Finance in MyLife

How to set up a wallet with accounts, log expenses and income, stay within limits and review your spending in the budget overview, with pictures from the app.

11 min read
Contents
Step 1

How it works

Money tracking has three parts. There is one wallet, as many accounts inside it as you need, and every transaction belongs to a specific account.

👛

Wallet

One for the whole app. The total balance and all analytics are counted in its main currency.

💳

Accounts

A card, cash, savings, an account in another currency. Each has its own balance, currency and monthly limit.

🧾

Transactions

Expenses, income and transfers between accounts. They add up to your balance and statistics.

The Budget tab is where you work every day: log a purchase, check what happened yesterday, see how much is left. Everything else lives on separate screens, with buttons in the top row.

  • Budget Plan. A plan for the month: income, fixed and variable expenses, category limits.
  • Debts. “I owe” and “Owed to me” with reminders and a payment schedule.
  • Subscriptions. Recurring payments for services. On the payment day the expense is added automatically.

Next to “Debts” and “Subscriptions” there is a counter of active records. If a section is turned off in the app settings, its button is hidden.

The “Budget” tab: Budget Plan, Debts and Subscriptions buttons, total balance, accounts, the week and today's transactions
The “Budget” tab
🧭
On first launch the app created a wallet with a “Main” account and a set of categories based on your answers. You don't have to start with setup: log your first purchase and adjust accounts and categories later.
Step 2

Wallet and accounts

An account in the app mirrors a place where your money actually is: a card, cash, a savings jar. The more accurate your list of accounts, the less often the balance drifts from reality.

The “Wallet” screen opens from the pencil on the balance card or the add-account button in the accounts row. At the top is the list of accounts, at the bottom the total balance and the wallet's main currency. Drag accounts to reorder them, and they appear in the same order on the main screen.

Two account types

💳

Budget

A regular account: expenses come out of it and income goes into it. The limit means “I want to spend no more than this per month”, and progress is counted by spending.

Monthly limitExpensesIncome
🐷

Savings

A savings account: expenses can't be linked to it. The limit means “I want to save this much per month”, and progress is counted by income to this account in the current month. Transfers to savings don't count toward progress.

Monthly savingsIncome only

Account settings

  • 🏷️

    Name and currency

    An account's currency can differ from the wallet's main currency.

    Basic
  • 🎯

    Monthly limit

    For “Budget” it's a spending cap, for “Savings” it's a savings goal. Set it to zero for no limit.

    Optional
  • 💰

    Balance

    Enter the real amount, and the app creates an adjustment transaction for the difference.

    Optional
  • 👁️

    Display on main page

    A hidden account keeps working but doesn't take up space in the accounts row.

    Toggle
  • 🧮

    Calculate in total balance

    Turn it off for an account you don't want in the total, for example money in a brokerage account.

    Toggle
  • 🔗

    Expense and income categories

    Pick a category linked to an account in a transaction, and the account is filled in for you.

    Optional
⚡
Linking categories saves a step when you log transactions. On your card account, check “Groceries”, “Cafés” and “Taxi”, and on cash, whatever you pay for in cash. After that you only pick the category, and the right account is filled in. If you choose the account yourself, auto-fill turns off until you finish.
🗑️
When you delete an account, the app asks what to do with its transactions: delete everything or move them to another account. When moving, amounts are converted at the exchange rate if the currencies differ. You can't delete the last remaining account.
Step 3

Main screen

At the top you see how much you have, below are the calendar and the transactions for the selected day. The blue + button in the bottom right corner adds a transaction for that day.

The “Total balance” card showing $4,610 with a pencil and an arrow, and the Card, Cash and Savings accounts below 1 2 3 4 5
  1. Total balance: the sum of accounts with “Calculate in total balance” on. Below it, what's left of your “For a day” and “For a month” limits.
  2. The pencil opens the “Wallet”: accounts, their order and the main currency.
  3. The arrow expands the accounts row.
  4. Card pages. Swipe: the second page shows the current month's result, “Spent” and “Income”.
  5. Accounts: the balance of each. On the second page this shows the account's monthly result and a limit bar.

The app remembers which card page you looked at last time. Tap the balance card to open the budget overview for all accounts, or tap an account in the row to see the overview for that account alone.

📐
“For a month” equals the sum of the limits of all “Budget” accounts minus spending since the start of the month. “For a day” divides that remainder by the days left in the month: it tells you whether you can grab a coffee today. If no account has a limit, you'll see dashes instead of numbers.

