Financisto is an open-source personal finance manager for Android platform. It has a lot of features and in this tutorial I’ll walk you through the basic functionality. It should give you a good start to using the application and further exploring it.
(15 Nov) Please note that this tutorial is a bit out of date. To access categories, currencies, locations and projects select Entities from the menu.
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When you launch Financisto for the first time you see the main screen.
What we need first is to create some currencies. Say, Singapore Dollar in my case. Click on ‘Menu’ button on your phone, then tap on ‘Currencies’ in the menu.
There are a couple of currencies setup by default – RUB, USD, GBP, EUR. If your currency is not in the list, then tap on ‘+’ button to add a new one.
Fill in the name, code and symbol. Please note that code should be ISO 4217 compliant – check the list in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217). Additionally, you can change decimal options and separators. Tap on ‘Is default’ checkbox to make this currency your Home currency.
Click on OK and we done with currencies.
Click on ‘Back’ button to return to main screen. Now let’s add a couple of accounts. I would like to manage my cash and credit card. i will create a separate account for them. Tap on ‘+’ button to add a new account.
Account type selected by default is Cash. Exactly what we need for now. Fill in the name and select the currency – SGD for me. Specify the opening amount – the amount of money you have now in your wallet. Don’t mind the other parameters – they are not important at the moment. Tap on OK to create the account.
Done – we have Cash account. Let’s create another one for the credit card. Tap on ‘+’ button.
This time tap on the top field to select the account type. Select Credit Card.
Fill in issuer and card number – they are for your reference.
Scroll down and fill in title and select the currency.
Now put in your credit card limit and opening amount. Limit amount – is the amount of money you’re allowed to spend from the card. Opening amount has the same meaning as for the Cash account. Usually you’ll have either 0 or negative opening amount on your credit card – meaning that you’ve already spent some money from it. So, fill in the amount and check ‘Negative opening amount’ checkbox. Skip the rest of the fields – they are useful, but you can take care of them later.
Now we have two accounts created.
Let’s create some categories. Category – is a way to categorize transactions in Financisto. Say, if I spend 6$ in a shop bying fome food I’ll register this transaction unser Food->Groceries category. Click on ‘Menu’ and select ‘Categories’.
As usual, tap on ‘+’ button to add a new category.
Let’s start with Food category. Fill in the name and tap OK.
Continue to create more categories – I need Lunches, Groceries, Going Out, etc. Think what categories your would need and create them all one by one. When you need to create a sub-category – like Groceries is a sub-category of Food category – then select the parent category in the ‘Parent’ field. Number of nested levels is not limited, but it’s better to keep it no more than sub-sub-category.
Here is the category tree you would have in the end. Now, let’s take a look at category attributes. Say, I have Cinema category and I would like to remember what movie I visited when registering a transaction under this category. That’s what attributes for – to store some additional information for your convenience. Tap on the button next to ‘+’.
Tap on ‘+’ button to add an attribute.
Put in attribute name and type. There are a couple of types available – including simple text, a number, a list or a checkbox. Tap OK to save the attribute.
Here is the ‘Movie name’ attribute in the attribute list.
Go back to category list. To attach the newly created attribute to a category long tap on the category, then select ‘Edit’. I’ll do it for Cinema category.
Choose ‘Movie name’ attribute in the ‘Add attribute’ list and tap on OK to save the category.
Attributes, attached to a category are shown in the list under the category name.
Ok, now it’s time to show how to register transactions. Transaction – is an amount of money your spend or recieve. Financisto also supports transfers between accounts, but this is out of the scope of this tutorial. Tap on ‘+’ button to add a transaction.
On the top panel you can select transaction status, expense it or income and transaction date/time. By default date/time is set to current. You have to select at least account and specify the amount. But it also makes sense to choose appropriate category. There are more fields available but they are not required. Take a look at them later. They are supposed to help you track your transactions better – you can select a location, write a note or attach a picture to the transaction.
While entering amount you have 3 options – use your software or hardware keyboard, use the quick amount input to enter small amounts up to 99999 or use the calculator to do basic arithmetic calculations. Every method has it’s use, choose whichever fits you best.
Tap on OK to create a transaction. It appears in the Blotter.
You can edit or delete a transaction by long-tapping on it in the Blotter. Now, let’s add another transaction to see how category attributes work. Tap on ‘+’ one more time.
Choose Cash account and Cinema category. As you can see the ‘Movie name’ field appears under the amount field. Fill in movie name and amount then tap OK to create the transaction. With the program evolving there will be more ways to use attributes – to search for transactions, categorize them, etc.
To take a quick look at a transaction details tap on it in the Blotter.
It’s a convenient way to overiview your transactions to get the information, which is not reflected in the blotter.
