How this tool works

Everything stays in your browser's localStorage on this device. Nothing is sent to a server, no account is required, and there's no analytics tracking your inputs.

That also means each browser is its own silo: data entered in Chrome on your laptop won't show up in Safari on your phone unless you move it across yourself (see profile export below).

It's gone. Clearing site data, using a private window, or switching browsers will wipe everything stored here.

Use the Export button in the profile bar at the top of any page to download a JSON backup of all your profiles. Keep that file somewhere safe (cloud drive, email to yourself), then use Import to restore it on any device.

Yes, but you have to sync manually. Export your profiles on device A, transfer the JSON file to device B, and import it. There's no cloud sync - that would defeat the privacy-first design.

The site is HTTPS-only, sets standard security headers (CSP-style content type, frame-options, referrer policy), and processes everything client-side. No financial data ever leaves your device. Bank CSV files are read in-browser via the FileReader API and never uploaded anywhere.

A profile is a snapshot of all four tabs (Plan, Track, Invest, Debt) bundled together. Switching profiles reloads every open tab simultaneously, so you can keep separate setups - for example a real one and an experimental "what if I quit my job" one - without them mixing.

Add one when you want to model a different life situation alongside your real numbers - a possible job change, moving house, a partner's finances, or simply a sandbox for trying out scenarios. Otherwise, one profile is fine.

Yes - when adding a profile you can pick from three pre-built samples (Starter, Mortgage household, Debt-free focus). Each pre-fills realistic numbers across Plan, Investments, and Debt so you can see the tool working before entering your own data.

Net. Use the figure that actually lands in your account after tax, NI, pension, and student loan deductions. The tool doesn't know your tax code or pension contributions, and modelling those well is what the Excelergy pension planner is for.

Each income, outgoing, or transfer can be marked as monthly, 4-weekly, weekly, or annual. The engine normalises everything to monthly behind the scenes - a £52 weekly grocery shop becomes £225.33/month (£52 × 52 ÷ 12), not £208.

A predictable but lumpy annual cost - car insurance, MOT, Christmas, a holiday - that you save up for monthly so it doesn't blindside you. Enter the annual amount; the engine smooths it across 12 months and includes it in your "money left this month" figure.

Sinking funds intentionally don't have an account assigned; they're earmarked future spend, not a real per-month transfer.

The mental model: your savings account is the bucket, and sinking funds are labels on the money inside it. One savings account holds all of them. The app tracks the labels.

One-time setup:

1. Add your savings account on Plan, Accounts (for example, HSBC Savings).
2. Add a monthly transfer from your current account to the savings account, equal to the total of all sinking funds divided by 12.
3. Add each sinking fund on Plan, Sinking funds with its annual amount and category (car insurance to Transport, Christmas to Miscellaneous, and so on).
4. Set up the same standing order in real life at your bank, so the actual money matches the plan.

When a bill arrives (for example, car insurance renewal at £650):

1. Move £650 from the savings account back to your current account, in your banking app.
2. Pay the bill from current account.
3. In Track, categorise the £650 outgoing as the sinking fund's category (Transport, in this case). The transfer between your own accounts gets categorised as Transfer so it doesn't double-count.

That's it. You never log anything against the sinking fund directly. Sinking funds are a planning concept, not a ledger. They tell you how much should be sitting in savings right now; the actual money lives in the bank.

Three rules that keep it simple:

1. One savings account, all sinking funds in it. Don't split into a separate bank account per fund. The labels live in the app, not the bank.
2. The real-life standing order must match the planned transfer. If they drift, your savings balance won't match what the app says you should have accrued.
3. When a bill is paid, categorise it as the fund's category (Transport, Housing, and so on), never as Savings & goals. The money already counted as savings when you transferred it in.

What to check after a few months:

• The sinking funds summary tile shows how much should have accrued. Compare it to your real savings balance. If the bank is lower, you're dipping in for unplanned things. If higher, you can probably trim a contribution.
• The 50/30/20 balance check panel always counts sinking funds as Savings, even if their category is Transport or Housing, so your savings rate stays accurate.

If you split your money across multiple bank accounts (current, bills, savings, joint) you can list them and tag each income or outgoing to the right one. The Per-account flow table then shows whether each pot is in surplus or shortfall - useful for spotting "the bills account runs out by the 28th" patterns.

Transfers are standing orders between your own accounts. They don't affect your overall surplus, but they make the per-account view accurate.

It pulls that line item into the Subscription tracker panel with its annual cost shown alongside the monthly. Handy for the "wait, I'm spending £400/year on streaming?" moment.

Tick "Track a goal", set a target amount, current balance, and target date. The engine calculates the monthly amount you'd need to save and compares it to your actual surplus. If your surplus covers the required monthly, you're "On track"; otherwise it's "Off track" and shows the gap.

