In Toshl Finance you can use practically any currency you want. We support 165 different currencies from around the world with hourly updated exchange rates and historical daily exchange rates going back more than 15 years. This in practice means that you can travel or move anywhere, enter local expenses or even change the main currency in which you use the apps. Toshl will have your back.

Add an expense, income or a transfer in a foreign currency
The most common way in which you’ll encounter foreign currencies is usually when adding an expense, income or a transfer. Tap the currency symbol next to the amount and a plethora of currencies shall open in a dropdown menu.

On the very top of the list are your 5 recently used currencies. Your main currency is there by default, as well as the 4 other currencies that you recently used.

Below the recently used currencies you’ll find all the 165 currencies in an alphabetical list. The name of the currency is always followed by the currency symbol or abbreviation, as it will be displayed on the expense details and lists. The last piece information is the standardised three-letter international code of the currency.

 

Quick hint: You can also use search to find the currency that you need quickly. Just tap the search field on the top of the list and start typing the name of the currency you’re looking for.

Among the many national and supranational (e.g. the Euro) currencies you’ll expect to find there’s also a few more unusual ones. If your job description includes 17th century pillaging on the high seas you might appreciate entering your incomes in troy ounces of gold (XAU) or ounces of silver (XAG). If your dealings are more high finance than high seas, then the International Monteray Fund’s special drawing rights (XDR), might be more up your alley. Let’s not forget the the favourite child of financial innovation in recent years, Bitcoin. It’s of course also available as a full fledged currency in Toshl.

Once you’ve chosen your foreign currency, you can tap the round “i” button next to it and you’ll be taken to the exchange rate screen. By default it shows the suggested exchange rate. The exchange rates are updated hourly and are a middle rate from a variety of sources.

You can of course enter a completely custom exchange rate of your choosing. This is especially useful when you’re exchanging your money locally in a foreign country or at a bank. They usually won’t offer the middle neutral rate, but one slightly in their favour so they can make a profit on the exchange. If you’ve found a good deal it will be only slightly in their favour, but the differences can be quite large.

To set a custom exchange rate, delete the suggested rate and start typing a new one if you already know it. You can also tap one of the other numbers on the screen, the amount in foreign currency, or the amount in your main currency. Type new numbers in one of those fields and the other two numbers will adapt to fit the data.

Confirm the rate by tapping the tick icon on the top right. When you come back to the Add expense screen, you’ll find it a bit changed.

Below the amount you can see a preview of how the amount this is worth today in your main currency, or the currency of the financial account your are adding the expense to – if it’s different than the main currency.

 

Exchange rates on repeating expenses

If you add a repeating entry in a foreign currency we’ll ask you how to handle the exchange rate. A new exchange rate can be applied on each day when the expense repeats or it can remain the same as the rate hen you first entered it. Of course you can still manually set the rate on an individual repeat of the entry if you so prefer.

 

Active currency

Once you’ve saved an entry, the currency that you chose has become your active currency. That simply means that the next time you’re adding an expense, this active currency will be suggested by default. It will remain your active currency until you add an entry with a different currency or change the active currency in the Settings.

You can select your previously active currencies with appropriate exchange rates again by selecting one of the five currencies in the recently used part of the currencies dropdown menu.

 

 

Main currency

The main currency is most likely the currency of the country where you live, the currency in which you think. This is the currency in which all the graphs, sums etc. are displayed. You can have entries, budgets or account in different currencies, but they will always have an exchange rate so you can know how much they’re worth in your main currency when it’s all summed up.

There are circumstances where your main currency changes. Either you move somewhere else, your country adopts a new currency or you decide that you like decimals so much that you’re prepared to do all your thinking in Bitcoins from now on.

 

When changing a main currency there are 3 ways to do it:
– according to historical exchange rates (recommended)
– using one exchange rate
– changing the currency symbol, without changing the values

 

According to historical exchange rates
Toshl will check on which date the expense was entered and apply the exchange rate between the currency in which it was entered and the new main currency on that date. The entries will stay in the original currency on the lists, but the value in main currency and the sums will be adjusted accordingly.

 

Using one exchange rate
Toshl will suggest the exchange rate valid for today to convert all entry values to the new currency. You can also change the exchange rate to a completely custom rate of your liking. The entries will stay in the original currency on the lists, but the value in main currency and the sums will be adjusted accordingly.

 

Changing the currency symbol
This is mostly useful if you’ve started entering with a wrong main currency selected. The values are already in the new currency, you just want to change the symbol next to all the expenses in the previous (wrong) main currency. This approach will not update the entry values at all, it will just switch the currency symbol.

The first two options will apply the value changes to all entries (expenses, incomes, transfers) and budgets in the original main currency. You can choose whether you want to change the financial accounts in the old main currency to the new main currency as well.