Move on to budgets. Budget – is an amount of money you plan to spend during specified period of time on specified expenses. For example, I plan to spend 200$ on lunches at work. Tap on ‘+’ button to add a budget. It’s a good tool which should help you to plan your expenses ahead. Tap on ‘+’ button to add new budget.
Budgets are bit complicated, but what we need right now is to specify only title, currency and check ‘Lunches’ in ‘Categories’.
Keep the rest of the fields by default and scroll down to specify the amount.
Likely you’d like a budget to repeat every month. Tap on ‘Period Recur’ to specify recurrence. Start date can be today or the begining of the month. Select ‘Monthly’ in the ‘Interval’ field and ‘Exactly N times’ in ‘Recur’. Financisto currently doesn’t support infinit repetition for budgets, so lets make it to repeat for 6 months. Tap on OK to save recurrence parameters.
Tap on OK to create the budget.
On the Budgets tab you can check how’re you doing according to your budget plan. You can see the amount of money you’ve already spent and the remaining amount. The color indicator represents the remaining amount. Plan your budgets and add them to the list. You can refer to this tab any time to check how much have you spent in every budget. The total on the bottom shows the sum of all budgets.
Let’s take a look at Reports. There are a number of report available in Financisto and more to come in future versions. Every report is designed to show your transactions from different points of view. You can check your balances based on a period of time, on a set of categories and projects, etc.
For example, ‘By Period’ report shows your total expenses/incomes for different periods – for today, tomorrow, this week, last week, this month and last month. You can visually compare them to understand your spending or income patterns.
Moving to scheduled transactions. Financisto manages scheduled and planned transactions for you and creates them at the specified time and repeats them if required. Go to the menu and tap on ‘Scheduled’.
Tap on ‘+’ button to schedule a transaction.
Create scheduled transactions the same way you create regular transactions. The only difference that if you specify date/time in the future (for the planned transactions), this transaction will not be created immediately, but will be added automatically at the specified time.
Another option is to specify recurrence pattern for repeated transactions. You can select from many available options to make the transaction repeat daily, weekly, monthly or, say, every last working day of the month.
After you filled in all details and specified the recurrence pattern, tap on OK to schedule the transaction. Financisto will take care of creating them at the correct time.
Scheduled transaction appear in the list. The date and time you see on each transaction – is the next scheduled time when this transaction will be created for you.
When a scheduled transaction gets created you’ll see a notification like on the screenshot.
Let’s go back to main screen. When you click on ‘Menu’ button and then tap ‘More’, you can see some additional options you could find useful.
First of all – database backup. As we don’t yet have automatic backups, please do them from time to time.
Database backup creates a file on your sd card under /financisto folder which contains a full copy all your data in the application. At any time you can restore all your accounts and transactions from this file using Database Restore. It is useful in case you want to move your data to another phone or delete Financisto and restore later.
There is also ‘Preferences’ where you can configure some aspects of the program for your convenience.
We won’t go through all available options, it’s a subject for another titorial. We’ll take a look at how to enable PIN protection, so noone can run Financisto and look at your financisl data without knowing the password. Scroll down to ‘Protection’ section.
Check ‘PIN Protection’, then tap on ‘Change PIN’ to set the pin number.
Set any number as your pin. Please remeber it well, because there is no way to restore it if you forget it.
You’ll have to enter pin twice to double-check the correctness. After that tap on OK to save it.
From now on, every time you launch Financisto you’ll have to enter correct pin to open the application.
That concludes this tutorial – now you should know the basic functionality available in Financisto. But there are much more. Please do not hesitate to play around and explore how you can take the most from Financisto to manage your finances. Let us know if you have any questions on Launchpad.
Excelente aplicación. Funciona tal como lo necesito, pero también debería poder exportar e importar el budget desde y hacia el mobil
I’ve been using financisto for a few weeks and I wonder how I can display the current balance on the accounts overview without having the future bookings calculated. eg. my salary account displays already the balance including next salary which will be booked in a week, so I actually don’t need the future balance but the one of today. Can you please let me know how to fix this? I know I can use filters to display each protocol during the right period but I want this to happen automatically on the overview (first page).
nice App
Reports/by accounts, period does not display any data for several accounts. Same for categories, period. What could be wrong? Account names and category names are displayed at the top, but no data. Can move display between the different names, but only some show data.
Android 2.2.2, Samsung Fascinate
Is it possible to transfer data (accounts/categories/transactions) to a Financisto installed in another Android phone?
I could find a ‘Export CSV’ options for transactions, but it was not possible to select a range (like ‘today’), but I could not find a ‘Import CSV’ option.
Does anyone know how to do it?