Calendar and the day's transactions

The calendar strip marks days with transactions with dots, so gaps are easy to spot. Pick a day, and its list appears below: income, expenses and transfers mixed together, sorted by time. The list header shows the day's totals.

Today's transactions: Freelance +$1,200, Groceries −$110, Transport −$12, Cafés −$5
The day's transactions, with totals in the header: how much came in and how much went out
  • Tap a transaction to edit it. You can change anything, including the account and the date.
  • Swipe left to delete a transaction, and the balance is recalculated.
  • The next day the screen switches to today on its own, so you don't have to look for the current date.
Step 4

Expense, income, transfer

The + button opens one screen with three tabs. An expense or income is saved once it has an amount and a category: MyLife fills in the account itself. A transfer needs an amount and two accounts, from and to, plus the received amount if the currencies differ. Everything else is optional.

🧾

Expense

Where the money went: amount, category, account, date, life area, tags and a note.

💰

Income

Where the money came from. The same fields, but with its own category list and no tags.

🔄

Transfer

Money moves between your accounts. The total balance doesn't change.

How to log an expense

  1. Enter the amount

    The keyboard opens with the screen. The account name is in the title: tap it to pick another one.

  2. Pick a category

    The category grid fills the bottom of the screen. A category linked to an account fills in the account, and a category with a life area fills in the area too.

  3. Change the date if needed

    The day selected in the calendar is used by default. For today, the app also saves the time, so transactions line up in order.

  4. Add details

    Note, life area and tags. The app suggests tags based on the selected category and sorts them by how often you use them.

  5. Save

    The app recalculates the wallet and account balance, and the transaction appears in the day's list.

🎙️
iPhone and iPad only
Next to the “Save” button there are two buttons for quick entry. Microphone: say “12 dollars, taxi category”, and the app fills in the amount and finds the category by name. QR code: point the camera at the QR code on a store receipt, and the amount and purchase date are pulled from it.

Switching tabs doesn't erase what you've entered. Started logging an expense and realized it's income? The amount, date, note and account move to the other tab with you.

Transfer between accounts

Choose the account to send from and the account to send to, then enter the amount. With the same currency there is one field, with different currencies there are two: how much left and how much arrived. The app fills in the second one at the exchange rate, but it's better to type the exact received amount yourself, so your records match to the cent.

A transfer is neither an expense nor income: it doesn't show up in spending statistics and doesn't change the total balance, since the money just moved inside the wallet.

⭐
You can give transactions a future date: for example, to note a payment you'll definitely make on Friday. Such a transaction shows in the calendar on its day and is added to the balance when that day comes. Future dates are available with PRO.
Step 5

Categories

A category answers the question “what did the money go on”. The main chart in the budget overview is built from categories, so keep the list short and clear.

Expense and income categories are separate lists, opened with the gear above the category grid on the transaction screen. Drag to reorder them: keep the ones you use most at the top.

  • Emoji and name. The emoji shows in the grid and in the transaction list.
  • Color. The category's color on the overview pie chart.
  • Life area. Transactions in this category get the area automatically and count toward your life areas balance.
  • Visibility. The toggle hides a category from the grid without deleting its history.

Income categories have the same fields, color included: it's used on the income chart.

⚙️
Besides your own categories there are three system ones: “Subscriptions”, “Debts” and “Balance adjustment”. They aren't in the grid; the app applies them on its own when a subscription is charged, a debt moves or you correct an account balance. You can't delete them, but in the budget overview you decide whether to include them in statistics.
Step 6

Tags

Tags work like subcategories. A category answers “what for”, and a tag adds “as part of what”: a vacation, a renovation, the car, a specific store or person.

🏖 Vacation 24🔨 Renovation 12🚗 Car 9🎁 Gifts 5

One expense can have several tags. You log renovation costs under the usual categories (“Shopping”, “Taxi”, “Home”) and still see the total renovation cost as one number in the overview.

Tags are added on the expense screen: tap + in the tags row, find the one you need with search or create a new one right there. A tag remembers the categories you used it with and moves to the top of the list next time you pick the same category.

⭐
Tags and the spending-by-tags widget are part of PRO. Tags can only be added to expenses, not to income or transfers.
Step 7

Currencies and rates

The wallet has one main currency, and the total balance and all analytics are counted in it. Accounts can be in any currency.

When an account's currency differs from the main one, the transaction screen has two amount fields: on the left the amount in the account's currency, on the right the same amount in the wallet's currency. The app fills in the second field at the exchange rate, but you can edit it: if your bank used its own rate, enter the actual amount. That's the figure that goes into the total balance and statistics.