 

Warning: In most cases there should be no data loss, but some custom exchange rates can be lost with multiple changes. For example: your main currency is the Euro and you have some expenses entered in Brazilian Reals. There is an exchange rate between those two currencies saved for each expense. If you then change your main currency from Euros to Reals, the exchange rate on those entries in Reals is now lost because the expense currency is the same as the main currency, so the rate can only be 1. If you then change back to Euro as the main currency, these expenses can have the historical exchange rate for that day applied again, but if you had entered a custom exchange rate before, it was sadly lost. It should only be a minor discrepancy for most, but if you often enter custom rates and change main currencies it is a thing to look out for.

Did you ever want to travel in time? Me too. Here’s how you can do that in Toshl Finance. At least when it comes to your financial history.

You can change the time span displayed in the Android app in the right sidebar.

Tap on the clock icon top right, to open the right sidebar. You can also swipe left from anywhere on the right edge of the screen.

Then tap the button with the name of the current month to get into the time span section.

My financial month

The default time span is “My financial month”. If you haven’t been playing around with the time spans, your financial month will be the same as the calendar month. If you prefer to sync up your financial month with when you get your salary, you can change that to whichever day you like.

First, open the drawer on the right. Swipe from anywhere on the right edge of the screen, or tap the time span button (clock icon) on top right.

Then, tap the red time span button in the centre. The button will usually list the current month.

Keep in mind though, that this will also change when your monthly budgets start and end, all the monthly graphs etc. We think that it’s still easier for most to leave the start of the financial month on the 1st, even if you get your main income on a different date. But if you’re really set on matching the dates, go right ahead.

Quick hint: If you change your financial month to somewhere in the middle of the month, the month will be named after the month that includes the most days. For example, if I made my financial month start on the 15th, my financial month of May will last from May 15th to June 14th.

Custom time spans

In Toshl you can display any time span you want. If you click on the Custom time span tab, you’ll see the option to set the start and end date manually, or use one of the preset time spans for quicker access.

The preset options are based on calendar months. The presets for last 2, 3, 6 months will suggest those periods respectively, including the months that can be displayed from start to finish. You can also choose to display one of the recent calendar years, or even “All time”.

All time includes the time span from 1. 1. 1970 until today’s date. All the future cannot be included automatically in all time. If you have endlessly repeating expenses for example, that would mean displaying an infinite number of expenses, a possibility at which even the most adventurous Toshl monsters baulk at.

Knowing where your money goes is an important step. It can help you rein in your spending, as you become aware of your weak points. But sometimes you need to grab the bull by the horns and firmly set the direction in which you want your finances to go. Budgets are here to help you do that.

 

Consider what your goals are. Is the situation dire and you need to seriously reduce your spending to the minimum? Or would you just like some more money left over to start some savings? Want a friendly reminder in case the spending goes over your usual average? This consideration will determine your basic budgeting strategy.

 

 

1. Set a monthly budget for all expenses

Take a look at how much you usually spend each month altogether. Based on what your goals are, pick a number that will be your monthly spending goal. If you’re with the easygoing, “just monitoring” crowd, you can keep it much the same as it was in the previous months. If you want to spend much less than before, reduce the number accordingly.

Now let’s get to the practical part.
Go to the Budgets section. Tap the navigation icon on the top left or simply swipe from the left edge of the screen.

 

Tap the blue + button on the bottom left to add a budget.

Leave the “budget for” on All expenses. Tap the “Time period” section below.

Leave the setting to the budget period of 1 month. You can add other types of budgets later on, we recommend starting with a monthly budget which will be in sync with your financial month. Monthly budgets for all expenses also play nice with other features. They get included in the River flow graph, as well as get a more prominent place in the Budgets section.

If you want, you can also make the budget start further in the past using the “Budget starts on” setting. This is useful if you have data in Toshl from earlier periods.

Tap the row labeled “Amount”.

Remember that monthly spending goal number you chose before? This would be the time to enter it. Once you click in the amount field you also get some additional options:
– “number” enter the amount as a regular number which stays the same every month until you change it
– “income –“ this will sum up all the incomes in the current financial month and subtract a number of your choosing. If you stick to your budget, this will be the amount of money you save each month.
– “income +” your budget will be your income plus the number you chose. Probably not ideal for most, but if you can draw on a reserve of cash to add to your monthly income, this is the solution for you.
– “% of income” great to set a proportion of income you want to save. If you want to save 20 % of your income each month, set the budget to 80 % of your income and stick to it.

Whether you want the number to be static or adjust automatically to your income, your call. You know your circumstances best. If things change, or you manage to save more you can always change it later.

The next step is simply a sum up of what you chose so far. If you’re satisfied with the choices, tap the tick icon on the top right of the screen to Save the budget.

Your first monthly budget. Congratulations!

While we covered the basic things you need to set up your budgets in previous steps, there are a few more options that you can use once you nudge closer toward becoming a budgeting savant:

Accounts – You can limit the budget to follow only certain accounts. That way only expenses coming from those accounts will be counted in the budget. For the start, it’s probably better to leave it to “All accounts”

Date – This defines when a specific budget starts. If you left the budget on the monthly period, the default will be the start of the current month. If you have already been using Toshl for a longer period of time, you can set that start date in the past and budgets will be calculated automatically for all those past periods. Neat trick, eh?
Move remaining funds to next period – Also known as “the rollover”. If you set this to ON, any surplus or lack of funds in the budget will be transferred to the next budget period. If you really want to be rigorous about your spending, use this and see how good you are at self-discipline. If the sins of the past months become too much of a burden, you can edit the rollover amount separately later on. But you’ll know you’ve cheated on the inside. ;)

Title – We automatically generate a title for your budgets based on the settings you chose for each one, but you can always change it to something custom if you so desire.

