Toshl Finance Blog

How to Import Financial Data (Web App)

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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.

Choose file

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.

select account

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.

match data CSV

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… ;)

date format import

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.

culica

Happy importing!

Posted in Tutorials, Web App Tutorials

All Toshl Finance 2.0 Apps Now Available in Italian

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We aim to make the Toshl Finance apps, as well as easily managing your personal finances in general, accessible to everyone. A large part of that effort is also making sure that Toshl is translated well into the languages of Toshl users worldwide.

 

Today, we’re happy to announce that all Toshl Finance apps are now available in the Italian language.

 

If the system language on your Android or iOS mobile device is set to Italian already, the Toshl Finance app will switch automatically the next time you open it. If you’re not using Italian yet, change the general system language setting and Toshl will adapt as well.

 

In the Toshl Finance web app on toshl.com, we automatically set the language for people just signing up based on location. If you already have an account, you can also change the language in the General Settings of the web app.

 

We now support 10 languages on all platforms with Toshl 2.0 apps. Italian thus joins English, Slovenian, Chinese – simplified, Chinese – traditional, French, German, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian and Spanish in our rooster of languages.

 

Translations can be a tricky business sometimes and there’s always room for improvement both in accuracy and the tone of the language. If you’re a native Italian speaker and see a translation that could be improved upon, please send us a suggestion to support@toshl.com so we can check and hopefully make the Italian translation even better in the future.

 

Viva l’Italia!toshl_2-0_monster_0087_88

Posted in Announcements

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

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We have a bunch of filtering options available in Toshl. Let’s take a look at filtering by account in Toshl Android app.

Accounts and time span can be accessed by swiping from the right edge of the screen or tapping the time span in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Like so:256

 

Filtering by account

You can enable or disable displaying specific accounts and the entries tied to them. By default ‘All accounts’ are displayed, meaning the app is showing expenses, incomes, budgets, etc. from all accounts.

The active setting is shown under the action bar, so you can quickly asses which accounts are enabled just by glancing.

 

If all are disabled , it will be noted as ‘No accounts’. If only one is enabled, it will display the name of that account e.g. ‘Cash’.

 

This setting is global and will effect every graph and list in the app – except the budget section. So if you think you are missing some data, check the accounts to make sure.

Quick tip:

  • You can also quickly switch accounts or time spans by swiping the account or month left or right. Open the right sidebar, then grab the red button where it says “All accounts” and flick it left or right. That way you can quickly cycle between accounts without setting ON/OFF switches each time.

Filtering by category, tag and location

Filtering by these other criteria is not (yet) available in the mobile apps, but will likely be in the future. Until then, you can use the web app on toshl.com to filter by category, tag or locations.

Check out the tutorial for filtering in the web app.

extag

There are also detailed filtering options present on the export & reports screen. These are separate just for data exporting and reports, and are basically all other filtering options merged in one screen.

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 Android Tutorials, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials

One Big Android Update Coming Up (2.0.5)

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The 2.0.5 version number might not look like a big leap, since we still consider these updates to be part of the core 2.0 functionality, but this Android update packs some seriously big improvements and important new features.

 

Expense and income graphs

Two important new graphs, both for expenses and incomes. One is the “donut graph”, displaying categories and their proportions relative to your entire spending. You can also tap on the parts of the graph to see sums for individual categories or a few of them together.

Expense graphs pie chart

 

Below the donut category graph, is the bubble tag graph that displays the sums of the tags and their relative proportions in your spending. You can tap on an individual bubble to get more details about the tag, such as the percentage of total spending, average spending per day in the time span etc. As with categories, you can select multiple ones to get a sum of them together.

As everywhere in the app, you can filter the sums in these graphs by time span or financial account.

Tag bubbles - all categories

In times of extreme financial distress, feel free to grab a tag bubble and toss it around a bit to relieve yourself of stress, at least a little bit. Especially the big bubbles. May they pop soon!

