A transfer was a second verdict carried alongside the tag: a boolean set by transfer = true in a rule or by x in the TUI, kept in its own pair of rule_ and manual_ columns, whose one real effect was to hold the row out of the report. The rest of it was display -- a T column in the transaction list, in the rules screen and in money ls. Money moved between your own accounts is now tagged like anything else and counts like anything else. The leg leaving checking is an outflow and the leg arriving in savings is an inflow, so a report over the whole data root roughly nets out while one scoped to a single account or month does not. That is the price of one verdict per transaction instead of two. A rule now needs a tag, and one that set only transfer = true is refused by number on load. A leftover transfer key beside a tag is ignored, as unknown TOML keys always were, and an index built by an older binary drops both columns when it is opened. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
money
A personal finance tracker built around bank statements rather than manual entry.
You keep a data directory with one folder per account, drop statement exports
into those folders, and run money import. Transactions are extracted and
tagged by glob rules you write.
Layout
~/money/ # the data root (see "Where the data root lives")
rules.toml # tag rules, in order
index.db # SQLite index (rebuildable; safe to delete*)
checking/
account.toml # currency + how to parse this bank's exports
2026-01.csv
2026-02.csv
savings/
account.toml
2026-01.csv
* Deleting the index loses the tags you set by hand, which live only there. Everything else is re-derived from the statements.
Where the data root lives
Checked in order, first one wins:
--root DIRon the command line$MONEY_ROOT- the
rootkey in$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/money/config.toml, which is~/.config/money/config.tomlunlessXDG_CONFIG_HOMEsays otherwise ~/money
So the usual setup is to write the config file once and never pass a flag again:
# ~/.config/money/config.toml
root = "~/documents/finances"
A leading ~ is expanded and relative paths are made absolute. money config
prints the resolved root and which of the four rules chose it.
Install
go install ./cmd/money
Give it the package path, not cmd/money/main.go. Naming the file puts the go
tool in file mode: it names the binary after the source file (main) and
compiles only the files listed, which breaks the moment the package has two.
Usage
money # open the TUI (default)
money import # extract new transactions from every statement
money import --force # re-parse statements even if unchanged
money retag # re-apply rules.toml to everything already imported
money ls --untagged # what still needs a tag
money ls --wide # also show type and reported balance
money ls --account checking --month 2026-01
money report --month 2026-01 # spending by tag
money accounts # balances
money parsers # available statement parsers
money config # which data root is in use, and why
An account folder appears in the app only once its statements have been
imported — creating an account.toml is not enough on its own. Run
money import (or press i in the TUI) after adding one.
TUI keys
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
1 2 3 4 5 / tab |
accounts · transactions · report · rule builder · rules |
enter |
open the selected account (accounts view) |
t |
set the tag on the selected transaction |
c |
clear a tag set by hand, falling back to the rules |
/ |
filter by description |
u |
show only untagged transactions |
a |
clear the account filter |
i |
import · r re-apply rules · q quit |
Rule builder (4)
Writing rules by hand means guessing what a glob will catch. This screen shows
the answer as you type: the form is on the left, and on the right is every
still-untagged description in the data, sorted alphabetically and grouped, with
a ▸ against each one the glob currently matches and a running
"n of m descriptions match" count.
glob Untagged description N
╭────────────────────────────╮ ACME PAYROLL JAN 1
│ *LIDL* │ BOLT RIDE 1
╰────────────────────────────╯ ▸ LIDL SOFIA 4412 2
vs. the description ▸ LIDL VARNA 9911 1
ZARA MLADOST 1
▸ tag
╭────────────────────────────╮
│ groceries │
╰────────────────────────────╯
tab completes · ctrl+n: 1 more
note
╭────────────────────────────╮
│ optional │
╰────────────────────────────╯
why this rule exists
2 of 7 descriptions match
Only gro was typed in the tag field; ceries is the ghosted completion.
tab / ↑↓ move between the glob, account, tag and note fields, pgup /
pgdn scroll the list, and enter appends the rule to rules.toml and retags
immediately, so the rows it caught disappear from the list. esc goes back.
On a short window the form gives up its spacing and then its hints, so all four
fields stay on screen.
The account and tag fields complete as you type: the rest of the match is
ghosted in grey after the cursor, and tab (or → at the end of the line)
takes it. When several candidates share the prefix, the hint under the box says
how many, and ctrl+n / ctrl+p cycle through them. Nothing is committed until
you accept it, so a new tag is still just typed out in full. Accounts come from
the folders on disk and the index; tags from every tag in use plus any named in
rules.toml, so a tag is completable from the moment a rule mentions it —
which is what stops groceries acquiring a grocery twin.
Leaving the account blank applies the rule everywhere; filling it in also
narrows the preview to that account. Rules are appended, so anything already in
rules.toml keeps precedence — the preview accounts for that automatically,
since it only ever lists transactions no existing rule has already tagged.
Rules (5)
Every rule in file order, with the number of transactions it actually claims.