TIA!!
Hi please can anybody explain me the item : Credit card payment? Thanks
Hi! please can you clarify me what for is required item in Transaction: Credit Card Payment?
Thanks in advance.
How to enter a schedule manually? Is there a way to make the schedules do not run automatically?
Wonderful little app you’ve started here. Is there the ability to add profiles? I’d Like one to track Personal and one to track Busines. Is there already a way to do this but it was missed?
Hi , Is it possible when I add a new expense to don’t ask for currency all the time ? how to configure the program in order to set a default currency and to don’t ask all the time for it ? thnx!
Hi Dev, this is a great app to carry in your pocket. Thanks. Downloaded it yesterday and have it completely up, running and balanced to the penny. Very easy and packed with lot of info options for transactions. Love the shortcut widgets, though wish the picture quality was sharper or probably its just my HTC DHD. I have an app from my bank too for my incoming, outgoings, cards, loans etc. so if I do miss a transaction, can pick it up in a day or two and update Financisto. Certainly will recommend it to friends.
Only if I could get the two apps to sync with each other, managing money would have been Simples..!!
How can I view my cleared balance? I’m evaluating financial apps and EasyMoney 1.0 for Android. I really like this feature: it displays both my balance and cleared balance. That way I can quickly go online with my bank and compare my available balance (including pending transactions) with my cleared balance to make sure all known transactions are taken into account.
-=- Craig A. Lance
Hi. Where can I would like to know the answer to some questions mwntioned. Like how to assigne a debit card to an account?
Where can I find these answers. I’ve tried the basic tutorial It’s not mentioned there and I didn’t find an advanced tutorial.
Than you.
i was using inesoft cash organizer on my hd2 . can i transfer my data from cash organizer to this software as i plan to go for android ?
please help
Hi. Just downloaded this app I think this is really great and quite complete in its range of features. I especially like the quick add transaction shortcut. However there are a couple of features I would like to have which would be great.
The first is to be able to Save Filters. I have some categories i would like to keep track on based on my custom date filter, but i would have to re-enter the filter parameters every time.
Another would be the auto update of currency exchange rates when there is internet connection rather than us specifying it.
That’s about it I guess. And yea, I get haptic (slight vibrate) feedback when I key in my PIN Code. Any idea how to turn that off? Thanks a lot.
I like Financisto, It would be more interesting if it is with double-entry accounting effect like ” inesoft Cash Organizer” Premium windows.
I would believe that Financisto wil develop more advance for Galaxy Tab P1000 Samsung. Yours is great boost to Samsung Android app.
Really appreciated & my expertise in accounting & other business knowledge is freely & willingly ready for your development of future accounts/finance programe. Best Regards – Faroon (Sri Lankan) in KSA
I really think the same thing about this. The double-entry accounting is necesary. I need a several expenses accounts to manage my financials.
Thanks for this tool.
…but I miss a transaction plan with yearly repeat.
Amigo, depois traduza o texto.
Muito bom esse programa, estava sem entender quando baixei o programa, mas agora com essa ajuda ficou claro como usar o programa. Para mim é o melhor. Voce tem algum site com a relação de todos seus programas ? ou tem como voce disponibilzar os nomes? Obrigado.
It would be very helpful if I could set the begin of the month on 10th, so all the monthly reporting shows data from 10th of current month to 9th of next month. This would have to be set in settings, not filters, so it reflects behavior throughout all the funcionalities of the application.
As of now, that is possible through filters, however filters are reset each time after return.
I compared a lot of similar apps and liked this the best.
I would like to be able to see the total balance of different currency accounts displayed in one favourite currency.
Hi, thanks a lot for this app! This is my first ever financial app and I just love it. Now question: I have a bank account and two debit cards, one for me and another for my wife. If I make a transaction from this account through online bank service – everything is clear how to proceed. But we also pay with ccards connected to this bank account. How should I set up the system so account is linked to ccards?
Great app,I like it very much.
Bom dia,
Primeiro gostaria de parabenizar pelo app, muito bom =)
Tenho algumas dúvidas que este tutorial não trata como por exemplo: Como faço pra apagar uma conta? Criei uma conta logo quando comecei a usar e agora percebo que ela não me serve, criei de forma erra e não consigo alterá-la…
Por enquanto esta é a única dúvida.
Obrigado.
————
Good morning,
First I would like to congratulate you for the app, very good =)
I have some questions that this tutorial does not address such as: How do I delete an account for? I created an account just when I started using and I now realize that it does not suit me, I’ve created so wrong and I can not change it …
For now this is the only doubt.
Thanks.
you should long tap on the account to bring up the popup menu
Great app, I hope you can add a bi-weekly (fortnightly) function in since bills and pay usually work on that principle in Australia.
