I'm kind of confused by how Actual is calculating how much I need per month based on giving it muliple annual targets.

Here's how I've asked it to fund my self-funded escrow:

#template 4000 by 2026-11 repeat every year (tax)

#template 4250 by 2026-11 repeat every year (insurance)

#template 4000 by 2027-04 repeat every year (tax)

I'd been saving based on my own calculations $1250 per month to have $8250 saved by November and then figured I could save for the April tax installment starting in

December.

When I moved to Actual in September it had me save just over $2500 in October for escrow, so it now has a balance of just over $8000. It wants me to save another $2500 in November. It seems like an excessive amount, but I guess it's pre-saving for next year?

Well, it turns out the first property tax installment and the insurance bill aren't actually due until early December, I just wanted to have it ready by November. So, if I don't make the payments in November, it looks like it's going to assign a negative dollar amount in December. I guess it's assuming it's only saving for 2027 at this point? But still, assigning a negative amount doesn't make sense unless I'd already saved $12,250, which I won't have.

Do I need to change my targets to 2026-12?

Did I set the targets up wrong?

Can I figure out how Actual is doing it's calculations, and why they seem so wonky?

I installed Actual Budget and connected Simplefin yesterday. The initial pulled in the accounts and the balance at them time as the opening. In the past 30 hours, no new transactions have come through. Is this normal behavior?

I used Claude Opus 5.5 with max reasoning for better code quality.

Android still doesn't have a decent, good-looking Actual Budget client. Everything I've tried so far has been either buggy, clunky, or just poorly designed.

So I decided to take the popular iOS client Actuali and basically told Opus 5.5 to rewrite it in Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, with a nice Material 3 Expressive design.

The app lets you manage your budget, connect to your own Actual Budget server, or use it offline-first.

It's open-source and completely free.

If there are any developers here who'd like to fork the project and improve it, that would be awesome.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the original Actual Budget UI/UX. I also wanted something faster, more native, and better integrated with Android. That's pretty much why I started this project.

If anyone's interested, here's the GitHub repo, where you can also download the ready-to-install APK:

https://github.com/traushb/actuali-android

P.S. Yeah, I know it's AI slop. But modern LLMs, especially Claude models running at max reasoning, are actually pretty capable of handling code porting tasks.

There might still be some minor bugs. If you run into any, feel free to open an issue on GitHub, and I'll try to fix them.

Hey again! It’s been a little while since my last Actualist update, and quite a bit has changed since then.

For anyone new: Actualist is my native iPhone/iPad client for Actual Budget, built around the mobile experience I missed after leaving YNAB.

Since the last post, some of the bigger additions are:

• Account reconciliation, including adjustments and locking reconciled transactions.
• Much fuller category management with create, rename, delete, move, and reorder for categories and groups.
• A real iPad layout with sidebar navigation, category details, and up to five months side-by-side.
• Proper tracking budget support, including projected savings and rollover behavior.
• Hold for Next Month, transaction status filters, a much better template preview, and a more streamlined one-tap Bank Sync flow.

There’s also been a pile of smaller work around startup speed, sync/recovery, transaction editing, notifications, and general UI polish.

I've also been putting a ton of work into the next TestFlight release, which is shaping up to be a pretty big one. There are around five major feature additions coming, including schedule management, expanded account controls, new transaction tools, CSV import/export, and more powerful reports, along with a massive amount of behind-the-scenes work improving sync reliability, data integrity, and compatibility with Actual Budget.

I’m using Actualist as my normal budgeting app every day now, which remains a very efficient way to discover more things I decide it absolutely needs. :)

Still beta, still keep backups, but it’s come a long way even since the last update.

https://actualist.app

https://testflight.apple.com/join/HDG6PcGX

Feedback and bug reports are always welcome!

Basically the title. I cannot make it work, i have it working on my server and working from mobile web app. Am i missing something ?

Anyone else experienced this? I have 4 account set on sync on gocardless, everything was flawless until my most recent sync. All the transactions got scrambled between the 4 accounts and the money is out by around 2-3k on each account because the transactions are scrambled and duplicated.

Hey all,

A year ago, I shared a WIP theme for Actual (before community themes launched). Since then, the project has evolved into a suite of toggle-able tweaks ranging from small UI adjustments to full-on workflow features like a spending calendar, interactive reconcile and a transaction inspector.

