Most “how it works” pages are three icons and a slogan. This one describes what you’ll actually do with Spendly, from signing up to a working budget.
Setting up
1. Pick your base currency. This is the currency you think in — the one you want budgets, net worth and reports expressed in. You can change it later; everything reconverts.
2. Add your accounts. Each account holds one currency: a euro current account, a sterling savings account, a dirham cash wallet. Give each one its current balance. This is the step that makes everything else work, so it’s worth getting the balances right.
3. Set up categories. Spendly starts you with a sensible set. Rename them, delete the ones that don’t apply, add the ones that do. Categories are the backbone of budgets and reports, so a few minutes here pays back.
4. That’s setup. You now have a working ledger. Everything below is optional and can be added whenever you want it.
Getting transactions in
Pick whichever fits — most people use more than one:
Connect your bank. Available in the US, EU and UK on Premium. Transactions arrive on their own.
Upload a statement, CSV or screenshot. Drop in a PDF statement, a CSV export from your bank, or a photo of one, and Spendly reads the transactions out of it.
Import through an AI assistant. Spendly has an MCP integration, so you can connect it to Claude, hand over a statement or a messy spreadsheet, and have the transactions written in — in bulk, categorised.
Add them by hand. A few seconds each. Still the fastest way to capture cash, and it works offline: log an expense on a plane and it syncs when you reconnect.
What Spendly does with it
Once transactions are going in, the rest of the product starts having something to work with:
- Budgets compare what you’ve spent against what you allocated, with a pace-aware forecast that flags trouble early
- Safe to spend turns all of that into one daily number
- Reports show where the money actually went, by category and currency
- Cash flow projects the next 90 days and finds your low point
- Net worth combines accounts, investments and debts into one figure
Adding the planning layer
Most people start with accounts and budgets, then add these as they become relevant:
| If your problem is… | Use |
|---|---|
| Overspending in specific areas | Envelopes |
| Annual bills wrecking your month | Sinking funds |
| Subscriptions you’ve lost track of | Commitments |
| Multiple debts and no clear order | Debt payoff |
| Saving toward something specific | Savings goals |
There’s no requirement to use all of them. A lot of people run budgets and nothing else for months.
Keeping it accurate
Check balances every few weeks. Reality drifts; a quick reconcile keeps the projections trustworthy.
Investments update when you say so. You record what a holding is worth on a date, which is what lets Spendly track property and pensions alongside your ETFs. See investment tracking.
Getting your data out
Whenever you want, from Settings: CSV export of your accounts, budgets, categories, investments and transactions. Account deletion is in the same place.
We’d rather you knew the exit exists before you start. There’s a note on the export’s current scope in the privacy policy.
Open the app — setup takes about ten minutes.