Rates are updated once a day. They are used to convert transactions, the total balance, transfers between accounts in different currencies and currency changes.

  • 💱

    Changing an account's currency

    The app converts the account balance and all its transactions at the current rate.

    Recalculated
  • 👛

    Changing the wallet's main currency

    The total balance updates, and the app converts transactions in other currencies at the exchange rate.

    Recalculated
  • 🔄

    Transfer between currencies

    You enter both amounts: how much was sent and how much was received.

    Manual
🌍
This setup comes in handy when traveling: create an account in the local currency, spend in it, and keep seeing your total balance in your home currency. If the currency you need isn't on the list, write to us and we'll add it.
Step 8

Balance and adjustments

Your balance is built from your transactions. When it doesn't match the money you actually have, enter the real amount, and the app records the difference as a separate transaction.

  • Account balance: income minus expenses on this account, plus and minus transfers, in the account's currency.
  • Total balance: the sum of accounts with “Calculate in total balance” on, converted to the main currency.
  • Future transactions aren't included in the balance: they are added when their day comes.

If the numbers don't match, something wasn't logged. No need to hunt for it by hand: open the account in the “Wallet”, tap the Balance row and enter the actual amount. The app creates an adjustment transaction for the difference: an expense in the system category “Balance adjustment” if you have less money, and income if you have more. You can set your own date for the adjustment, including a past one.

📊
Adjustments don't distort your statistics: by default they aren't counted in the budget overview or in the month's “Spent” amount. You can include them in the overview filter “What to include?”.
🚀
This is also a way to start tracking: create accounts and enter the current balance on each. The app records the starting amounts as adjustments, and from then on you log regular transactions.
Step 9

Budget overview

The overview opens from the main screen: tap the balance card to see all accounts, or an account in the row to see just that one.

There are three filters at the top, and they apply to both tabs of the screen. The app remembers the selected period and filters until next time.

  • Accounts. One, several or all. When all accounts are selected, transfers between them aren't counted: the money never left the wallet.
  • Period. Today, yesterday, week, month, year, a specific month or year, all time or a custom date range.
  • What to include. Balance adjustments and debt movements. Both are off by default.
Budget overview: income, spending and balance for October, the AI analysis entry and a pie chart of expense categories

The period summary is pinned at the top: income, spending and the difference between them. Below it is the entry to the AI review, then the widgets.

Any widget can be hidden or moved in the settings, opened with the gear in the top right corner.

The “Balance” widget as a line and “Income and expenses” as bars by month

Balance shows how your money changed day by day as a running total, so you can see when you went into the red.

Income and expenses are shown as bars by month for the selected year. You switch the year right in the widget.

The “Groceries” category screen: spending by month, limit $625, spent $466, $159 left

Tap an expense category in the chart to open its screen: spending for every month of the year, arrows to switch the year and the transactions for the selected month.

If the category has a limit in the Budget Plan, the screen shows it too: how much is spent, how much is left or how far you went over.

Overview widgets

  • 📈

    Balance

    How your money changed day by day as a running total.

  • 📊

    Income and expenses

    How much came in and how much went out each month of the selected year.

  • 🍩

    Expense and income categories

    Pie charts with a legend and amounts. Tap a category to open its screen or the list of transactions for the period.

  • 🏷️

    Tags

    Spending by tag: how much went on a vacation, a renovation or the car, on top of the usual categories.

    PRO
  • 🤖

    AI Finance

    The entry to your finance review: a score, warnings and recommendations.

    PRO

The “History” tab

All transactions for the period are grouped by day, each day with its own total. The header has a chart of the breakdown by category, which you can collapse. The “Display” filter switches the list: income and expenses, income only, expenses only. You can open and edit any transaction from here, for example when going over the month.

Step 10

AI Finance iPhone, iPad and Mac only

AI goes through your numbers and explains them in plain words: where things are off balance, what eats up the budget and what's worth changing.

There are weekly and monthly reports. The app calculates some of the numbers itself: income, expenses, savings, breakdown by category, trends by month. On top of that, AI gives a review: a financial health score, your safety cushion in months of living expenses, spending habits, debt load, a year-end forecast and recommendations.

📅

Weekly report

Requires at least 10 expenses in the past week.

🗓️

Monthly report

Requires at least 30 expenses in the past month.

Until there's enough data, the screen shows a checklist with progress and suggests what to add for a deeper review: income, a Budget Plan, subscriptions, debts.

