Simple Balance
Documentation

Documentation

How to run Simple Balance: installing it, importing your first statement, and what each part of the ledger does.

Install

  • Getting started

    Try Simple Balance on your own machine with Docker and PostgreSQL, create the first account with its setup code, and see what running it for real takes.

  • Moving to your own copy

    Take the transactions out of the version we run and bring them into a copy you run yourself, one account at a time, including the two things no export carries.

Using it

  • Importing a statement

    Point the importer at a CSV your bank exported, tell it how the dates and amounts are written, and review what it proposes before anything counts.

  • Accounts and transactions

    The three kinds of entry, what each one does to the books, and why a transfer isn't two transactions.

  • Budgets

    How a budget is compared against what you actually spent, what carrying over does, and why deleting a budget changes nothing in the ledger.

  • Agents and MCP

    Connect an AI assistant to your ledger, what it can do, and the two things that keep it from doing damage.

Reference

  • Configuration

    Every environment variable the server reads, what it defaults to, and which ones it refuses to start without.

Operations

  • Backups

    What to back up, how to restore it, and how to check that the backup you have is one you could actually use.