can generate any type of report you want and find any information you may need. We did that by providing you with a Custom Report – this report allows you to configure everything – we will explain it in more details later in this guide.

Custom reports

You can access the custom report feature by visiting the Reports section, the last one of the available templates is Custom report. Click/tap on it and you will be allowed to configure everything about the report you want to generate.

We will explain each option in detail below.

Historical or Forecast period range

At the very top you can choose between Historical and Forecast tabs. You first need to decide if you want to look at the past or the future. The difference is in what pre-defined periods the application will offer you (for example you’ll see an option to review Last 3 Months if you select Historical or Next 3 Months if you select Forecast).

Moreover, the choice of the period will affect whether or not you’ll be seeing upcoming Scheduled transactions in your report. Only Forecast tab will display upcoming transactions (the Historical will show all transactions that have been executed already).

Report by

Select what is the main type of data you are interested in:

  • Accounts

  • Budgets

  • Categories

  • Payees

Depending on what you select here some other options below will change. For example, when you select Accounts, the app lets you select which accounts you want to see a report for. Same goes for Budgets.

If you select Categories, the app allows you to select the type of the report – Expenses or Incomes, then select the set of categories you need to see in the report. At the end you can add some filters to your report (filter out some Accounts, Payees or Tags). The same goes for Payees.

Chart type

Depending on what you selected for Report by, different options for charts will be available. For example you can choose:

  • Graph chart (line chart) – useful for seeing information over time

  • Bar chart – good for stacking some values together for easier comparison

  • Pie chart – perfect to check how various pieces of data contribute to a whole

Group by accounts

This option only available if you selected Report by Accounts. If you set it to ON, the transactions below the chart are going to be grouped by accounts, then sorted chronologically. If you set it to OFF, the transactions will not be grouped and will be just sorted chronologically.

Breakdown by

This option is only available if you selected the chart type to be Bar chart. The available options may be different, but they always include at least breakdown by Budgets, Categories or Payees (depending on what you selected for Report by) and various periods.

For period

Simply select the period you are interested in from the available options. As noted before, you’ll see suggestions for past periods if the Historical tab is selected and future periods if Forecast tab is selected.

You can of course select the Custom period option and then pick the exact start and end date of the report.

Interaction with reports

Once you configure your report, you can generate it. To do that just tap the Done button (available on iOS/Android at the top right corner) or press Generate (available on Mac/Windows on the bottom right).

Each report is represented with a chart and list of transactions.

Notice that the graph features some buttons to the left (note that not all buttons might be available in all reports):

The plus button allows you to combine all accounts together. For example, with Account Balance Over Time report you’re looking at the each account balance historical lines individually (see above). By pressing this button you can combine all accounts into a single line.

The pushpin button allows you to “unpin” the report to the top. By default, if you start scrolling through the list of transactions, the chart stays in place – which sometimes is good as you don’t lose it from sight. But in case you need more space to scroll through your transactions, just use this button to “detach” the chart and have it scroll away as you scroll down.

The magnifying glass button allows you to zoom to the chart so it can take full screen and show you more data. This is when the next feature comes in handy – touching the reports.

You can click/tap on the report charts to show, for example, account balance on that particular day. This is where the zoom button comes in very handy as it gives you more control.

Ready-to-use templates

Now let’s take a look at some of the most popular reports.

The report templates in MoneyWiz are grouped to make it easier to find the one you need. Remember how you had to choose the “Report by” when generating Custom report? Choosing between the report groups is similar – you want to ask yourself what do you want to look at. Accounts? Then choose from one of the reports in the first “Accounts” group. Budgets? Head over to second group and pick one of the reports – and so on.

Accounts group

Net Worth report

This report shows you changes to your total Net Worth (sum of all accounts) over time and the transactions that contribute to the changes. You are unable to choose which accounts go here as all accounts are included by default – unless some were explicitly excluded from Net Worth calculation in general.

Balance Over Time report

This report shows you how the balance of each account changed over time. You can choose which accounts to generate the report for and review the transactions in the report in the table below the chart. If you tap on the + button next to the report chart you can combine all account lines into one graph – just like the Net Worth chart.

