Shifting From MoneyBrilliant to PocketSmith

Welcome, one and all!

It’s great to see you here. Come on in, the water is fine! PocketSmith is a richly featured alternative to MoneyBrilliant, and you’ll soon be up and running and seeing your money in a completely new light.

This blog post will take you through getting your data imported into PocketSmith from MoneyBrilliant, discuss the options that are available to you during the process, and the decisions that were made while we built the tool.

Some good news is that you’re able to import nearly all of your data from MoneyBrilliant into PocketSmith: Your accounts, banks, transactions, categories, budgets, labels, notes and more. The Excel data export from MoneyBrilliant is the best that we’ve ever seen from any application, and we’re extremely happy to be able to provide tooling which allows you to get all your data set up in PocketSmith and ready to go.

A bit of background on us: We’ve been fully independent and bootstrapped since we were founded in 2008. Many other personal finance companies have come and gone, but by building the best tools that we’re proud to use ourselves, we’re focused on building a company to last.

That being said, it’s important to mention that: PocketSmith is primarily a premium application. We only make money through people just like you paying a fair price for great software — no tricks, kick-backs, or selling of user data.

PocketSmith has a free plan which is great for people with lesser needs, however, only paid plans get access to bank feeds. If you’re looking for bank feeds in a completely free application, you’ll be best served to look elsewhere (keeping in mind the adage that if you’re not paying for it, you are the product).

However — we currently have a special limited-time promotion, exclusive to ex-MoneyBrilliant users, which you can find here.

We’re excited for you to get kicked off, so let’s begin!

Step zero: All the steps listed for busy people

If you’re used to being forced to move between different personal finance applications (because — let’s face it — this isn’t the first closure we’ve seen), the following list quickly outlines the key steps that we describe in more detail deeper in the article.

1. Ensure your MoneyBrilliant accounts have unique names, as the data file assigns transactions via the “account name” and “user account name” - but different accounts can share the same name. Check that each account has a different name in MoneyBrilliant, before exporting.
2. Download your MoneyBrilliant Excel data file (Login > Settings > Export).
3. Import your MoneyBrilliant data file into PocketSmith using our Import tool.
   • Choose whether you want to import your Transactions, Budgets or both.
   • If you’ve imported data before or connected up feeds, choose “Delete all data before importing” to avoid duplicate accounts and transactions.
4. Set up your bank feeds from the Manage Feeds page, linking your new feed accounts to your imported MoneyBrilliant accounts.
5. Check out the Budgets page.
   • If you imported your budgets from MoneyBrilliant, look at your historical budget analysis by clicking on each category to show the Trends page.
   • If you didn’t import your budgets (or didn’t use their budgeting feature), try out the auto-budget tool by clicking on the link in the toolbar.
   • you can always reimport with or without your budgets, if you change your mind. Just choose to “Delete all data before importing” after you upload your file.
6. Check out the other features of PocketSmith, from the customizable dashboard, the forecast calendar and the Income & Expense report.

With the short version now out of the way, dip your peepers into the long version of this guide below!

Step one: export your data from MoneyBrilliant

MoneyBrilliant lets you export your data in an Excel spreadsheet, in .xlsx format. This contains all your accounts, transactions, categories, budgets, labels, and financial institutions stored in MoneyBrilliant. This Excel .xlsx file gets imported into PocketSmith in order to set up all this data at once. Just follow the steps below:

1. Sign in to your MoneyBrilliant account.

2. Check that each account has a different name in MoneyBrilliant. Transactions in the MoneyBrilliant export file belong to an account via their “account name” and “user account name”, so making sure each account has a different name ensures data integrity.

3. Click this link to go straight to the export page, or click “Settings” at the bottom of the left hand sidebar, and choose “Export” from the menu that appears.

4. Change the timeframe dropdown to “All time”, or another timeframe that suits you (we recommend exporting your “All time” data for posterity, even if you don’t import it now).

5. Click the Export button and wait for the file to be generated.

6. Once your download is ready, click the Download data link to save the file to your computer, then move on to the next step!

