ShowMeTheMoney

Features

Import PDF bank statements into your budget

ShowMeTheMoney, the envelope budgeting app, reads the PDF statements your bank and card already give you. Show it a statement once, check what it found, and every statement in that layout after that imports itself.

Why PDF statements

The statement is the one document almost every bank and card issuer gives you, and the one that says what the account should hold: where the period began, where it ended, and every transaction in between. Some accounts offer nothing else to download. Importing the statement itself means your budget is built from the same record your bank keeps, and can be checked against it.

How it works

  1. Drop the PDF on the app's window. You aren't asked which account it is for; the app reads the statement first and works that out.
  2. The first time a bank's layout arrives, the app works out where the statement period, the balances, the transactions and the account number are, and highlights them on the page.
  3. Check them, step by step. Each step shows the value it found: the dates, the balances, the transactions, the account. If one is wrong, pick another from the list or point at the right value on the statement. No patterns to write.
  4. Name the format and save it. The statement is read, and each of its accounts is shown with the transactions that would be imported, the envelope suggested for each, and anything that might already be recorded.
  5. Every later statement in that layout is recognised and read without asking.
A bank statement page with the statement period, the beginning and ending balances and every transaction row highlighted in colour, under a legend naming each colour.
The first statement from a bank: everything the app found, highlighted on the page for you to check.

Checked to the cent before it's saved

Setting up a format ends with a check that the statement's beginning balance plus the transactions read comes to its closing balance. A misread row or a missed transaction shows up there, before the format is saved and before anything reaches your books.

After you accept the transactions, the statement is used once more: if what you accepted comes to the closing balance, the account is reconciled there and then, and those transactions are locked. If it doesn't, you're told by how much and offered the reconciliation screen with the statement's figures filled in.

Several accounts, duplicates and transfers

  • One statement, several accounts: a bank statement with checking and savings is split into its accounts, each with its own period, balances and transactions, and each goes to its own account. One the app doesn't recognise can be created from the statement, starting at the statement's opening balance.
  • Duplicates: a transaction the account already has arrives marked so, and one that only resembles another (the same amount within two days) is highlighted for you to decide.
  • Transfers between your own accounts in the same statement are found once every account is accepted, and offered to link.
  • Card statements are recorded the way a card works: what you owe is a negative balance, and charges are spending.

Read on your own computer

The statement is read by the app on your computer, or on the server you run. It isn't uploaded to us or to anyone else, and no bank password is involved. See the privacy policy.

What it can't read

  • Scans and photos of paper statements. It reads the text inside a PDF, so it needs the statement you download from your bank's website.
  • A layout it hasn't met isn't read until you've checked it once. It has been tested on real statements from banks and card issuers including Chase, Bank of America, Synchrony and SoFi.

Your bank's other downloads work too: QFX/OFX exports and spreadsheets, and an optional connection through SimpleFIN.

Try it on your own statement

Every feature, free for 30 days, no card needed.

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