We are happy to announce that you can now export your budget entries into a spreadsheet like Excel or OpenOffice.calc. You will find this option under “Reports” on the toolbar. Choose “Export Data to CSV file”. Enter the Start and End date you want to use. Then click “Export Data”. You can then choose to “Open” or “Save” your file. This file can be used to sort all of your entries (included between the dates you’ve selected).

We are also happy to announce that you can start a new account with CalendarBudget with much greater ease! You can now import your bank information the first time you useCalendarBudget.

This is done in 4 easy steps:

1. Download/Export your bank account information from your online banking website
   • Log in to your bank account online
   • Select the desired account
   • Select the start and end date you want to use (I recommend that you use a two-week span ending with today’s current date – that should help ensure that your account activity is fresh in your mind to help you know what all of your transactions are for)
   • Go to the “Download or Export Your Transactions” section and select “Download or Export to:” (choose one of the following – “Quicken, Quickbooks, or Microsoft Money”, remember where you have saved the file (I recommend saving it to your Desktop) to be able to retrieve it again easily.
2. Upload/Import your bank account information from your “Desktop” or wherever you saved your bank’s file. This is done after you have signed into CalendarBudget for the first time. You will be given a Setup Guide which will make getting started faster and easier to do. To use bank import, you then “Browse” to where you saved the file and “Open” the file you downloaded from your bank’s website.
3. Click “Next”. You will be shown a list of transactions from your account where you can edit the title, split them into different entries (maybe you bought clothes and groceries at the same store and want to separate them into different entries), or combine a number of different grocery entries on the same day into one entry. You can also designate each entry into different categories of spending. For certain entries that repeatedly occur in your budget (things like your rent or mortgage that comes out once a month, hydro, phone), you may want to designate them as repeating and select the appropriate data that corresponds to the entry.
4. Click “Finish”. Your information will be automatically entered into your calendar view of your budget where you can then return to update your budget as needed (do this each day you make a transaction or a minimum of once a week to keep your budget fresh in your mind to help ensure you don’t overspend).

Happy budgeting! Send any comments or requests to contact@calendarbudget.com or reply to this post.