Your first five minutes with Cashflow

No bank connection is needed or available. Cashflow cannot link to your bank or financial accounts, access them in real time, or request your banking login details. You stay in control of the balances, income and payments you enter or import. It forecasts using only the information you choose to provide; it does not automatically read transactions or move money.

You start with zero balances and no payments. Choose a cashflow in the header. The two spaces are named Personal and Business by default, but you can rename them. Each cashflow starts empty, uses one currency, and has separate balances and schedules. Your records belong to your signed-in account. No coach or MM77 connection grants access.

1. Enter what you have today

Update the amounts under Your balances. Include the accounts and cash you want in your total. Use Add account for another account and the arrows to change their order. Each cashflow uses the currency chosen when it was created. Use amounts in that currency throughout; the app does not convert currencies.

2. Add what you expect next

(You can also add or update many payment and income schedules at once using the Excel or CSV uploader. Open Import & export in the app; see Import many payments with a spreadsheet below for the template and upload instructions.)

Choose Add income or payment. Enter a description, a positive amount, the first date and a frequency. Select Income for money coming in and Payment out for money going out. A reference such as “UK home” distinguishes similar subscriptions. Regular payments don’t need an account assigned.

Repeat until is optional and includes that date. For three monthly condo payments of 255, choose first date 2027-01-10 and final date 2027-03-10. The app creates three occurrences.

3. Understand the forecast

The graph starts with today’s combined balances and adds future income, subtracting planned payments. Choose a range, move forward, or select a day for its end-of-day balance. Expand the monthly payment details to see the remaining payments this month; the month picker can show another month independently of the graph.

4. Update it as life happens

Keep your account and cash balances up to date. These are the starting point for every forecast. After spending or receiving money, edit the relevant balance to match what you actually have now.

Past-dated payments and income are no longer included in the forecast. Once their scheduled date is before today, they stop being deducted or added, even if you have not pressed Done or Skip. They may remain listed under Earlier unpaid items (inside the current month’s payment details), but that list does not affect the forecast. The app has not checked your bank or confirmed that they happened.

You can therefore leave past occurrences unmarked if your current balances already reflect what actually happened. You do not have to tick off every payment to keep the forecast accurate. The next occurrence of a recurring schedule remains planned.

If a past-dated payment or income has NOT happened, move the outstanding occurrence forward to its new expected date. Otherwise it is no longer allowed for in the forecast. The current Edit control changes the whole schedule: for a delayed recurring occurrence, add a separate once-only entry for the outstanding amount on its new date and leave the regular schedule in place.

If you miss a few days: first refresh all your balances. Then review Earlier unpaid items for anything still outstanding and add or move those amounts to their expected dates. Marking past items Done is optional housekeeping; today’s already-reflected items need Done to prevent double-counting.

Done excludes that occurrence and does not change any account balance. Skip excludes an occurrence you do not expect to happen. Edit → Delete schedule removes the entire schedule from the forecast; Undo or Recently deleted can restore it. Removing a bill here does not cancel a real subscription.

5. Explore “What if?”

Choose Spending to try a purchase or repayment plan, or Extra income to explore income on top of what is already scheduled. Enter the amount and start date, then choose a frequency. Recurring income can have no end date, a set number of occurrences or an inclusive end date. Use the income you expect to have available after any tax or costs. For repayments, include fees and interest in each payment amount.

The navy line shows your current plan; the gold dashed line shows the experiment. The result compares your lowest and end-of-range balances. Experiments do not change balances or schedules until you select Keep as planned income or Keep as planned spending. Clear experiment removes the comparison. Accounts can be edited, added and reordered on Overview.

Import many payments with a spreadsheet

Excel — the easiest option

1. Open Import & export in Cashflow and choose Download Excel template.
2. Read its Instructions tab, then enter schedules on the Payments tab below the shaded examples. Examples and the gold instruction row are ignored. Leave row_type blank or enter data for your own rows.
3. Save as .xlsx and choose Upload Excel or CSV for review in Cashflow. No conversion to CSV is needed. Excel dates and YYYY-MM-DD text are supported; enter fixed values rather than formulas. Older .xls and .numbers files must first be exported as .xlsx or CSV.
4. Review duplicates, additions and updates, then confirm the import. Nothing is saved before confirmation. Your existing IDs and references work exactly as they do with CSV.

Excel files are read in your browser. Only the reviewed schedules you choose to import are saved to your account. File limit: 2 MB. The workbook must contain one Payments table; the downloaded template already has the right layout.

CSV — still available

1. In the app, choose Download CSV template with instructions.
2. Open it in Numbers or Excel. Keep the header names unchanged. The instruction and example rows explain the format and are automatically ignored on upload.
3. Enter your own schedules on new rows. Leave row_type blank or enter data. If you copy an example, clear its row_type cell on your copied row; otherwise it will still be ignored.
4. Save or export as UTF-8 CSV. Keep dates in YYYY-MM-DD format. If Excel or Numbers changes them, format the date column as text before entering the dates.
5. Choose Upload Excel or CSV for review. Check the preview, fix any invalid rows, and choose which entries to add, update or skip. Nothing changes until you press Import.

Read this just like the spreadsheet: left to right. The headings below are in the exact same order as the downloaded template. Instructions sit directly beneath each heading, followed by complete example rows. On a smaller screen, scroll the table sideways to see the remaining columns.

To use an example: copy it onto a new row and clear its row_type cell (or change it to data). Keep the schedule_id blank for a new schedule. Empty cells above are deliberately empty, not values you need to type.

Similar payments and duplicate review

Ring for “Italy home” and Ring for “UK home” remain separate. Similar entries with no ID are flagged, not automatically merged. Matching existing IDs allow you to update a specific schedule; unchanged matching IDs are skipped. To edit your existing schedules in a spreadsheet, choose Download existing schedules, which includes those IDs. Re-uploading a blank-ID file can create duplicates unless you review them.

Sync, backups and privacy

Use the same Cashflow email and password on your phone and computer. Wait for Synced across your devices before switching. Conflicting updates are stopped for review, not silently overwritten. What if? experiments remain on the current screen until saved as planned income or spending.

Your balances and payments are stored in Cashflow’s hosted database against your signed-in account, and cached in your browser. The app has no bank connection or other-user browsing feature. This is an early personal-finance experiment: begin with sample amounts if you prefer. App operators and hosting providers may have administrative access to stored data; the app does not provide end-to-end encryption.

Use Download backup to keep a private JSON copy of your entire cashflow. Restore backup replaces your own cashflow across devices; CSV import adds or updates schedules only. Don’t share a financial backup when reporting a bug. Clear this cashflow resets your balances and schedules and removes this browser’s recovery copies. Copies already downloaded or cached on other devices are not erased by that button.

Invitations and administration

New testers receive a private invitation link tied to their email address. Open it, choose a password of at least 12 characters, and confirm through the email link. An existing sign-in does not give the invited person access to your cashflow.

Administrators use Administration in the header to see registrations, create or revoke invitation links, and suspend or restore access. Use Send invitation to email the tester directly from Cashflow. The email link confirms their address and lets them choose a password. The invitation list shows email status and offers Resend email. Copy invitation and Open invitation email remain as fallback options. Links expire after 30 days. Delete user permanently removes a non-administrator’s account and saved cashflows after you type their email to confirm. Administrator accounts are protected. Suspension retains saved records and blocks cloud access; it cannot erase copies already downloaded or held on an offline device. The administration screen does not show financial records.

Tell us what you think

Tell the person who invited you what was confusing, what saved time, and what you expected to happen. A short description and the steps to reproduce a problem are enough; no account numbers, passwords or financial backups are needed.