Import your data

Choose Import data in the sidebar to bring a table of personal Bills, Assets, or Debts into Beyond Payday. Account owners and spouses can import when they have the normal permissions for that destination. Child accounts cannot use imports.

Import data starts near the top of Planning tools in the sidebar, just below Retirement. Use Customize menu to reorder or hide it. You can always reach it through Settings → Your Data → Import data when you have permission to import.

Import a table

The numbered progress indicator follows Upload → Map columns → Review → Results. Preparation tips and privacy details appear beside the upload area on wide screens and below it on smaller screens.

1. In Upload, click Bills, Assets, or Debts, then select a CSV, TSV, or XLSX file on the same screen, or drop the file onto the dashed box. For an Excel workbook, choose the sheet you want. Select the row containing your column headings.
2. In Map columns, check suggested matches, match remaining fields manually, ignore columns you do not need, or set a constant value such as one category for all rows. Confirm categories, bill frequencies, and debt APRs. An annual rate of 5% means five percent per year; do not confuse it with a decimal fraction. Any column nothing is mapped to is listed at the bottom, so you can see exactly what will not be saved.
3. In Review, correct editable values and errors, check that amounts mean the same thing as their destination fields, and select valid rows to save. A row that still has an error cannot be ticked until it is fixed. Likely duplicates are skipped by default; include them only if they are separate records. Confirm the selected rows to create records without changing existing ones.
4. In Results, check the outcome and any errors. If saving is interrupted, retry the same batch so successful rows are not created twice.

If your export writes amounts as negative numbers

Many apps export a credit-card balance or a bill as a negative number. Beyond Payday stores bill amounts and debt balances as positive figures, so those rows would otherwise all fail with a message about entering 0 or more. In Map columns, tick "values in this column are negative in my file" on that column and the whole file imports as positive figures. Assets are not offered this option, because a negative asset value is a real value.

Fixing many rows at once

When an export leaves a required field empty, you do not have to edit each row. In Review, use Fix several rows at once to set one value — a category, a frequency — on every row that still needs correction for that field. You can still edit any individual row afterwards. Inside a row's editor, Save and next issue moves straight to the next row that needs attention instead of closing.

Use the import's undo action if you need to remove its records. Undo can remove only records that remain unchanged and have no new links. Review anything it cannot remove individually; it cannot erase later work safely. Your recent imports also appear under Recent imports on the Upload step, so undo stays available after you leave the page, and from another device. An import drops off that list once none of its records can still be removed.

Moving from another app

A competitor export is useful only when its rows fit these destinations. For example, a table with one current account balance per account can supply assets or debts after you check each account's type and balance date. Do not import every historical balance as a new account.

A purchase list is not a list of recurring bills. Transactions, transfers, credit-card repayments, budgets, and current balances mean different things. Prepare a table of the current planning records you want to keep; do not infer an account balance from transaction totals. There is no guarantee that an entire export from a named app can be migrated.

File limits and privacy

• CSV and TSV files: up to 5 MiB.
• XLSX workbooks: up to 10 MiB compressed, with a 50 MiB expanded limit.
• Tables: up to 10,000 rows and 100 columns.
• Files are processed in your browser. Only the normalized rows you confirm are sent to save; the raw file is not stored or logged. Import metadata tracks the batch and created records for safe retries and undo; it does not contain a copy of the original spreadsheet.
• Manual column matching does not require AI. If optional AI suggestions are available, open Need help matching columns? Optional AI suggestions, review the exact headings, approve sharing them with Anthropic, and choose Suggest column matches. Review the returned matches before choosing Apply these suggestions. Headings themselves can contain private data. Data rows and household identifiers are not sent to the model.
• AI suggestions may be unavailable or reach their limit. Continue mapping manually; neither AI availability nor approval is required to import. The demo simulates suggestions without contacting an AI provider.

Use a rectangular table with clear headers and US-dollar amounts only; the importer does not convert currencies. XLSX formula cells are rejected, even if the workbook has cached results. Save a copy as values or export values to CSV first. Excel percentage formatting is preserved: a cell shown as 4.5% remains 4.5%, rather than being treated as 0.045%. Review your values before saving, especially balances and dates that may be out of date.

What is not imported

Personal Income, business records, transactions, historical account balances, and Beyond Payday JSON backups are not supported by this importer. It does not connect to a bank or restore a whole account. Continue using the regular forms for those planning records; supported business pages also offer the spreadsheet view.

Try the import demo (opens in a new tab) with sample data and simulated saves.