Step two: Import your MoneyBrilliant data into PocketSmith

Once you’ve created your account at PocketSmith, you’re ready to import your MoneyBrilliant Excel data file. The express import tool we’ve built creates all your existing categories, transactions, accounts, and financial institutions you had with MoneyBrilliant. Using the tool, you’re also able to optionally recreate the budgets that you already had set up in MoneyBrilliant.

1. Get to the import page

If you’ve just started, you’ll be on the “Let’s get started” screen. Click See more > at the bottom of the screen, then click the Import from other app button. A “Move from another app” popup will be shown — click the MoneyBrilliant logo.

If you’ve already started getting set up, you can head straight to the MoneyBrilliant express import tool. After you’ve uploaded your file, you’ll get the option to clear existing data before completing the import.

2. Upload your Excel file to the page

Click the button and select the file you downloaded from MoneyBrilliant. Once upload is complete, you’ll be able to choose which data you want to import: Your accounts, transactions and categories or just your budgets and categories.

The first option will import your accounts, transactions, financial institutions and categories. All labels and notes associated with your transactions will also be imported.

The second option will import your budgets, including the dates that your budgets started on, along with any amount changes that were made to your budgets as time went on. To match how MoneyBrilliant worked, your budgets will start on the 1st of the month, and will only be imported if they have an amount greater than 0.

If your account has existing data within it, you’ll also be shown a third checkbox offering to “Delete all data before importing”. It’s a good idea to select this if you’ve already connected bank feeds, but now want to import your MoneyBrilliant history — this will ensure you won’t have any duplicates. Your connected feed accounts will be removed, however the feeds will remain intact to relink to the accounts you’re importing from MoneyBrilliant.

Using the “Delete all data” checkbox will allow you to upload your file multiple times, to check out different options. For example, you can choose to import your budgets the first time, but if you then decide to use PocketSmith’s own auto-budget tool subsequently, you can upload your file again to clear things out.

Once you confirm your options and hit the button to continue importing, you’ll be shown a progress bar like the one below.

Note that the import process may take a few minutes if you’ve got many thousands of transactions, so please be patient! Don’t be alarmed if things appear to hang, especially at the “Calculating running balances” process at the end of importing transactions for each account. Just leave your browser window open, and go grab a coffee!

3. Rejoice and check out PocketSmith’s features

Awesome! Your MoneyBrilliant data is now in PocketSmith. You can head straight to your new Dashboard or peruse some of the other features under Reports.

This is also a good time to get feeds set up for your account, and linked up to the accounts that you’ve imported. PocketSmith is open banking-ready, and you can choose to connect to your banks via our CDR open banking partner Basiq, if you’re located in Australia. We also offer feeds via other data partners too, like Yodlee and Akahu. You’ll find more details on this in step five below.

Step three: Things to note if you imported your budgets from MoneyBrilliant

The way that MoneyBrilliant sets up your budget is a bit different from PocketSmith, meaning there are a few things to keep in mind if you choose to import your budgets when you’re getting set up above.

1. Where MoneyBrilliant only allowed budgeting for monthly amounts, PocketSmith’s forecasting engine enables non-monthly budget periods too — weekly, fortnightly, quarterly and everything in between. Life doesn’t strictly run from month to month! So while your budgets will be imported as monthly repeating budgets initially, you can change them to a different budget period subsequently.

2. Individual budgets (e.g. your Groceries budget) in PocketSmith belong to individual accounts, although spending across accounts counts towards spending within the budget. When your MoneyBrilliant budgets are imported, they’re assigned to the account that has the most transactions in a particular category. So if most of your Groceries spending occurs on your credit card, the budget will be assigned to your credit card account. This enables accurate forecasting on a per-account basis.

3. MoneyBrilliant sets up budgets at the top-level parent category only, but mostly assigns transactions to the subcategory. This means there is a slight disconnect — you’ll have an overall Groceries budget, but transactions are assigned to the “Fruit and Vegetables” subcategory. We resolve this by activating on the roll-up feature for all categories when you import from MoneyBrilliant by default, so that budget analysis remains correct.