 

2. Add a monthly budget for specific categories

Not all spending is the same. Some costs are relatively fixed or a bit harder to change, like rent for example, while others are more flexible and more easily change month to month based on your habits.

Think about what kind of spending gets you in trouble. Which are the unnecessary things you really could do without, or at least spend a bit less on them. All the tech gadgets, drinks, games, gardening supplies… ? Your call. Just don’t say “alimony”. Not cool! ;)

If you’ve been using Toshl for a while, it’s best to browse through your past months in expense graphs and see where your money leaks are.

Once you’ve thought about it, go to the Budgets section again, click the blue + button on the bottom left to Add a budget.

This time, in the “Budget for” section choose this to be a budget for a category.

You’ll see your categories listed so you can choose which category or categories you wish to track with this budget. We’ll go with Food & Drinks this time.

Next, let’s scroll down and tap the Amount setting below.

How much you can spend on this specific category is up to you. If you have past data base it on that, see how much you spent and what your goal is. If you prefer, you can also define it as a percentage of your income, but that will probably take a bit more fine-tuning in this case.

If you’re satisfied with your choices, that’s all there is to it. Click “Save”.
If you’ve used some more advanced features like starting the budget in the past or for certain accounts before, you can set these to match with this budget as well.

 

3. Budgets for more categories?

If you’ve identified multiple categories that you need to keep a vigilant eye over, by all means, add them as well. If you want, you can make a budget for every single category, the same way we have been doing this so far in this tutorial.

Monthly budgets for categories and the one for all expenses are a bit different than the rest of the budgets. Because they all use the same monthly period and the categories add up to 100 % of the expenses sum, this is reflected in the budget list.

The top budget is your general monthly budget for all expenses. The ones below each represent a percentage of the total monthly budget. That’s why the little progress bars beneath each category budget are of different lengths. The category budget amounts all represent a percentage of the total monthly budget. The categories for which you have not yet made a budget for are covered in the “Remaining budgets” section. That way you get a rough picture of how your monthly budget for all expenses is distributed among the categories.

 

4. What about other, non-monthly budgets?

In this tutorial, we covered the most basic budget that we think would be most beneficial for most people to set up at first. We also offer a lot of different budget options for your specific needs. You don’t need to base your budget based on your financial month, although they’re displayed a bit more nicely if you do (see point 3.).

Budgets can be based on almost any time period, be it a custom number of days, weeks, months, even years.
They can be set to track all expenses, some categories, exclude some categories, tags or exclude some tags. They can also track your budget using all financial accounts, or just a few you selected.
You can have the budgets transfer the remaining or lacking funds to the next period (rollover) or see them individually for each period.

Explore Toshl, try the different options and we’re sure you’ll find a way to budget which suits your needs the best.

Once in a while, one needs to take a broader look of things, even personal finances. To help you see your monthly flow of finances from a higher ground, we made the “river flow” graph.

Imagine the money that you earn and spend each month as a system of rivers. It flows in, hopefully rests a bit in a lake of your making, then most of it flows out again to replenish the fields – or yourself and your phone bill. With some good planning you can build yourself a dam and some accumulation lakes on the side, just to be safe if a dry season ever hits you.

The number at the very top is your income, your main inbound stream. If you set up your monthly budget for all expenses, that will be the dam that you constructed. Income flows in and hits the dam. If the income amount is larger than the budget amount, the difference will flow into your savings for the dry months. It’s good to grow an “accumulation lake” or your “savings account” as your less poetic banker would call it.

If the budget is larger than the income, you’re living beyond your means and need to readjust the budget. Or, even better, increase the income if possible.

Beyond your budget dam and monthly money lake, your expenses flow out. The width of the flow represents its size.
The flow in dark red are expenses that have already been made.
The orange flow are your planned expenses, the ones which are coming this month, but have not been due yet.
The green flow is your “left to spend” money. The money that you have already budgeted for, so it should hold by the end of the month, but you have yet to let it flow out of the dam.

If you have not built your dam yet (set up a monthly budget for all expenses), then the flows will simply be going straight down, but their width still representing their size.

If your expense flow is much stronger than the income one, you know the lakes will run dry rather quickly. It’s a situation that should be quickly fixed. Hopefully you’ve accumulated enough in the past to weather through this dry season.

Hopefully, the river flow graph will help you get a good understanding of your money flows and you’ll be able to avoid the dire situations before they occur.

While it’s great seeing these rivers from the top down to manage your money better, it’s even better in first person, leaping down those rapids as the Toshl Monsters see them…

To learn more, check out the Monthly overview and Left to spend blog