Category: Web App Tutorials

Emojify your finances

Posted on September 22, 2016

In Toshl Finance, every expense or income gets a category, so you can quickly note what you’ve been spending on.

capture-decran-2016-09-22-13-46-58

When you first sign up on Toshl, your account comes pre-filled with some of the more commonly used categories and tags, which should cover most of your needs. That way, you can start using it immediately and not worry about setting up an entire tagging system from scratch.

Our financial lives can differ quite a bit, so it’s important to keep this system versatile. That’s why you can add new, custom categories and tags to fit whichever purpose your spending goes towards. Every existing category or tag can also be edited.

To keep this categorisation system easily customisable and universal, Toshl does’t add icons to any of the categories in advance. But this doesn’t mean you can’t liven up your Toshl account with icons yourself.

No need to get out your drawing pencil or start looking for images around the internet. Luckily we have emoji! A handy collection of icons, already there in a virtual keyboard near your fingertips.

How do I add emoji to my personal finances?

Simple, when adding an expense add a new category or tag. When typing in the name, switch the keyboard to emoji and tap in whichever title and emoji you want.

Adding a category for my projects to spice up European Union politics.

You can add an emoji icon in addition to your text category or tag. If you’re more courageous and sure to understand your symbolism later on, you can also opt to save categories with only emoji instead.

At the moment, categories and tags can be added in both native mobile apps (Android, iOS) and web apps, but editing existing categories and tags is only available in the web app.

To add emoji to your existing categories, log in on toshl.com then go to Expenses / Edit categories.

Click on a category or a tag inside a category, click Edit next to it and fill in the name with the emoji.

emoji keyboard mac

How to activate the emoji keyboard on a Mac?

Press the keyboard keys control + command + space bar simultaneously and the emoji panel will pop up.

You can also click Edit in the menu bar on top of the screen, then click “Emoji & Symbols“

How to activate the emoji keyboard on Windows 10?

Click the touch keyboard icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.

The on-screen keyboard will open up. Click the smiley face emoji icon, just left of the space bar.

Emoji keyboard will open up. You can change emoji categories in the bottom row.

Once you’ve done a bit of editing your categories can look like this:

capture-decran-2016-09-22-13-38-54

The new categories will liven up your expense adding and lists as well.

capture-decran-2016-09-22-13-36-28

capture-decran-2016-09-22-13-46-58

Any changes you make to your categories and tags in the web app will automatically sync to your iOS and Android mobile apps.

Add expense with emoji on iOS

Expense list with emoji iOS

As makers of mobile and desktop operating systems each design and use their own set of emoji, the style might look a bit different when seeing them on a different platform. The emoji will be the correct ones, with the same meaning, but the styling of the icon might vary a bit.

If you’ve set up a very nice custom system with your emoji we’d love to see it. Perhaps we’d even publish it in a future tutorial or post, with your express permission, of course. If you’ve made such a creation, please send it to support@toshl.com. Can’t wait to see what emoji combinations you come up with!

toshl_2-0_monster_0041_42

Posted in iOS Tutorials, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, Web App Tutorials

How to Import Financial Data (Web App)

Posted on September 16, 2016

Moving to Toshl Finance from a different financial or budget app? Want to import your past data from your online bank? Toshl has an import function that will help you with that.

You will find the Import section in the main menu of the web app on toshl.com.

Many different file formats are supported for importing: CSV, OFX, QFX, TSV, TAB, XLS, TXT and QIF.

In the vast majority of cases at least one of these formats will be supported by your online bank, or other financial app’s export function. If you have a choice between multiple supported formats and these are supported, go with OFX, QFX or QIF files.

Such files are better structured in advance for financial data and it’s more likely that the import process will go smoothly.

Importing data from a file is currently only supported in the Toshl web app isn’t possible from one of the native mobile apps on Android, iOS or Windows Phone.

That doesn’t mean this doesn’t help you with your mobile app. Any data you import via the web app will instantly sync to your Toshl mobile app as well.

How to import data?

1. Choose file

Just click the “Choose file” button or drag & drop the file from the file manager into the white field.

2. Select destination financial account

All your financial accounts will be listed below. Select the one you want to import to. All the expenses and incomes that will be imported, will go to this account.

We advise making a new financial account for importing data. That way, if you change your mind regarding the imported data, it’s easier to remove along with the account.

2 financial accounts are enabled for free, if you would like to use more, please upgrade to Toshl Pro.

3. Click Save. All done.

In most cases that’s it. Files will be imported, show up in the right sidebar and elsewhere in the Toshl apps, as long as the account you imported to is set to ON.

If you’re importing a CSV or XLS file…

4. Match data fields in your file with the data fields on Toshl

This may sound a bit complicated, but it’s not.

CSV and XLS (Excel) files are pretty universal, a lot of different data can be stored in them. As such, it’s impossible for Toshl to know with certainty whether a field or column in the file contains data about your tags, descriptions, categories or puppies.