If you find that the way that your budgets were set up in MoneyBrilliant doesn’t quite work for PocketSmith, you can either edit the budgets to suit, or reimport your data and skip importing your budgets. If you choose this option, you can make use of PocketSmith’s auto-budget tool described below instead.

Step four: Start your budgets and enter your bills based on your average spending

If you’ve chosen to not import your budgets from MoneyBrilliant, or you never used their budgeting feature, you can get up and running in PocketSmith very quickly. The brilliant part of budgeting in PocketSmith is that by adding your repeating budgets and bills, you’re generating a cashflow forecast for your accounts which lets you see your predicted bank balances at any point in the future.

In PocketSmith, each category can have a budget — an earning or spending target for a particular category, for a given budget period. Budgets are highly flexible and customizable in PocketSmith, and you can tweak each budget for each category to suit your needs. If you’d like, check out our budget tips and tricks article on the Learn Center.

To get started quickly, a great option is the auto-budget tool — if all your transaction data is accurately categorized. This analyses your entire categorized transaction history, calculates a suitable budget frequency and draws a line in the sand based on your previous spending. Once auto-budgets are set up, you can tweak and refine them from there. Now let’s get stuck in!

1. Head to the Budget page from the main menu of PocketSmith.

2. Click the auto-budget tool link, from either the toolbar or the section at the top of the Budget page.

1. The auto-budget popup

This will display the auto-budget tool popup — click the large green Start auto-budget tool button to start the budget calculation process. This might take a few moments, depending on how many transactions you have.

2. Your automatically created budgets

PocketSmith will show your automatically created budgets in the popup window. If any budgets are in a category that you don’t want to budget for — such as a large budget for Transfers — click the cancel dash icon that appears next to the budget when you hover over it. This will remove the auto-budget for that category, such as the “Household” budget in the screenshot below.

3. Your budget analysis

When you close the popup, you’ll see a budget analysis based your newly created budgets. You can edit a budget by clicking on the three-dot menu next to each budget and choosing “Edit / Delete budget”. If you want to see the detailed historical analysis of any given category’s budget, click on the category title.

4. Your budget in the Calendar

Once you’ve checked out your budget analysis, head to the Calendar page to see your budgets in a different format. You can edit individual budgets here, if you need to make changes after the auto-budget process — either all instances of a budget, or a single one. Just click a budget in the calendar to edit it, and you’ll be guided from there. It’s also where one of PocketSmith’s key features is clearest — your budgets come together with your current balance to forecast your financial future!

We’ve only scratched the surface of what PocketSmith can do with budgets here. From here, follow your nose and consult our Learn Center when you need to.

But now, let’s get the accounts you’ve imported linked to a bank feed to start receiving new data.

Step five: Connect your bank feeds to your accounts

In PocketSmith, bank feeds are a premium feature and are only available on paid plans. Once you’ve upgraded to a Premium or Super account, go to the Manage Feeds page to begin.

If you’re based in Australia, you’ll be able to take advantage of our open banking bank feeds, provided via our CDR open banking data sharing partner Basiq. These feeds are easy to spot in feed search results — just look for the Open Banking tag next to the feed results.

Check out our Learn Center for a guide which walks through getting your feeds set up, if needed. However, things have been designed to make hooking up feeds straightforward, if you’ve used bank feeds in MoneyBrilliant previously.

When your feed is connected, the next step is to link up your feed accounts to those you imported from MoneyBrilliant. This makes sure that no duplicate transactions nor accounts will be present. Just follow this guide on the Learn Center.

Step six: Enjoy your new personal finance experience

Congratulations, you’re here! We’re confident that you’ll enjoy using PocketSmith, and taking advantage of the flexibility that it can afford you. We’re dedicated to our craft, and love to hear from our users. Please always feel free to get in touch — our amazing support team are here to help.

Hearing stories of how PocketSmith has changed the way people manage their money nourish us, and we’re hopeful that soon you’ll have one of your own!

James is the CTO and co-founder at PocketSmith. He loves tech from software to hardware to music, and is passionate about technology being a net-positive in people’s lives. He lives off-grid with two humans, two axolotls, two rabbits, one dog, and too many possums.