I’ve tried various personal finance app for android but this one really fits what I need. I’d like to support the development of desktop app with sync in anyway. Totally very helpful app. More Power!
I’ve tried various personal finance app for android and this one really fits what I need. I’d like to support the development of desktop app with sync in anyway. Totally very helpful app. More Power!
Is there a way to reconcile/clear transactions from the individual account summary? For example, I would like to mark any transactions that have cleared my ccard account when I do my weekly manual reconciliation with the ccard website. Currently need to press the transaction, edit, drop down for status, click OK. Then there is no visual indication in the transaction summary to indicate whether is has been cleared or not. Also would like to remove transactions after the statement closes so that I only have the current month’s transactions. I appreciate any guideance you can provide.
Is there any way you can add a sync with an online tool? I just switched from the iphone to android and the only thing I’m missing is an online checkbook app that I can enter on my phone and my wife can on hers and it stays synced up. The app I used on iphone was ireconcile. here is the link.
http://www.ireconcile.com/ireconcile
I would love to have something like this for android.
is it possible to somehow sync the data with eqonomize (eqonomize.sourceforge.net)?
Maybe import/export?
I would do the syncing with git/svn/unbuntuone . I’m concerned about the data interoperability.
Or is there another way to keep the data in sync with the desktop. As Far as I know, I can’t run financisto on the desktop, until canonical have finished their android runtime environment.
Running it in the Android emulator would be too cumbersome and slow…
Cool app. I like it very much. But it have some issues. For instance you have a PIN protection, right? Fine, I made my super-secret 6 digits pin and then … backed up my data base. Looking at the backup folder what do you see? Right. Unencrypted data base which can be restored on another phone. Guys…
For me the most wanted feature is a reconciliation with the bank statement. As most of us I have an internet banking access. My bank allows me to export my transactions in CSV form. The ultimate feature would be an ability to import import this file. But not just an importing it, but assigning categories and other stuff automatically. It would be very very nice if you add a filter that will remove already added transactions. This is much more practical then adding transactions as they comes one by one.
Another nice feature is to see how much left after all the budgets exhausted. I.e. I have a budget of 1k for utility bills. I spent just 300 but I want to see the amount left as if whole 1k spent.
Por favor poderiam disponibilizar o tutorial em Portugues do Brasil.
Congratulations on your application. Please add the option recurrense (CREDIT CARD). Option Widely used in Brazil
How could I help to translate it into spanish ? I’m no expert in android progamming, but U can translate a list of tags very easily
Great app,
but I need to understand how to manage CC account.
My CC is issued from the same bank I have the Account, closing day is “last day of the month” (I entered 30) and “Payment” is on 15th (of the next month) and flagged “Do not include in totals”. Everything works as I expect to but I think that the program should “link” the CC account to a bank account and do transaction accordingly (i.e. on CC payment day, add an exit of the amount of the CC last month total).
Moreover it would be useful to be able to schedule a transaction on day X (with X that could be 6, 10 or 25) every month. Right now you can do something similar, but I don’t think that repeating an event on 16 every 30 days would handle February or 31 days long months, am I wrong?
Nice apl! Installed it today. Can not find yet how to manage incomes.
Ok! Have found it
Great application! Thanks a lot. My only problem is with the font on the report (by categories and sub-categories etc). I can’t read it without my glasses. It’s really small. Could you make it bigger? Apart from that, just absolutely perfect. Thanks again!
I love this app! This is the best android budget app so far.
Couple of suggestions though:
1. A weekly budget recurrence would be really helpful
2. Bill reminder.
Thanks!!!
Really nice app – well done. I wish there was a look ahead feature in reports though. Been struggling to find something which has this simple feature in amongst all the accounting jargon nonsense on most apps. I have money coming in, money going out at set times through the month. I would like to see a report which shows all this. My bank account has an overdraft limit – I would like to set that so I can use the budget to see how much funds I have available at any time through the month – and set a warning when it gets to a certain level. Does this app do this?
Hi, just writing to say thank you for this useful app! This tutorial helped me a lot in getting up to speed with Financisto. Hope somebody finds the time to keep it up to date and exand it.
I’ll see if I can get the source code to help with development.
Keep the good thing going!
Franz
Love the app.
DivinoAG, Iam Brazilian and Financisto’s user, if you need help to translate, contact me…
Por favor, poderiam disponibilizar este tutorial em Português Brasileiro?
Obrigado.
awesome app!
Do you mind if I translate this tutorial to Portuguese for an Brazilian Android news and podcast website me and some friends are starting? With full credits, of course.
Hi, please feel free to translate to re-post. Thanks!