That’s why we ask you to check what the data in the field is and match it to the correct type of data on Toshl.

Just match the dates with dates, categories with categories etc.

In the white field, you’ll see a preview of your actual data from the file so you can tell what’s what.

If certain type of data isn’t applicable to Toshl, or can’t be imported to a corresponding field, feel free to skip it.

5. Click Save. All done.

If you’re importing very unclear date formats…

5. Select date format

There’s one more exception. In most cases the date format is automatically detected. In some rare cases Toshl can’t be sure whether you meant to use D/M/Y format like most sane people or M/D/Y… ;)

Just pick on the right one aaaaand…

6. Click Save. All done.

If your file contains transfers between accounts…

They’ll be detected after the import and we’ll ask you to review them, to confirm they’re really transfers.

If there are multiple financial accounts in your file, or if the imported transactions include transactions that could be part of transfers between account, an option to review the transfers will show up as “Review entries” in the “List of previous imports“.

The system to detect transfers will look for expense and income pairs on different accounts, with similar dates and amounts. If possible matches are found it will suggest them as transfers.

The import system however cannot import transfers already entered as such in the imported file, as we cannot be certain that the financial accounts in the file really match the ones you have entered in Toshl.

See the transfers article for more info on how transfer detection works.

Exemplary CSV

If you’re making or re-formatting a CSV file to import to Toshl, here’s an example of a CSV file that will be easy to import to Toshl.

Feel free to also import CSVs made by Toshl’s export function.

In general CSV files should work normally, but please try to avoid strange non-standard headers in the file, varying date formats within the same file, adding strange unicode characters to amounts, importing by throwing clay tablets written in Sumerian cuneiform writing at the computer etc.

If you have any questions regarding importing or if you experienced any difficulties, please contact us on support@toshl.com and we’ll be happy to help.

Happy importing!

Posted in Tutorials, Web App Tutorials

Filtering Your Financial Data and Making Needles Easier to Find Than Haystacks (Web App)

Posted on June 3, 2016

We have a bunch of filtering options available in Toshl Finance, all of which can be accessed by pressing the filtering button in the upper right corner of the web app. It has a little funnel icon on it.

Note that the filtering will overlay the list section, so make sure you close it (with the click on the same button) to see the expense list underneath, once you’re done with the filtering settings.

Filtering by account

Enable or disable displaying expenses and incomes on specific financial accounts. Accounts filtering is set to ‘All accounts’ by default, meaning the app is showing expenses, incomes, transfers etc. from all of your financial accounts.

The active setting is shown on the button, so you can quickly asses which accounts are enabled just by glancing at it.

If all are disabled, only the funnel icon will be displayed and you won’t see any data in graphs, lists, etc.

This setting is global and will effect every graph and list in the app – except the budget section, budgets filter only by category or tag. So if you think you are missing some data, check the accounts filtering settings to make sure the data is not just filtered-out.

Filtering by category, tag and location

The filtering options for the three are essentially the same, they just filter your data by a different attribute.

The category, tag and location filters won’t work with Monthly overview and River flow graph.

Three types of filtering are available for each attribute:

All (categories/tags/locations)

Pretty self-explanatory. All entries will be shown, no matter which category, tag or location are set on the entries.

Select (categories/tags/locations)

Only entries which contain one of the selected (categories/tags/locations) will be shown.

Exclude (categories/tags/locations)

All entries, except the ones that contain the selected (categories/tags/locations) will be shown.

All of these filtering options can be combined and the effects are cumulative. Thusly, the result is an ever finer mesh through which the data is filtered.

For example:

Say we want to check how much ‘Cash’ we spent in May in ‘Food and drinks’ category.

First, we will navigate to May in the time span selector on top.

We covered time span in another tutorial: My Financial Month & Time Spans.

Second, we will open accounts filtering. We set all accounts to OFF by clicking the topmost switch next to “All accounts” and set only the ‘Cash’ account to ON.

If you’re really into switches, you can also disable all but the ‘Cash’ account one by one. Whatever floats your boat. Thus, we filtered the expenses to show only the ones purchased on ‘Cash’.

Third, we click on categories section below, click the tab ‘select categories’, then choose the ‘Food and drinks’ category. We are now seeing only expenses categorised as ‘Food and drinks’ and purchased with ‘Cash’.

Say we don’t want to see ‘groceries’, ‘icecream’, ‘beer’ and ‘coffee’. We click on tags, then ‘Exclude tags’ and select the ones mentioned above. We are left with proper meals, paid with cash.

If you change your mind about which tags you would like to filter by, click on one of the tags you selected and is currently displayed in the input field. The tag will then be removed from your filter.

Location filters work the same way as categories and locations. Use them to display only the expenses made at certain venues, or exclude certain venues.

There are also detailed filtering options present on the export & reports screen. Those filters are separate and filter just the data for exporting and reports.

That’s it! Check out the filtering, play around with it and always remember to keep an extra bussiness card in your wallet! Just in case you’d need another kind of “filter” altogether. ;)

It’s a good idea to have some extra business cards in any case.