The 12-month ledger gains a Goal balance column showing the running total assuming you save all your surplus.

Yes. The category dropdown on any outgoing or sinking fund row has a "+ Add custom…" option at the bottom. New categories appear in every dropdown immediately and persist across reloads.

Almost certainly. The importer doesn't assume any specific format - after you upload, you map each column (date, description, amount) yourself, with sensible auto-guesses based on the header names. UK bank exports from Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Monzo, Starling, Nationwide, etc. all work.

Both single-amount-column ("negative = out") and separate Debit/Credit column layouts are supported.

Five formats are selectable in the importer: DD/MM/YYYY, DD-MM-YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD (ISO), DD MMM YYYY (e.g. "02 May 2026"), and MM/DD/YYYY for US exports. Pick the one your bank uses.

Rules auto-categorise transactions whose description contains a piece of text. For example, a rule "tesco → Food & groceries" tags every transaction with "tesco" in the description as Food & groceries on import. The fastest way to build them is the +rule button next to any transaction - it derives a sensible pattern from the description and uses that row's existing category.

Rules only fill in blanks by default. Use Re-apply to all if you want to overwrite manual edits too.

UK bank statements append a payment-type suffix to the description: DD = Direct Debit, SO = Standing Order, VIS/CRD = card payment, BGC = bank giro credit, FPI/FPO = faster payment in/out, and so on. The tool detects them and surfaces them as a separate Type column you can filter by.

If your bank uses a code that's not recognised, type it into the Type field - it'll be remembered and applied to other transactions ending in the same suffix.

Two transactions are considered the same when they share a date, an amount (to two decimal places), and a case-insensitive trimmed description. On import, duplicates of existing transactions are skipped automatically. The Find duplicates button scans your existing data and offers to remove duplicate rows, keeping the copy with the most metadata (category + account).

It analyses your imported debits, groups them by merchant, calculates the monthly average, and offers each as a suggested outgoing for your Plan. Review the labels and amounts, deselect anything you don't want, and click to push them across. A useful way to seed a Plan from real spending instead of guessing.

Six types: Stocks/Shares, ISA/Funds, Crypto, Property, Pension, and Other. Each holding records a label, type, cost basis (what you paid in), current value (what it's worth now), monthly contribution, and an optional note.

No. Prices are entered manually. Live price feeds would mean external API calls, which would break the privacy-first promise (and most free APIs have rate limits and reliability issues anyway). Update values when you feel like it - quarterly is plenty for a planning tool.

Total current value minus total cost basis, expressed as a percentage of cost basis. It's a simple unrealised gain/loss across all holdings - not a time-weighted return, and it doesn't account for when you bought.

Avalanche pays minimums on everything then throws all extra cash at the highest-APR debt first. Mathematically optimal - you pay the least interest overall.

Snowball attacks the lowest-balance debt first. You pay slightly more interest, but each cleared debt is a motivational win and it can be the right choice if momentum matters more than maths.

Custom lets you set the order yourself - useful if a specific debt is tied to a subscription, a relationship, or peace of mind. The strategy comparison panel shows how much extra interest a non-avalanche choice will cost you in £.

Many credit cards and loans run at a low promotional rate (often 0% or 1.9%) for a fixed period, then jump to a higher follow-on APR. Click the clock icon on any debt row to set a current rate and the date it ends. The engine uses the promo rate until that date, then switches to the main APR - so payoff projections stay realistic.

Card and loan providers require a minimum each month. The engine pays minimums on everything as a baseline, then directs any extra cash at the priority debt. The "extra monthly" field is what you can afford on top of the minimums.

It shows what happens if you put an extra £25, £50, £100, £200, or £500 a month at the debt - payoff date, total interest, months saved, interest saved versus minimums-only. A quick way to see whether finding an extra £50 a month is worth it (usually: yes, by a lot).

No. It's a planning tool. The maths is correct, but only you know your full situation, risk tolerance, and tax position. For regulated advice, talk to a qualified IFA. For free, impartial guidance, MoneyHelper is excellent.

Yes - every page is responsive and you can install it as a home-screen app on iOS and Android (Share → Add to Home Screen). Once installed it opens in standalone mode like a native app.

Once visited, the pages and data live in your browser, so revisits work without a connection. Full offline support via service worker is staged for a later release once the UI stabilises.

It's a sister project to the Excelergy pension planner - same philosophy, same architecture. No accounts, no ads, no upsells. There's nothing to monetise because there's no data being collected.

Email hello@excelergy.co.uk with what you tried, what you expected, and what happened. Screenshots help. Since the tool is in active development, feedback genuinely shapes what gets built next.

Yes - replay the welcome tour. It walks through the cycle-start day and offers to seed a sample profile.