Let your bank do the collecting and an app do the adding up. Connect the accounts you spend from, use an app that files each purchase into a category by itself, and read the month's totals once a month. "Where did it go?" then becomes a short list you read, not a spreadsheet you build.
Below: the three pieces that make that work, what a useful monthly summary shows, where each piece lives in Spense, and the by-hand route if you would rather not link a bank.
Tracking by hand fails for a boring reason: it is three jobs (collecting, sorting and adding up) and all three land on you. Hand off the first two and the third mostly does itself.
Collect: let the bank do the writing
Connect the accounts you spend from: checking, credit cards, and savings if money moves through it. Each purchase then arrives on its own instead of being typed or photographed.
Sort: categories, filed for you
Each transaction needs a home such as Groceries, Dining out or Rent. An app that sorts automatically does this from the merchant and the bank's own category data, and you only step in for the odd one it gets wrong.
Summarize: the month, added up
Totals per category, the month against the one before, and what a normal month looks like for you. This is the part that answers the question, and it should be something you read, not something you build.
If you have several accounts, the guide to a budget app without manual entry covers how bank sync brings them together without counting a transfer as spending.
Yes, if the app sorts on its own. Then the weekly job disappears: transactions are filed as they arrive, the totals stay current, and your part is a monthly read plus fixing the occasional miss. A fix is worth the minute, because a good app learns from it. In Spense, correcting one transaction teaches it that merchant for next time.
One honest exception: in an envelope-style budget, approving each transaction is part of the method. Spense's Classic mode works that way. A synced transaction waits in Review and counts toward its category once you approve it, with a suggested category once you have approved that merchant before, so a repeat is one tap. If no review at all is the goal, Auto is the mode for it.
Every figure below is worked out by Spense from your transactions; nothing needs adding up by you.
To have something to summarize, link your bank first: the connect-a-bank guide takes a couple of minutes. Classic users clear their queue with the review guide.
No bank link, or you want to see the numbers with your own eyes first? One month of tracking answers the question just as well, it just costs more of your time. Our 30-day spending-tracking plan walks through it with a worked example, and the 20-minute monthly money review turns what you find into one change for next month. Spense also works without a bank: budgeting without linking a bank shows how.
Fewer than you think: about a dozen covers most households. Too many and each one is a handful of transactions, so nothing stands out. The aim is a short list where the top three or four explain most of the month.
They should not, and counting them is the most common reason a homemade summary comes out too high. When both accounts are linked and the bank labels both sides as a transfer, Spense pairs them and leaves them out of spending; our post on a budget app without manual entry explains how.
Because it usually is. In Spense's Auto mode, linking a bank brings in your most recent transactions, up to about 30 per bank connection, and in Classic the budget starts on the day you link. Your first full month is the first one that tells the whole story.
Yes. Reflect steps back month by month, and its chart shows your spending for the last 8 months; tap a month to open it.
Yes. Any month in Reflect exports as CSV: all transactions, a spending summary (budget against actual by category), or an income summary.
Spense files your spending into categories and adds up the month for you. 14-day free trial — no credit card required.
Keep exploring envelope budgeting and financial wellness
Plaid typically checks a bank one to four times a day, and purchases take days to post. Why synced budgets lag, why pending rows move, and what a new bank adds.
Start by measuring last month, not by cutting back. A first week in seven short jobs, one month sorted into nine categories, and four rules for transactions.
You can stop typing in transactions. How bank sync covers checking, savings and cards without counting transfers as spending, and an honest answer for teams.