We’ve prepared a tutorial to get to know and use these graphs better: Expense and Income Graphs (Android)

 

Sums by tags in the expense list

This has been a highly sought after feature and for good reason. When looking at the expense or income list, you can now see the tag sums in addition to the category sums.

Just switch the expense list to “by category” by swiping to the right, then tap on a category. All the tags used on expenses together with the category will open up and you can see their sums on the right.

Tap a tag row and you’ll see the individual expenses nested inside it.

Expense list - sums by category and tag

 

New widgets

Many, many fun widgets. With monsters.

With the 2.0 version we added a more minimalistic Android home screen widget for adding expenses incomes and transfers between accounts. Just a + in a round circle. The monsters would have none of it.

They loved parading around on your Android home screen and no circular lesser monstrosity would take that away form them. So the monsters are back. Back in force.

Toshl monster widgets for expenses, incomes and transactions

You can now choose between 10 different widget variations. 9 monsters and the 1 regular + button in red, green or grey.

Any monster can be configured to open the adding of an expense, income or a transfer between financial accounts, right from your home screen.

There are two sizes available for the widget, 1×1 for the smaller, space conscious monsters and the 2×2 for those who want to enjoy them in all their glory.

We have also added support for many of the Android OS variations where shortcut widgets weren’t supported, so the widgets will now show up on all Android devices.

 

Italian language

We’ve translated the entire app to Italian. That makes for 10 languages we currently fully support on Toshl.

It’s a new translation though, so if you notice any phrases that could be better put, please drop us a line at support@toshl.com so we can fix them. Viva l’Italia!

 

Bug fixes & minor improvements

  • transfers between financial accounts are now displayed with their own icon in the “by category” list
  • Monthly overview and budget graphs won’t interfere with scrolling anymore and the tap & hold lollipop comes up with a slight delay to make scrolling smoother
  • a problem with calculating “remaining categories” in monthly budgets was solved
  • budget graphs got lots of improvements and fixes for better precision
  • much faster expense list and improved loading of long lists
  • + button on Monthly overview which was missing before
  • the River flow graph now displays the Saved portion correctly when used with custom time spans
  • budgets are no longer filtered by accounts, it caused too much confusion, all are now always displayed as in other Toshl apps
  • a bunch of errors and crashes fixed

 

Download the latest Toshl Finance app for Android on Google Play

Posted in Announcements

Expense and Income Graphs (Android)

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A sense of proportion is a terrible thing to lack. Some call it the 7th sense. Somewhat ironically, these people who call it the 7th sense are precisely the ones who don’t have it. Toshl’s duty is to bring some sense of proportion to our finances, for our memories are feeble and don’t do numbers justice.

 

Category donut

Expense and income graphs are here to help your memory. The upper part, that’s shaped like a Tokamak reactor from above (or a donut), represents the categories. Each part of the circle is a category and its size represents its portion of all the expenses. Just like any pie chart. The number in the middle of the circle is the sum of all the expenses.

Expense graphs pie chart

 

You can tap the categories to select them. More than one category can be selected at once. As you select them, the details below the chart change to reflect the full name of the categories and their details. You can see the total amount of a category, its percentage of the total amount and how many expenses contributed to that sum. Select multiple categories and it will add them all up.

Hint: if you tap the centre of the circle, all of the categories will be selected. If you tap again, none will be selected.
Expense graphs - pie chart open

Tag bubbles

A bit lower is the tags graph, where the size of the bubble gives a sense of proportion. This graph responds to the categories graph above. If all the categories are selected, all the tags will be displayed. Tags will then display the sums for the entire tag, no matter which category they were used with.

If you select one of the categories, only the tags used on expenses together with that category will be displayed. The sum of the tag will also be filtered and display only the sum of the tag when used together with that category.

Tag bubbles

 

Another important thing to remember is that you can use more than one tag on an expense. That means that the same expense could be counted in more than one tag bubble if you used more than one tag on an expense.

Just like with categories, tags can be selected and summed up. There is also a per day average and you can click & drag them around to relieve the stress of financial issues.
Tag bubbles - all categories

Posted in Android Tutorials, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials
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