⭐
AI Finance is part of PRO and requires signing in to your account, since the calculation runs on the server. Before the first run the app asks for consent to AI data processing, and you can turn AI features off in settings.
Step 12

Groups: shared budget

In a group you manage money together with your family, partner or team: you share the accounts and categories you choose, and the rest stay private.

  • Where to find it. On the “Budget” tab, tap the pencil on the balance card to open the “Wallet”. The two-people icon at the top leads to the “Groups” screen. You need to be signed in.
  • What members see. Shared accounts appear in their wallet next to their personal ones, and the balance card gets a group page. Other people's transactions show the author's emoji.
  • How to share an account. The owner chooses access for each account. “All transactions”: members see the balance and every transaction. “Own only”: everyone sees only what they logged themselves.
  • All about groups: roles, invitations, PRO →
The “Family” group page on the balance card: shared accounts and transactions with the authors' emoji
The “Family” group page
⭐
Creating and setting up a group is free. You can invite people as long as the group owner has PRO; members don't need a subscription.
Step 13

Statement import and report

You can bring your spending history from a bank or another budgeting app, and the app sorts the transactions into your categories. You can export transactions back as a CSV report.

  1. Download a statement

    Save a statement as a PDF in your bank's app, or export a CSV from another budgeting app.

  2. Choose the file

    On iPhone and iPad: Profile → settings → Import data → Choose a file. On Android, tap the file-with-plus icon on the balance card; in the web app, the Import button in the “Finance” section. MyLife recognizes the bank or app on its own. The account is matched by the statement's currency: if several fit, the app asks which one to use.

  3. Review and save

    On the “Import transactions” screen, fix the categories and remove anything extra, then tap “Save”. Don't close the screen while the file is being processed.

  • New categories. If you don't have a suitable category, the app suggests a new one, but no more than five per import. A new category has a ❔ icon: tap it to choose “Edit”, “Replace” with one of yours, or “Delete”.
  • Expenses and income. How many transactions will be added and for what amount.
  • Transactions by day. Each one has the description from the statement in its note. Tap a transaction to fix the amount, category or date, or swipe left to remove it from the import.
The “Import transactions” screen: new categories, expenses and income, the toggle for transfers between your own accounts, transactions by day
The “Import transactions” screen

What the app sets aside

  • 🔁

    Transfers between your own accounts

    Cash withdrawals and transfers to yourself. They aren't added, so your income and expenses aren't inflated. If you turn this on, they come in as expenses and income without a category.

    Off
  • 👯

    Already in your wallet

    This account already has a transaction of the same type and amount on the same or an adjacent day.

    Off
  • 🔍

    Need checking

    Rows that couldn't be matched against the statement. Check the amounts and dates, or turn them off so they aren't added.

    On

Each toggle only appears if such transactions were found. Purchase refunds go to income, in the “Refunds” category.

🏦

Works

A statement from any bank in PDF or CSV. Sber, T-Bank and exports from Dengi OK, Budget OK and Money Flow are read directly; statements from other banks are parsed by an AI model.

PDFCSVup to 10 MBup to 5,000 transactions
⚠️

Doesn't work

Excel files: save the spreadsheet as CSV. Scans and photos of a statement: the PDF must contain text, so download the electronic statement from your bank's app again.

🤖
Categories are picked by an AI model, so import works with AI features on and an internet connection. Before the first import the app asks for consent to AI processing, the same as for the assistant. The model receives the transaction descriptions, and for an unfamiliar bank also part of the statement. Card and account numbers are masked, only the last four digits are visible. The file itself isn't stored. Details are in the AI features terms.
⭐
For the first 7 days after your first import it's available to everyone, after that you need PRO. You can upload up to three files a day, and a failed upload doesn't use up an attempt. A statement from an unfamiliar bank is read by an AI model, which uses your monthly AI limit, shared with the assistant. You can't undo an import as a whole; extra transactions are deleted one by one.
💻
The Mac app has no “Import data” row: upload the statement from your phone, and the transactions reach your Mac via sync.

Creating a report iPhone, iPad and Mac only

Profile → settings → Export data. Pick accounts, categories, tags and a period, and the app builds a CSV file with the date, account, category, tags, note, currency and amount of each transaction. Transfers aren't included in the report. The report is part of PRO.

☁️
If you're signed in, your wallet, accounts, transactions, categories and tags sync across devices and the web app. Offline, everything works locally, and changes are sent once you're back online.
Step 14

Limits and PRO

Basic money tracking works without a subscription and with no limit on the number of transactions. PRO removes the account limit and unlocks tags, AI review and export.

  • 🧾

    Expenses, income, transfers

    Unlimited transactions.

