Knowledge base

Budgero Docs

Master Budgero's zero-based budgeting system. Explore practical guides that explain how ready to assign behaves, how goals accelerate savings, how multi-currency accounts sync, and how to stay secure with zero-knowledge encryption.

Switching from YNAB? Start with our YNAB alternative comparison.

Step-by-step guidesZero-knowledge friendlyBudgets that scale with you

Getting started

Lay the groundwork for a secure, zero-based budget. These guides help you set up the essentials so Budgero feels tailored to your household from day one.

5 guides

Zero-based budgeting

Learn the zero-based budgeting methodology and see how Budgero's systems keep every unit of cash assigned with purpose.

Grasp the core principles behind zero-based budgeting and why every unit begins at zero.
Map Budgero features like Ready to Assign, categories, and goals to each step of the methodology.
Build review habits with Budgero's reconciliation and reporting tools so your plan always reflects reality.

Self-Hosting Guide

Complete guide to deploying Budgero on your own infrastructure with Docker, native binaries, environment configuration, and optional integrations.

Deploy Budgero using Docker or native binaries on any platform.
Zero configuration required - admin account auto-created on first run.
Optionally configure currency conversion API for multi-currency support.

Budget currency

Choose the currency that anchors your budget and learn how Budgero keeps multi-currency accounts and reports in sync.

Know what the budget currency controls across Ready to Assign, dashboards, and reports.
Understand how Budgero converts multi-currency accounts using monthly exchange rates and manual fallbacks.
Change the budget currency confidently and learn how the recalculation behaves in cloud and desktop builds.

Ready to assign

Ready to Assign is the heartbeat of Budgero's zero-based budgeting system. It shows exactly how much of your available cash still needs a job.

Learn where Ready to Assign appears and how to use the allocation calculator.
Understand the events that increase or decrease Ready to Assign automatically.
Master the allocation field's math operations for quick budget adjustments.

Personalizing Budgero

Make Budgero look and behave the way you want. Pick a theme and font, choose how the budget table and home page are laid out, hide sensitive numbers, install the app, and decide whether assignments can exceed Ready to Assign.

The five themes, light/dark control, and the Budgero Classic font picker.
Budget table layouts for desktop and mobile, account order, and which page Budgero opens to.
Privacy mode for hiding numbers, installing Budgero as an app, and the over-assignment toggle.

Budget building blocks

Learn the core mechanics of Budgero’s zero-based budgeting model, from structuring category groups to planning long-term goals.

4 guides

Category groups

Structure your budget around the priorities that matter most. Group recurring bills, true expenses, and savings targets into categories that match your rhythms.

A recommended blueprint for monthly, non-monthly, and savings categories.
How Budgero's default groups work and when to build from scratch instead.
What system groups (Income, Uncategorized, Transfers) do behind the scenes.

Translate real-life jobs for your money into actionable categories with clear intentions and balances you can check at a glance.

How Available balances roll over month to month, including overspending.
Why cash overspending and credit overspending behave differently.
What deleting a category really does — and when Budgero will stop you.

Use Budgero goals to stay accountable to future spending. Dial in amounts and timelines that match the way you save, and let the app compute what to assign.

The four goal types and when each one fits.
How Budgero computes "needed this month" for every type.
What the status colors mean and how to fund all goals in one click.

Assigning money

Follow the workflow for moving funds from Ready to Assign into the categories that need them, with tools for covering overspending and funding future months.

The three ways to assign — inline edits, Move Money, and quick actions.
How Ready to Assign reacts to every assignment you make.
How to resolve overspending and budget into future months safely.

Accounts & imports

Keep every account in sync and understand how Budgero treats historical data so your reports always reflect reality across currencies.

5 guides

Add checking, savings, cash, credit, and tracking accounts with confidence. Learn how balances, currencies, and reconciliation work together.

Which account types live on-budget, off-budget, or let you choose.
How multi-currency accounts convert into your budget currency.
The reconciliation workflow and what archiving an account preserves.

Hold accounts in 168 currencies inside one budget. Learn how conversion works, where rates come from, and how to override them when reality disagrees.

