Importing Transactions

Importing transactions from your bank lets you quickly add hundreds of transactions at once. Financio guides you through a simple four-step process: upload your file, map the columns, review the transactions, and import.

Supported File Formats

Financio accepts two common bank statement formats:

Most banks let you download transactions as CSV from their internet banking portal. Look for an "Export" or "Download" option in your transaction history.

Step 1: Upload Your File

1. Go to Accounts and select the account you want to import into
2. Click Import in the account header
3. Drag and drop your file onto the upload area, or click to browse

The file is processed locally in your browser—your bank data never leaves your device until you choose to import.

Step 2: Map Your Columns

After uploading, Financio shows a preview of your data and asks you to identify which columns contain which information.

Required Mappings

Optional Mappings

Amount Column Options

Banks format amounts differently. Financio handles both common approaches:

Single Amount Column — One column contains positive numbers for deposits and negative numbers for withdrawals (or vice versa).

Separate Debit/Credit Columns — Two columns, one for money going out (debit) and one for money coming in (credit).

Select the option that matches your bank statement format.

Inverting Amounts

Some banks export credit card statements with charges as positive numbers and payments as negative. This is backwards from how Financio tracks expenses (expenses should be negative, reducing your balance).

Tick the Invert amounts checkbox to flip the signs:

• Positive becomes negative (charges become expenses)
• Negative becomes positive (payments become income)

Auto-Detection

Financio attempts to automatically detect your column mappings by:

1. Checking column headers for keywords like "Date", "Amount", "Description"
2. Analysing the data to identify date formats and numeric values

If auto-detection doesn't match your file, simply select the correct column from each dropdown.

Saved Mappings

Once you've mapped columns for an account, Financio remembers your settings. The next time you import into the same account, your mappings are automatically applied.

If your bank changes their export format, you can update the mappings and the new settings will be saved.

Step 3: Review Transactions

Before importing, review the transactions to ensure everything looks correct.

Transaction Preview

The preview shows each transaction with:

• Date
• Description
• Merchant (if mapped)
• Amount
• A checkbox to include or exclude from import

Selecting Transactions

By default, all transactions are selected for import. You can:

• Click individual checkboxes to deselect specific transactions
• Use Select All or Deselect All to change everything at once
• Only selected transactions will be imported

Duplicate Detection

Financio automatically checks for transactions that may already exist in your account. Potential duplicates are:

• Highlighted with a warning indicator
• Automatically deselected to prevent double-entry
• Shown with details about the matching transaction

Opening Balance Date

If your import includes transactions dated before your account's opening balance date, Financio offers two options:

Import all and adjust opening date — Moves your opening balance date earlier to accommodate all transactions. Your opening balance amount is recalculated to maintain accurate account balances.

Import only transactions since opening date — Skips transactions dated before your opening balance date. Use this if you've already accounted for earlier transactions or if they're from before you started tracking.

Date Range Limit

Imports are limited to a maximum span of 12 months. If your file contains transactions spanning more than a year, you'll need to split it into smaller files or adjust the date range.

Step 4: Import

Click Import to add the selected transactions to your account. A progress indicator shows the import status.

Import Results

After importing, you'll see a summary showing:

• Total transactions imported
• Any transactions that were skipped
• Transactions where automation rules were applied
• Transactions with AI category suggestions

Automation Rules Applied

If you have automation rules set up, they're automatically applied during import. The results show which transactions were categorised, tagged, or modified by your rules.

This is one of the biggest time-savers when importing—set up rules once, and future imports are automatically organised.

Transfer Detection

When you import transactions, Financio automatically checks whether any might be transfers between your accounts. This saves you from manually identifying and converting transfers.

How it works:

After import, Financio looks for transactions in your other accounts that:

• Have the same amount (but opposite sign)
• Are dated within two days of the imported transaction
• Are uncategorised

If matches are found, a transfer icon appears next to the transaction in your import results. Click the icon to see the potential match.

Reviewing transfer matches:

For each potential match, you'll see:

• The imported transaction details
• The matching transaction from another account
• The account name where the match was found

You have two options:

• Confirm as Transfer — Converts both transactions to a linked transfer. Categories and tags are removed (transfers don't have categories).
• Not a Transfer — Dismisses the match, allowing AI category suggestions to load for that transaction.

AI Category Suggestions

Financio's AI analyses your imported transactions and suggests categories based on:

• The merchant name
• The transaction description
• Your previous categorisation patterns

Transactions identified as potential transfers won't receive AI suggestions until you dismiss the transfer match. This prevents you from accidentally categorising a transfer.

For each suggestion, you can:

• Accept — Apply the suggested category to this transaction
• Accept & Create Rule — Apply the category AND create an automation rule for similar future transactions
• Dismiss — Ignore the suggestion

Undoing an Import

Changed your mind? When you click View Account after importing, a banner appears at the top of the account page offering to Undo Import. This removes all transactions from that import in one action.

Finishing Up

Click View Account to see your newly imported transactions in the account. From there, you can:

• Review and adjust any categories
• Add tags to transactions
• Edit transaction details

Best Practices

Regular Imports

Import transactions weekly or fortnightly to stay on top of your finances. Smaller, regular imports are easier to review and categorise than months of backlog.

Check Your Balance

After importing, compare your account balance in Financio with your actual bank balance. If they don't match:

• Check for missing transactions
• Look for duplicates that were imported twice
• Verify your opening balance is correct

Set Up Rules First

Before importing a large backlog, consider setting up automation rules for your most common merchants. This significantly reduces the manual categorisation work after import.

Use Consistent File Sources

Stick to the same export format from your bank. Different formats may require re-mapping columns, and slight variations in how merchants or descriptions are formatted can affect automation rules.

Troubleshooting

Columns Not Detected

If Financio can't auto-detect your columns:

• Ensure the file has a header row with column names
• Check that date values are in a recognizable format (DD/MM/YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD, etc.)
• Manually select the correct columns from the dropdowns

Wrong Transaction Types

If income appears as expenses or vice versa:

• Try enabling the Invert amounts option
• Check whether your bank uses positive or negative numbers for withdrawals

Dates Not Parsing

If dates show incorrectly or as invalid:

• Check your bank's date format (Australian banks typically use DD/MM/YYYY)
• Ensure there are no extra characters in the date column
• Try re-exporting from your bank with a different date format option

Large Files Slow to Process

For files with thousands of transactions:

• Split into smaller monthly files
• Close other browser tabs to free up memory
• Use a desktop browser rather than mobile