Limits
Every limit you can reach in Simple Balance, from 3 accounts on the free plan to 10,000 rows in one import, and what to do when you reach one.
Simple Balance doesn’t limit how many transactions you keep or how many currencies you use. The free plan limits how many accounts you can use at once, and a few actions stop at a set size. This page lists each limit, what you’ll see when you reach it, and what to do about it.
The quoted messages are what the app shows, word for word.
Accounts and your plan
| Limit | Size | When you reach it |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts in use on the free plan | 3 | New account is grayed out, with “A free plan keeps 3 accounts active, and this ledger has 3. Archive or delete one to free a place, or upgrade under Settings.” Archived accounts don’t count, but restoring one needs a free place too. Premium has no account limit. |
| A failed Premium renewal | 15 days | Premium keeps going for 15 days after the payment fails, and Plan and billing names the day it stops. After that you’re on the free plan until what’s owed is paid, and accounts past the 3 in use are frozen: readable and counted, but closed to changes. |
Your account and plan covers upgrading, renewals and choosing which accounts stay usable.
Importing and exporting
| Limit | Size | When you reach it |
|---|---|---|
| Size of one CSV file | 10 MB | The file is refused with “CSV exceeds the 10485760-byte limit”. Download a shorter date range from your bank and import it in parts. |
| Rows in one CSV file | 10,000 | “CSV exceeds the 10000-row limit. A larger export can be filtered by date and imported one range at a time.” Split it by date, as it says. |
| Rows in one export | 100,000 | Export CSV is refused with “Export exceeds 100,000 rows. Narrow it with a start and end date and export one range at a time.” Set the dates to a shorter range, export, and repeat for the next range. |
Rows are counted after the header row, and blank lines don’t count. Importing a statement covers the importer.
Changing many at once
| Limit | Size | When you reach it |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions or staged rows in one commit, edit or delete | 10,000 | On Transactions: “That covers more than 10,000 transactions, which is the most one request may change at a time. Narrow it and repeat.” On Staged, a selection stops at 10,000 and the screen says “Bulk actions are limited to 10,000 rows at a time.” Narrow the dates or filters, act on that part, and do the rest next. |
| Categories or payees in one merge | 100, plus the one you keep | Merge the first 100 into the one you keep, then merge the rest into it in a second pass. |
One import stages at most the same 10,000 rows one commit covers, so a whole import always fits in one commit. Changing many transactions at once has the steps.
Transactions, templates and recurring transactions
| Limit | Size | When you reach it |
|---|---|---|
| Categories in one split | 50 | Add a category stops working and the form says “A split can name up to 50 categories.” Enter the rest as a second transaction. |
| Templates | 200 | Saving another is refused with “You can keep 200 templates. Delete one you no longer use to make room.” |
| Recurring transactions | 200 | Saving another is refused with “You can keep 200 recurrences. Delete one you no longer use to make room.” |
| How often something repeats | 1 to 366 | The Every N box on a recurring transaction or a template reminder takes 1 to 366 days, weeks, months or years. |
Budgets, the forecast and reports
| Limit | Size | When you reach it |
|---|---|---|
| Periods a budget averages | 1 to 24 | The box for how many months (or weeks, quarters or years) to average won’t take a number outside that. |
| Funded first | Up to 9,999 | Lower numbers are funded first. Leave it blank for unranked, which is funded last. |
| How far back a carry-over looks | 120 periods before the first one on the page | Ten years of months, or about two and a third years of weeks. A note under the budgets says where the carry was worked out from, and adds “That is as far back as this page looks, so the carry starts from nothing there rather than from the beginning of the budget.” when it reached the limit. |
| How far ahead the forecast goes | 24 periods | What happens next offers 3, 6, 12 or 24 periods ahead. When it counts what you usually spend, it averages the last 3, 6 or 12. |
| Columns in one report | 600 | “That range needs more than 600 week columns, which is the most a report will draw. Ask for a coarser bucket or a shorter range.” 600 weeks is about eleven and a half years. Set Group by to Monthly instead, or pick shorter dates. Budgets stops at 600 periods the same way. |
| Rows in an account’s register | 10,000 | “That range holds 12500 postings, and 10000 is the most a register will list. Ask for a shorter range.” The first number is however many the range holds. Pick shorter dates on the account’s page. |
Budgets, Planning ahead and Reports cover each of these screens.
Names and text
A box that’s too long is refused with a message like “A payee must be 160 characters or fewer”.
| What you type | Most characters |
|---|---|
| Account name | 120 |
| Institution on an account | 160 |
| Notes on an account | 2,000 |
| Category name | 120 |
| Group name | 80 |
| Payee | 160 |
| Description | 240 |
| Notes on a transaction, a template or a recurring transaction | 4,000 |
| Note on one category of a split | 240 |
| Template name | 120 |
| Recurring transaction name | 120 |
Passwords and sign-in links
| Limit | Size | When you reach it |
|---|---|---|
| Password length | 12 to 128 characters | The form won’t accept a password outside that. |
| Sign-in attempts | 3 in 10 seconds from one address | The sign-in is turned away for trying too often. Wait a few seconds and try again. |
| The link in the email confirming your address | 1 hour | Sign in anyway and a fresh link is sent. |
| The link in a password reset email | 1 hour, and it works once | Press Forgot your password? again for a new one. |
| Adding a password to an account made with Google | 15 minutes after signing in | “Sign in again before adding a password, so that a session on its own cannot add one.” Sign out, sign in with Google, and set the password straight away. |
On a copy you run yourself
A copy you host yourself has no plan, so it has no account limit unless you
set it up to sell one, and it shows no ads unless you set those up too. Its
import limits can be changed:
CSV_MAX_BYTES raises or lowers
the file size, up to 100 MB, and CSV_MAX_ROWS can lower the row limit but
not raise it past 10,000. Apart from the plan and those two import limits,
every other limit on this page is the same on every copy.