Actual Budget as a ready app

First steps

1. 1

   Sign in

   Open the address from the Overview, such as budget-….goodflare.me, and sign in with the password from First login, which can be shown exactly once. There is no user name.

2. 2

   Create a budget

   Create a new budget in Actual, or import one from YNAB or from an Actual export.

3. 3

   More devices

   On every other device, open the same address and sign in with the same password; Actual keeps your budget in sync between the devices.

One password for the server

Actual has one password for the whole server, no named accounts: whoever knows the password sees every budget on it. Share it only with people who should. You set a new one under App settings with Set a new password; you see the new one exactly once, and every device is signed out. Sign in there again with the new one.

Where your data lives

Actual works on every device with a copy of your budget of its own and syncs it through your server when the device is online. On the server, the budgets are stored the way Actual syncs them; if you want only encrypted data there too, switch on encryption in Actual. Then only you know your key: if it is lost, we cannot open the budget either.

Updates and backups

We keep Actual up to date. Before every update we make a safety copy and check afterwards that the app answers; otherwise we restore the copy. A backup of the budgets on the server is made every night; under Backups you make more, download them or restore them. Also export your budget in Actual itself.

Good to know

• If you want a bank connection, you set it up yourself in Actual, with your own access at one of the providers Actual supports. Which banks work there is up to the provider.
• This app has no files, console or startup parameters: we run it, you use it.
• Actual Budget is open source (MIT).