Rules that claim none are marked ✗.
money · rules · 5 rules · 2 match nothing
# Pattern Account Tag T Txns Note
1 *LIDL* (all) groceries 3 the weekly shop
2 ✗ *LIDL SOFIA* (all) shadowed 0
3 ✗ *OLD BANK NAME* (all) dead 0 closed in 2025
4 *ZARA* (all) clothes 1
5 *КАУФЛАНД* checking groceries 1 4412 is the branch
The count is how many transactions the rule wins, not how many its glob could
match. Rule 2 above matches LIDL SOFIA 4412 perfectly well, but rule 1 claims
it first, so rule 2 is dead weight — which is the point of the screen. A rule
can therefore reach zero either by matching nothing or by being shadowed, and
both are worth deleting.
d deletes the selected rule, p deletes every rule marked ✗ at once, and
both ask for a y first. Deleting edits rules.toml textually, so your
comments, ordering and formatting survive; a comment sitting directly above a
deleted rule goes with it, while one separated by a blank line is treated as a
section heading and left alone.
rules.toml
Rules are evaluated in file order and the first match wins, so put specific
rules above general ones. Patterns are globs (* and ?) matched
case-insensitively, with whitespace collapsed.
A rule matches on match (the description) and type (the bank's own
classification). Setting both is an "and": both must match.
note is free text for you, never for the matcher: why the rule is there, or
what the unrecognisable payee behind the glob actually is. It shows in the last
column of the rules screen. Ordinary # comments still work and are preserved
on delete; a note differs in that it survives a round trip through the tool,
so the rule builder can write one and the rules screen can show it.
[[rule]]
tag = "groceries"
match = "*LIDL*"
[[rule]]
tag = "salary"
match = "*ACME PAYROLL*"
note = "paid on the 4th; the December one lands early"
# Money moved between your own accounts is tagged like anything else. Both
# legs need a rule, and both count in the report -- one as an outflow, the
# other as an inflow.
[[rule]]
match = "*TO SAVINGS*"
tag = "transfer"
[[rule]]
match = "*FROM CHECKING*"
tag = "transfer"
# Such movements are often only identifiable by the other side's account
# number, whatever the rest of the description happens to say. Every bank
# parser keeps that number in the description, so an ordinary glob finds it.
[[rule]]
match = "*SI56*"
tag = "transfer"
# A rule can be limited to one account, and can require several patterns.
[[rule]]
account = "checking"
tag = "rent"
match = "*STANDING ORDER 4471*"
[[rule]]
type = "CARD_PAYMENT"
match = "*LIDL*"
tag = "groceries"
Editing rules never touches tags you set by hand: rule verdicts and manual
overrides are stored separately, and the manual one always wins. money retag
is therefore safe to run whenever you change the file.
account.toml
Every account folder needs one. currency and parser are required.
name = "Main Checking"
currency = "EUR"
parser = "nlb"
# minor_digits = 2 # decimal places for this currency
# include = ["*.csv"] # only treat matching files as statements
Parsers
Three are built in, ported from the original Python extractors. A statement
layout is described in Go rather than in a table of column indexes, so there is
nothing else to configure — parser names one of these and that is all.
parser |
Statement | Notes |
|---|---|---|
nlb |
NLB izpisek PDF | Wrapped descriptions are folded in from continuation lines, and the IBAN column is appended to the description. |
traderepublic |
Trade Republic PDF | Handles both the single-line and the stacked layout by measuring column positions. |
revolut |
account-statement*.csv |
Skips non-COMPLETED rows, folds the fee into the amount. |
name = "Trade Republic"
currency = "EUR"
parser = "traderepublic"
The two PDF parsers shell out to pdftotext -layout (poppler-utils), exactly
as the Python versions did; its layout reconstruction is what makes the
column-based parsing work.
Amount parsing is shared and deliberately tolerant: 1.234,56, -45.20,
45,20-, (45.20) and 45.20 EUR all work, whichever parser reads them.
Revolut and multiple currencies. One export can hold several currencies,
but an account here has exactly one. Rows in other currencies are skipped and
reported at import. To keep them, give that currency its own account folder
with its own currency and minor_digits (JPY wants minor_digits = 0) and
put a copy or symlink of the export in it.
Adding a parser
A new bank means a new parser. Drop it in internal/parser and register it —
no other package changes:
func init() {
parser.Register("bankx", func(acc *config.Account) (parser.Parser, error) {
return &bankXParser{digits: acc.Digits()}, nil
})
}
func (p *bankXParser) Parse(path string, acc *config.Account) ([]parser.RawTxn, error) {
// ... return date (YYYY-MM-DD), description, and signed minor units
}
It becomes usable by setting parser = "bankx" in an account.toml. Use
parser.ParseAmount for the decimal handling rather than rolling your own.
Balance checks
Statements that report a running balance are verified on import: each balance must equal the previous one plus the transaction amount, the same check all three original scripts made. A break means a row was missed or misparsed, and is reported as a warning without stopping the import.
Deduplication
Each transaction gets a fingerprint from its date, amount, normalised description, and its ordinal among identical lines in the same statement. So two identical purchases on one day are both kept, while re-importing an overlapping statement adds nothing. Unchanged files are skipped by checksum before parsing.
Development
go build ./... && go test ./...