How every foreign transaction stores both an original and a converted amount.
The rate hierarchy - per-transaction overrides, custom rates, fetched rates, manual rates.
Workflows for matching statements, travel spending, and offline budgeting.

Track credit cards, loans, and mortgages in Budgero. Learn how each debt type affects your budget differently and how to pay down debt intentionally.

Understand how credit cards differ from loans and mortgages.
Learn how CC Payment categories automatically track money set aside for your card.
Master debt payoff by budgeting for loan categories.

Import your YNAB data without losing momentum. Understand what comes over automatically, what needs rebuilding, and how to land cleanly.

What Budgero imports from your YNAB export — and what it can't.
The post-import checklist - account types, debt linking, and goals.
Why you should export from YNAB before your subscription lapses.

CSV import & export

Bring in transaction history from your banks and export complete backups you can use for tax season, accountants, or deeper analysis.

Supported file formats and how the column-mapping preview works.
How to avoid duplicates when combining imports with manual entry.
What the export produces - a full CSV bundle plus a database backup.

Collaboration & privacy

Share budgets with your household while keeping zero-knowledge promises intact. Learn how permissions and encryption safeguards your data.

4 guides

Master password

Understand why your master password never leaves your device and learn best practices for keeping it safe and memorable.

Why Budgero can reset your master password but never recover your data.
How to create a strong passphrase you will still remember.
How session unlock works and how to tune it to your risk tolerance.

Sharing budgets

Invite your partner or household, keep everyone in sync, and understand how encryption keys are shared without ever touching the server.

How invite links work and why the secret never reaches the server.
What Owners and Members can each do in a shared budget.
Practical conventions that keep a shared budget from becoming a shared mess.

Dig into Budgero's end-to-end encryption design, what the server can and cannot see, and what happens if you lose a device.

How envelope encryption turns your master password into working keys.
Exactly which metadata the server sees - and which data it never can.
What losing a device means in practice, and how to prepare for it.

Budget on flights or rural getaways. Understand how Budgero queues changes, merges concurrent edits, and keeps ledgers consistent once you reconnect.

How offline edits are queued locally and replayed on reconnect.
What happens when two people edit the same budget offline.
The few things that genuinely need a connection - and their workarounds.

Integrations & API

Automate Budgero by sending encrypted transactions from other systems. Use the Push API to keep your budget up to date without manual imports.

4 guides

Recurring transactions

Plan bills, paycheques, and future spending before they happen. Set up recurring schedules with reminders, or date a one-off transaction in the future — and see both coming on the dashboard.

How recurring templates, occurrences, and the Mark ready flow work together.
Scheduling a one-off future transaction straight from the transaction form.
What the dashboard Upcoming transactions card shows and how far it looks ahead.
How projected rows and future date ranges turn the account register and reports into a cashflow forecast.

Automate transaction cleanup with rules — match on payee, memo, amount, or account, then categorize, rename, and adjust automatically.

The three rule modes - Continuous, One Time, and Autofill - and when each runs.
Every condition and action available, and how multiple rules combine.
Retro runs, run history, and the one-click undo safety net.

Send encrypted transactions into Budgero from any system using the Push API or the Python SDK.

Generate a Push API token and export your space encryption key from Settings → Integrations → Push API.
Encrypt a transactions.add payload with AES-GCM, Base64-encode it, and POST to /api/v1/push with a bearer token; use message_id to dedupe retries.
Use the Python SDK to handle encryption, message ids, and queue visibility (pending/processed/failed).

Email bridge (no coding)

Forward bank alert emails straight into Budgero via the Push API using a local Python helper—no coding background required, no bank passwords shared.

Install Python + VS Code, generate a Budgero Push API token and encryption key, and save them in a local .env file.
Use the starter bridge script to read bank alert emails, let AI craft a parser for your bank, and test safely in dry-run mode.
Push encrypted transactions into Budgero with the Python SDK; schedule the script to run automatically once it’s validated.

Have a question we haven't covered?

Email [email protected] and we'll point you to the right guide or create a new one.