Posted in Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, Web App Tutorials

How to Track Loans, Repay Debts and Deal with Your Friendly Neighbourhood Loanshark (Web App)

Posted on May 13, 2016

We have almost certainly all been there at some point – borrowing money, ~~launder~~ loaning money, forgetting about loans, etc. Be it a small amount for drinks, because you forgot your wallet, or a bigger sum because you chose to buy something expensive that you obviously really, really, really needed.

So, how to go about tracking and dealing with the dynamics of loaning and borrowing money? Fear not, for Toshl is here for you again, not in the money loaning business though, but in the business of helping to track loans and debts – or simply Hilfespurverleihenborgengeschäft, as the Germans would put it.

Track major debt repayments

Let’s say I want to buy a new Ferarri for $3200, but I am just $3100 short for it. What do I do? I go to a guy* I heard you can get a loan from, that hangs out behind the parking garage in the shady part of town every other night (because he has kids). I ask him for a donation towards my cause and after a few laughs, I promise I would pay him back in ten months with $1900 interest. I get the money, and now I have to settle the $5000 debt in ten months, which makes for $500 per month. Because I use Toshl, the best loan app around, I know this will be a piece of cake and I will not get my legs broken in the process.

1. Add income marking the received loan

I put the $3100 in Toshl as an income, category ‘Loans’, account ‘Cash’, plus I put ‘Drago’ in the description – which is supposedly the guy’s name and also means ‘expensive’ in some languages. Just so I can be precise when I tell my grandchildren about my first Ferrari.

Ok, we got the money, we got the income from the loan marked, now to go about tracking the debt.

2. Add a new account to track the repayment of debt

I make a new account for the debt, called ‘Drago’ and set up the initial balance as ‘-$5000’ which is the total amount of the debt, including the interest.

3. Add transfers to note the debt repayments

To note the repayments as I return the money to Drago in monthly instalments, I make a transfer of $500 from account ‘Cash’ to account ‘Drago’, date it on the day of the first payment, set it up to repeat every month for ten months and set up reminders for it. Now I will be reminded to take the $500 to him every month, and the ‘Drago’ account will get out of red numbers over the ten months.

That’s it!

Track smaller loans to friends

Let’s take a look at another, simpler case. Let’s say I lend $4.99 to a fellow car enthusiast for a little 1:100 plastic Ferrari model.

1. Note the loan as an expense

I give him the money, put it in Toshl as expense, category ‘Loans’, account ‘Cash’.

If this is a one-off loan, I can put the guy’s name in description. If I lend to this guy often, I could also put his name in a new tag on the expense. That way I can easily sum up everything he owes me.

2. Note the loan repayment as an income

When he pays me back after seven and a half months, I just enter it as an income with appropriate tags, etc. This way I can always track borrowing and loaning entries.

Alternatively, I could just erase the loan expense, but that wouldn’t give me any insight on the loan later on.

Note the screenshot from the future

Bob’s your uncle! Use whichever method works best for you or be creative and invent your own system. That’s it for now from our secret volcano base, ta ta!

*Toshl does not recommend taking loans from random guys behind the parking garage, nor can we provide phone numbers of any specific guys providing such loans. A bank would probably still be a better bet, although their moral compasses might not be in much better shape, compared to the guy behind the parking garage.

Posted in Debt, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, Web App Tutorials

How to Set Up Automatic Monthly Financial Reports (Web App)

Posted on January 13, 2016

Want a report with your finances to be delivered to your email once your financial month has finished? No problem, here’s how you can make that happen.

This functionality is only available in the Toshl Finance web app and cannot be set up in the mobile apps.

Simply go to the Export & Reports section and scroll down to the “Monthly e-mail reports”. Turn the switch ON.

Destination emails

Your account email will be already entered as the destination for the monthly report, but you can change it, or add up to 9 more additional emails that should receive this report. Useful if you need the report with a part of your finances for work, or wish to share it with other family members for example.

Data filtering

You can choose to include Expenses & Incomes, or just either of the two. The time span in this case will be your previous financial month, as the report will be sent automatically once it has concluded.

Keep in mind that you can use all the filtering options from the right sidebar, just like with data exports.

You can filter by financial account, categories, tags or locations. You can select the ones to export or exclude the ones which you don’t want to export.

If, for example, you want your monthly report to include just the expenses with the category “Transport” and the tag “work” that would be no problem at all.

File formats

PDF, Excel (.xls) and Comma Separated Values (.csv) are at your disposal. You can send all of them or just one or two. Keep in mind though that the files will not be sent as attachments to the emails. The monthly reports you will get by email will contain just the links to the report. The moment you click on the report icon in the email, the reports will be generated and downloaded to your computer.

There’s also a checkbox at the end, giving you the option to send the report right away. It’s good to try out the financial reports when you first set them up and with this option, there’s no need to wait until the full financial month comes around.

Happy reporting!

Posted in Family finance, Personal finance, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, Web App Tutorials