    Free
  • 🗂️

    Categories

    Your own expense and income categories, colors, life areas, order.

    Free
  • 📊

    Budget overview and history

    Filters, periods, widgets and category screens.

    Free
  • 💳

    Accounts in the wallet

    Two accounts without a subscription, no limit with PRO.

    2 / PRO
  • 🏷️

    Tags and the spending-by-tags widget

    PRO
  • 🗓️

    Future-dated transactions

    PRO
  • 🤖

    AI Finance

    Weekly and monthly review with recommendations.

    PRO
  • 📥

    Statement import

    Available to everyone for the first 7 days after your first import.

    7 days / PRO
  • 📤

    CSV report export

    PRO
FAQ

FAQ

Why doesn't my total balance match the money on my card?
It means some transactions weren't logged or were logged inaccurately. Don't hunt for the difference by hand: open the “Wallet”, tap the account, tap the “Balance” row and enter the real amount. The app creates an adjustment transaction for the difference on its own: an expense if you have less money, and income if you have more. You can choose your own date for the adjustment.
I added an expense for tomorrow. Why didn't the balance change?
Future-dated transactions count as planned: they show in the calendar on their day and are added to the balance when that day comes. That way the balance reflects where things stand now. Future dates are available with PRO.
How is “Savings” different from a “Budget” account?
A “Budget” account is where expenses come out and income comes in, and its limit means “I want to spend no more than this per month”. “Savings” is for saving: expenses can't be linked to it, the limit means “I want to save this much per month”, and progress is counted by income to this account in the current month. Transfers to savings don't count toward progress.
What do “For a day” and “For a month” on the main screen show?
They show what's left of your monthly limits. “For a month” shows how much you can still spend before the month ends: the sum of the limits of all “Budget” accounts minus spending since the start of the month. “For a day” divides that remainder by the days left in the month. If no account has a limit, you'll see dashes instead of numbers.
How do I keep accounts in different currencies?
The wallet has a main currency, and each account has its own. When an account's currency differs from the main one, the transaction screen shows two fields: the amount in the account's currency and the same amount in the wallet's currency. The app fills in the second field at the exchange rate, but you can edit it, and the amount you enter is what goes into the total balance and analytics. Rates are updated once a day.
Why tags if there are categories?
Tags work like subcategories. A category answers “what for”, and a tag adds “as part of what”: “Vacation”, “Renovation”, “Car”, a specific store or person. One expense can have several tags, and the budget overview has a separate spending-by-tags widget. Tags are available with PRO.
What do “Adjustments” and “Debts” mean in the budget overview filter?
These are service transactions: balance adjustments and debt movements. By default they aren't included in statistics, so they don't distort the picture of your spending. You can turn them on in the “What to include?” filter if you want to see every money movement without exception.
How do I delete an account without losing transactions?
When you delete an account, the app offers two options: delete everything together with the transactions, or move the transactions to another account. In the second case amounts are converted at the exchange rate if the account currencies differ. You can't delete the last remaining account.
How many accounts can I have without a subscription?
Without a subscription you can create two accounts. Transactions, categories and history are unlimited. PRO removes the account limit and unlocks tags, future-dated transactions, the spending-by-tags widget, AI finance analysis and report export to a file.
Can I manage a budget together with my family?
Yes, with groups. Open the “Wallet” with the pencil on the balance card and tap the two-people icon at the top. Create a group, share the accounts and categories you need and invite people with a link. Members will log transactions to the shared accounts but won't see the rest of your finances. You can invite people as long as the group owner has PRO; members don't need a subscription. Read more on the “Sharing” page.
Can I move my history from another app?
Yes. On iPhone open “Profile” → settings → “Import data”; on Android tap the file icon on the balance card; in the web app, the “Import” button in “Finance”. Pick a bank statement in PDF or CSV, or an export from Dengi OK, Budget OK or Money Flow. The app recognizes the bank on its own, sorts transactions into your categories, sets aside transfers between your own accounts and transactions already in the wallet, and shows everything before saving. For the first 7 days after your first import it's available to everyone, after that with PRO. To export back, use “Export data”: pick accounts, categories, tags and a period and get a CSV file.
Read next
Budget PlanIncome, expenses and limits for the month Debts“I owe” and “Owed to me” SubscriptionsRecurring payments

Start with one purchase

Enter the real balance of your accounts and log your first expense. In a week, the budget overview will show where your money goes.

Download on theApp Store Download onRuStore OpenWeb app
Didn't find the answer?

Write to us: we'll answer and add it to the article.

Message us on Telegram