Import from Actual Budget

Bring your accounts, categories, transactions, transfers, and budget history from Actual Budget into Zerosum by exporting a backup and uploading it.

Export from Actual Budget

Actual Budget exports a full backup as a .zip file containing a SQLite database with all your budget data.

1. Open Actual Budget on your desktop or in your browser.
2. Go to Settings: click the gear icon or open the Settings section of your budget.
3. Click Export to generate a backup.
4. Download the .zip file and save it to your computer; you'll upload it to Zerosum.

ℹ️ Important: The backup contains a SQLite database with all your budget data: accounts, categories, transactions, and monthly budgeted amounts.

Import into Zerosum

Once you have the export file, the import walks you through reviewing your data before anything is saved.

1. Log into Zerosum at app.zerosum.so.
2. Open the import dialog: Import Budget from your budget name in the sidebar, or from the Manage Budgets page.
3. Select Actual Budget as the source.
4. Upload your .zip file: drag and drop it, or click to browse.
5. Review budget settings: confirm the budget name, currency, and other settings.
6. Review accounts: check the detected accounts and types. On-budget accounts import as Budget accounts; off-budget accounts import as Tracking accounts.
7. Click Import Budget to create your new Zerosum budget.

💡 Tip: Your data is parsed locally in your browser and never sent to our servers until you confirm the import.

What gets imported

• Budget accounts: on-budget accounts including checking, savings, and credit cards, with full transaction history.
• Tracking (off-budget) accounts: investments, assets, and anything tracked for net worth.
• Closed accounts: imported with closed status so their history is preserved.
• Categories and category groups: with the group structure from Actual preserved.
• Transactions: including their cleared and reconciled flags.
• Transfers: linked automatically between both sides.
• Split transactions: with all sub-entries intact.
• Monthly budgeted amounts: your historical budgeted amounts per category.
• Hold for Next Month settings: held income maps to Zerosum's For Next Month so the same money lands in the correct month.
• Payees: all payee names used in your transactions.
• Tags: #hashtags in transaction notes are extracted and created as Zerosum tags.

What doesn't get imported

Some Actual features have no direct equivalent in Zerosum and aren't included:

• Goals and targets: set up goals in Zerosum after importing.
• Transaction rules: automatic categorization rules aren't carried over.
• Scheduled transactions: recreate recurring schedules manually.
• Custom reports: saved reports aren't transferred.
• Payee rules and locations: payee matching rules and location data aren't included.

After your import

Account types

On-budget accounts import as Budget accounts; off-budget accounts import as Tracking accounts. Credit cards come in as Budget accounts; Actual's data model doesn't distinguish them from other on-budget accounts, so unlike the YNAB importer there's no per-card toggle. To use the Credit Card account model (auto-tracked Payment envelope, debt isolated from Ready to Budget), close the budget-account version of the card after import and re-add it as a Credit Card account.

Closed accounts

Closed accounts import with their closed status, and their transactions stay fully accessible in Zerosum, unlike some tools that hide or discard history from closed accounts.

Ready to Budget

Ready to Budget is calculated from all income transactions in your imported data. Review your first month after importing to make sure budgets look right.

Hold for Next Month

Actual offers two ways to hold income for next month: a one-off manual hold on the To Budget total, and an automatic hold per income category. Zerosum has a single equivalent: the For Next Month system category. When the importer detects either Actual feature, it automatically:

• Enables the For Next Month setting on your new budget so the category is available.
• Re-categorizes the held income transactions to the For Next Month category. Same transactions, amounts, and accounts; only the category changes.

The result: held income lands in next month's Ready to Budget just as it did in Actual. If your Actual budget never used either hold feature, the setting stays off and nothing changes. See the For Next Month article for how the feature works once enabled.

Rollover overspending

If you used Actual's "Rollover overspending" to keep a negative category balance instead of deducting it from next month's To Budget, Zerosum's equivalent is Carry over negative balances in Budget settings. With it on, an overspent category stays red across months, the same model as Actual's rollover.

⚠️ Warning: Actual lets you toggle rollover per category, per month; Zerosum's setting is budget-wide, applying to every category every month. If your Actual budget had moments where rollover was off (so a deficit was absorbed into the next month's To Budget) and you turn on Carry over negative balances after import, two things change together: today's Ready to Budget jumps up by the total of those past absorbed deficits, and the categories where they originated drop by the same amount. The two are equal and opposite: you didn't gain or lose money; the deficit just moved from "already absorbed by a past month" to "still on the category." If that's not what you want, leave the setting off, or fix the affected categories in the current month.

Recurring transactions

Recurring schedules aren't imported from Actual. After your import, set them up manually using Zerosum's recurring transactions feature.

⚠️ Warning: Loan accounts aren't available in Actual Budget. If you have debt to track, create loan accounts manually in Zerosum after import.

Where to next

• Learn about categories
• Set up goals