Cashflow report

This bar-type report shows you expenses and incomes for each month (unless you select a different breakdown, such as by Weeks) so you can see, for example, if month-to-month you’re spending more than you earn (which is not a good sign).

Budgets group

Compare budgets report

This report allows you to compare how each budget allowance you’ve set contributes to the total. If – after you’ve set up your budgets – you find that you often don’t have enough money for Entertainment, you can use this report to check if perhaps one of the other budgets isn’t too big.

Budget Balance Over Time Report

Setting the budget allowance is one thing but how does your spending look like in practice? Perhaps you’re often overspending your budgets? This report allows you to find out. You can either browse a single month for a budget or review a budget over the span of a couple months/weeks/etc.

Categories, Payees and Tag groups

The next 3 groups all display 3 types of templates, one for each transaction type (expense and income) which makes it 6 per group or 18 in total. Because those templates are very much related (they just look at different type of data – category, payee or tag) we’ll review just one of each template type.

Compare Expense/Income Categories/Payees/Tags

This pie-chart report allows you to select some categories/payees or tags (depending on the report type) for expense or income transactions and check how much money is allocated to each. For example, using Compare Expense Categories you can check how do your monthly expenses compare to each other – and you’ll most likely see your loan/mortgage eating most of your salary.

Or if you generate Compare Income Payees report for example, you can check which client in the given period paid you most money. The possibilities these reports offer are endless.

Remember that these reports also offer a special button – “Add filter”. This way you can filter the results a bit, for example to exclude a particular tag when generating categories report.

Expense/Income Category/Payee/Tag Over Time report

With this report you choose a piece of data you want to analyse over time (categories/payees or tags), add some filters if needed, choose whether you’re looking at expenses or incomes and then generate! The chart allows you to see the expenses/incomes over time filtered by your settings. You could use this for example to see how does the winter affect your heating bill (Expense Category Over Time report) or perhaps how many more clients you get after that marketing campaign you’ve paid for (Income Payee Over Time report).

Breakdown Expenses/Incomes Over Time

This report of a spreadsheet type allows you to review each piece of data (categories, payees, tags) by period where each category/payee/tag is in a separate row and each period is a separate column. This report also features sophisticated stacked bar-type report above the table.

Spreadsheet group

These three report templates allow you to breakdown one piece of data against another. You can choose from:

  • Breakdown Payees Over Categories

  • Breakdown Categories Over Tags

  • Breakdown Payees Over Tags

  • Custom Spreadsheet report (in the “Others” group – see below)

We could for example investigate how much money we spend for Groceries category at each of the shops we visit:

„Other” category

Statistics report

The statistics report is different from all other reports – it provides statistical information about your finances and it doesn’t have a chart. You can’t make it using the custom report feature. The report includes the following statistical information:

  • Daily, Monthly and Yearly average of your Expenses

  • Daily, Monthly and Yearly average of your Incomes

  • Top 5 Expense Categories

  • Top 5 Payees by expenses

  • Top Income Category

  • Top Payee by expenses

  • Current Net worth

  • Highest Net worth

  • Lowest Net worth

  • Total number of transactions

Profit & Loss report

Another unique type of report includes expenses and incomes at the same time, allows you to review the sources of your profits and sources of your losses in a structured way:

Custom Spreadsheet report

Just like we can generate a regular Custom report allowing you to choose precisely what you want to see, MoneyWiz also offers custom Spreadsheet reports. Using this report you can compare two sources of information to create just the report that you need.

Save, Export & Print

Once you generate any report, you will see a button on the bottom right called “Save report” – click/tap button and you will be provided with 3 options – Save locally, Export and Print.

Saving a report locally within MoneyWiz

If you are frequently interested in the same piece of information – like how much you spent on a certain category last month, you can save a report so you can access this information quickly. Just click Save Report from the lower right end of the screen, then select Save locally. It will be synced to your other devices.

All reports in MoneyWiz are dynamic. If you generate a report for Last month in February, the report will show you information about January, but when you access it in March, the report will start showing you data for February (considering that you selected Last month), provided that you chose one of the pre-defined periods to generate the report (Last Month, Last 3 months).