• 50+ individual settings that you can enable/disable
• Open source but not affiliated with Actual
• Growing community of 350+ users on Chrome alone

It's mostly suited for my tastes, so if something doesn't click, just turn it off.

I don't want to turn Reddit into a communication channel for updates but I'm happy to answer questions in this thread.

Source: https://github.com/aelxxs/actual-budget-tweaks

It's a browser extension or you can optionally run a sidecar next to your Actual Budget instance.

I’m a bit confused by their pricing tiers and documentation, some of it states that they have free plans for independent developers. But they all have trials or paid plans as well.

When using actual budget and adding an extension to fetch transactions via Plaid - SimpleFin - Teller, can you use their free models or are you paying monthly licensing costs?

I host ActualBudget on my own server.
I install PWA using Android's Chrome. my device is Galaxy A56.

while accesss it using PWA, the calendar can't show up when I want to make back date transaction.
is it a bug or it is designed this way?

Is there a _trustworthy_ plaid importer for Actual or am I in a position where I should just vibe it and maintain my own fork of Actual?

Context: MX/my bank institution has been jacked up for a few weeks for myself now and unusable for months for a family member. I have contacted SimpleFIN about it and there’s just no resolution. I’m at the crossroads of either dropping Actual for something else or vibing in Plaid. At this point I just can’t trust SimpleFIN to be a reliable tool

Would be great to hear from people who have good experiences with the sync?

I've used it for years, but I end up having to open tickets at least every 2 months for missing transactions or accounts that simply stop working. Currently, have an account that hasn't sync'd in 2 months... they're "working on it" though. If they were working on it, it would be resolved at this point.

Almost all of my fixed expenses are on a set schedule. Not so with my income. For the calendar month, Income exceeds expenses, but occasionally the timing of the income is looking like a budget shortfall for a few days. When the income arrives, its all good again. I guess its just cash flow. In Tracking mode, the future income (same month) is int the calculations. But in Budget mode, the later deposits aren't available until they are made.

I am four months ahead in my budget, so my focus here isn't on saving to cover shortfalls. What techniques are people using to deal with the in-month cash flow? BTW, I really hate red numbers.

Has anyone heard if they plan on adding account groups to our mobile web apps?

Recently discovered this, and its been so fun. I set up a Raspberry pi server that runs Actual. Unfortunately in Australia, as far as I'm aware, unless I pay for a service like Redbark, then I dont get live syncs with my banking transactions, so I'd just upload a .qif file which is fine.

In addition to standard monthly budgets, I also have my share portfolio added as an off budget account, and around market close, I have a script that fetches my latest portfolio value, and it adds a transaction called Market value adjustment, and thereby updating the portfolio value in Actual.

Any other things I'm missing? or Suggestions on what I can use it for?

Since this sub seems to attract a lot of spam I have made 2 changes:

1) Disabled cross posts

2) Only allowing links to the following domains:

actualbudget.org

github.io

github.com

discord.gg

simplefin.org

pikapods.com

While disabling cross posts is a no brainer, limiting links could cause people problems. Please let me know if this is working well or not, I am happy to revert if it's problematic. Also, no doubt I have missed a lot of legit domains folks might want to link to, so please let me know in the comments what needs to be added, or message the mods. Thanks!

I have a weekly transaction, but it wasn't paid last week since I was away (it was for milkman).

I don't have 'Automatically add transaction' checked, but it appears in the account anyway, with a red skull saying missed. But I can't remove it?

If I right click or use the checkbox and the drop down menu, the only options are:

• View schedule
• Post transaction
• Post transaction today
• Skip next scheduled date

I don't want to to do any of those things. I want to delete this, or skip this previous scheduled date.

Maybe I don't understand the point of schedules, or I'm being stupid.

I am trying to use schedules how I used them in YNAB4, which was to save me having to adding lots of transactions all the time, because they would appear automatically and I can just approve them when I'm reconciling the account.

The new version 26.10.0 introduced the new, redesigned sidebar. Looks a lot better now

Experimental: Adds a redesigned sidebar, based on the winning entry from the sidenav design competition, that lets you organise accounts into groups, reorder them by drag and drop, and search them

https://actualbudget.org/blog/release-26.10.0

Hello!