You can also print reports directly from MoneyWiz (it’s the same as if you were to export the report to PDF then print it separately). What’s more, the iOS version of MoneyWiz supports printing via AirPrint – if you have an AirPrint-enabled printer, you can directly print from your mobile devices. The Android version lets you do the same via Google Cloud Print if you have a printer connected.

Export to PDF and CSV

Export to PDF

With MoneyWiz you can export reports in beautiful PDF files if you want to share them with someone, like your accountant for example. Just press Save and select Export to PDF. You can also select whether your PDF should include any attached images your transactions may have.

Export to CSV

You can also export them in convenient CSV format if you want to open with Excel or Numbers, or convert them to another data format. Just press Save and select Export to CSV – the CSV export is also configurable.

Delete locally saved report

To delete a locally saved report, on an iOS device you need to use a gesture. Please your finger on the report and swipe right to left to reveal the Delete button.

Import OFX, QFX, QIF, CSV and MT940 files from banks or other applications

When dealing with real bank accounts it is often much faster to download the transactions from your online banking and import them into MoneyWiz. This can save you a great deal of time especially if you are not entering your transactions on a daily basis, but you prefer to update your finances less often.

MoneyWiz allows you to import bank statements in the five most popular formats: OFX (Open Financial Exchange), QFX (Quicken Financial Exchange), QIF (Quicken Interchange Format), CSV (comma-separated values) and MT940. It is very likely that your online banking will allow export in at least one of these formats.

Exporting your bank statement

Each bank’s online banking system handles this situation differently, but the following practices apply to most of the cases:

  • You will need to login into your online banking with your own username, password and other forms of identification which your bank requires.

  • When you see your bank statement, there should be an export button, in most of the cases it is located below the bank statement itself, and in other cases you will find it in the left side menu.

  • When you click on this button, it is highly probable that you will be provided with several choices – you will need to select the format of your bank statement.

  • If none of these options is available, you may need to contact your bank account manager and ask if at least one of these options is available. It is also likely that your account manager can give you instructions how to export bank statements.

Please note that some online banking systems allow you to download exported files on mobile devices as well. However, if this option is not available for your bank, download the exported file using a desktop computer.

Feeding bank statement to MoneyWiz

Please note that prior to importing the bank file in MoneyWiz you need to have all accounts already created in MoneyWiz (for example, if you are importing your Savings and Credit card accounts those should be already created in MoneyWiz). In order to achieve correct closing balances, your Account Opening Balance in MoneyWiz needs to be as it was before the first transaction you’re about to import for that particular account. If the file you’re about to import includes opening balance transactions, create your accounts with 0.00 Opening Balance.

If you are not sure about this – do not worry as you can modify the Opening balance of your account in MoneyWiz at any time. Just bear in mind that this might be the reason why closing balances of your accounts after import appear incorrect.

Mac and Windows

Once you have your bank statement file in OFX, QFX, QIF, CSV or MT940 format you can import it into MoneyWiz for Mac or Windows in any of the following ways:

  • Double-click on your file. Or you can also right-click on the file name or icon and select Open with MoneyWiz.

  • Mac only: Click on the File menu of MoneyWiz and select the Import option, then specify the location and the name of the file.

  • Windows only: Click on the import button at the bottom of the sidebar to the left. It looks like a square with an arrow pointing towards the inside of the square.

  • Mac only: If MoneyWiz is open – drag & drop the file onto the MoneyWiz interface.

  • Mac only: Drag & drop the file on the MoneyWiz icon (if you keep it in the Dock).

Mobile: iPhone, iPad, iPod and Android

Once you have your bank statement file in OFX, QFX, QIF, CSV or MT940 format you can import it into MoneyWiz for iOS or Android if you e-mail the file to yourself or use any file sharing service (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc).

Locate the file within your email or file sharing app. Tap the Document sharing button or tap and hold on the app itself. You should see something like this:

Tap the Open in… button and you should see applications that can work with this file format. MoneyWiz is registered to work with OFX, QFX, QFX, QIF, CSV, TXT and SWI formats, so it should be one of these applications.

Configuring the import wizard

Once the bank statement file is loaded, you’d need to configure how the data will be imported. There is an Import Wizard which will guide you throughout this process. The data import consists of several phases:

  1. Link accounts

  2. Link payees

  3. Link categories

With each phase you instruct MoneyWiz how to read your bank statement file and therefore how to import the data correctly.

Linking accounts

Normally when you export a bank statement file from your online banking, this file contains data related to only one account. Some banking institutions though can export the data for all of your accounts at once. If you have exported the file from another financial software it is normal to have more than one account.

Prior to the data import process you will need to have all of your accounts set up and ready to use in MoneyWiz. If unsure how to set up accounts, please refer to the Manage Accounts guide.

Note that Current Balance field when creating an account. This should be the amount of money as it was on the date of the first transaction you’ll import. For example, if today is 1 May but you intend to enter the transactions starting from 1 January, then you need to find out the balance as it was on 1 January.

During this phase the Wizard will show you all accounts which were found in the bank statement file. They will be shown with the name they appear in the file. To link those accounts with your MoneyWiz accounts you need to click on the buttons on the right and select how you would like to link them. Once you link these accounts, the next time you import a file which contains information for some or all of them, by default MoneyWiz will have them pre-selected the same way you configured the last time.

In some cases, especially if you export from your online banking, the information about which one is this account is not included. If that is the case MoneyWiz will always ask you how to link the account.

Linking Payees

In most cases bank statements contain the name of the payee and other information which describes the person or company which you were paid by or you paid to. You can link the payees found in the bank statement file to your MoneyWiz payees or you can create new payees. You can later edit newly created payees via Preferences (Mac OS) / Settings (Windows/iOS/Android), then Payees.

Once you link these payees, the next time you import a file which contains information for some or all of them, by default MoneyWiz will have them pre-selected the same way you configured the last time. It will ask you how to link only for newly found payees.

If there are no payees found in the bank statement file, this phase will not appear.

Linking Categories

It is rarely the case for banking institutions to include categorization in the exported bank statement file, but if you exported your data using a financial software it is very likely that categorization will be included. In that case you will be asked to link the categories found in the file you are importing to already existing categories in MoneyWiz. You will be given the option to create new categories as well.

Note that if you select the Create New Category option, the category will be created with a question ? mark icon. It may be worth going through all new categories to change their icons to something more meaningful.

Once you link these categories, the next time you import a file which contains information for some or all of them, by default MoneyWiz will have them pre-selected the same way you configured the last time. It will ask you how to link only for newly found categories.

If there is no categorization in the bank statement file, on this phase you will be asked to link the payees to your existing categories. This will help you have your transactions properly categorized right after you import them.

You can select a proper category for all payees found in the file you are importing or you can leave them Not Linked. If you select the latest, the imported transactions will not be categorized.

These links are also saved so the next time you import a bank statement, the app will automatically suggest you to use the same categorization.

Additional phases

Select Date Format

On occasions when importing a QIF or a CSV file it is possible that MoneyWiz is unable to recognize the format of the dates. This would not happen with OFX files, but it is common practice to use various date formats in QIF or CSV file. If that happens, MoneyWiz will present to you a small number of transaction and will ask you to determine what the correct format should be.

Transaction Duplicates Detection

MoneyWiz checks all transactions you wish to import against already existing transactions and in case it finds possible duplicates it will ask you what to do. This can happen for a number of reasons, for example:

  • you are trying to import the same bank statement file for the second time or

  • you have imported all transactions for September and you are trying to import a bank statement which includes transaction from 25 Sep to 25 Oct for example. In this case transactions that appear between 25 and 30 Sep can be duplicated or you can skip them or

  • you are importing the two accounts which participate in the same transfer transaction.

These phases will not appear if MoneyWiz can recognize the format of the dates and there are no duplicate transactions. After you set everything MoneyWiz will start importing all transactions that are listed in the file you selected for import.

Match CSV Fields

When importing a CSV file, MoneyWiz will also ask you to determine how the fields in the CSV file would relate to the transaction properties in MoneyWiz. You should be careful with that part as many banks would export all kinds of information like codes you don’t use, or numbers that have no meaning for you. In any case you should not link those, but make sure you have mapped at least the Date, the Amount and the Payee or Description.

Importing from specific products

If you are using some other finance software, and want to know how to quickly and painlessly move to MoneyWiz, you’re in the right place. We’ve prepared guides that explain how to move your data to MoneyWiz from other apps.

Did this answer your question?