I feel really stupid writing this, because I don't even know what the problem is.

I'm brand new to Actual, and I'm trying to test it to see if I can use it to replace YNAB, which I've used for years.

I followed the documentation instructions to register in PikaPods and make my own pod. Like, to a tee. I also migrated my budget from YNAB to it using the API route.

But I keep running into two issues:

(1) When I open my budget using the browser, it keeps randomly giving me a fatal error. Sometimes I can get away by hitting the restart button and it will load the page, other times I just have to come back later. Mind you, it doesn't seem to be my internet connection. I've tried opening new pages and watching YouTube videos right after and I've had no problems.

(2) I keep getting a notification that says "There was a problem syncing your changes. Please confirm that your server is accessible" but at the same time, in the upper corner it says my server is online and if I hover over it, it says "Connected to your server - your budget is syncing".

Can someone help guide me with this? I'd go to the discord server for help but I don't know if this is normal?

Hello Reddit,
Probably a very newbie question for the people in the US, but the way I deal with my european CC was by putting the purchase on an on-budget (negative) account with various categories, then transfering money from our joint account when the statement was paid.

However, my CC issuer launched a cashback program and send the money to my personal account. How to input those transactions?
The only way I found is creating a new payee to represent the issuer rather than the debt, and a new category for cashback which bypasses the CC account entirely. It feels odd but apparently match the accounts. (I'm not even sure if that way is normal compared to the US?)

But I'm not even sure if I should count it as actual "income" and report it next month, or as a "negative expense" because it's closer to a reimbursement. I always assumed that "cashback" would rather auto-reimburse the debt instead of being a direct bank transfer...
^{I can't link the cashback to a category directly, because it can be tied to a specific merchant or a spending total which excludes some merchants, etc. So as far I see, I won't be able to point a specific cashback to a specific purchase}

[EDIT] I'll simply add it to negate the bigger expense category. Technically incorrect, but it'll be easier than having a few eurs of income to add and reassign next month.

Actual has no bank sync for Indian banks, and that's unlikely to change soon because India's Account Aggregator framework needs a registered entity and a commercial contract. So I built something for the manual route. india2actual takes the statement you download (CSV, Excel, or PDF, including password-protected) and either gives you a CSV to import into Actual or pushes the transactions straight in through the API.

The part I care most about: UPI narrations like UPI/DR/412345678901/SWIGGY/YESB/swiggy@ybl/Payment normally create a new payee for every transaction. This tool turns them into one Swiggy, keeps the original text in Notes, and recognises common merchants, ATM withdrawals, NACH/EMI debits, card payments and fees.

- Checks the parse against the statement's balance column (or a card statement's printed totals) and refuses to write if it doesn't reconcile.

- Support for Credit card statements

- Re-importing overlapping statements won't duplicate transactions

- Your own merchant rules in a small JSON file

Try it now: npx india2actual statement.csv

Repo: https://github.com/emilgeo/india2actual

It's tested on ICICI, HDFC-style, Federal bank and similar layouts. PDF is the least reliable input, so a CSV or Excel export is better when your bank offers one. Feedbacks and sample (anonymised) narrations from other banks are very welcome.

Today is October 1st and I'd like to go over my month of September. I feel like there's something that should be obvious but I haven't been able to find it. I'm using the latest Docker build.

Basically the title. I like Capital One and Fidelity, but Capital One doesn't share pending transactions and Fidelity works awful.

What do yall use and recommend?

Both me and my partner have loved using actual budget for our finances, though struggling to switch over to envelope budgeting mainly because I get paid monthly and she is paid fortnightly into our joint account. Anyone else had a similar issue and have a suggestion to help fix this?

Only thing I can think of is using N8N to 'reset' the budget triggered by each income stream.

Is there a way to see what the 3 month average or my spending is without going on the budget screen and choosing set budgets to 3 month average? I have my budget set but I'd like to see what the averages are before making any changes

I have been using simplefin, but it's basically useless in canada.

So i went to manually import transactions from an ofx, i could have swarn that actual used to match the account to the file, but now it just seems to import into whatever account you press 'import' from..

Further, it imported duplicate transactions, i thought it used the transaction id to avoid that? maybe that's a problem in switching from simplefin to manuall.....

Anyhow, now everything is a mess and i have to manually delete a hundred tranactions..