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Open Net Worth Docs

Adding your first account and transactions

The quickest way is to let Lucius do it during your first run — send him a screenshot of your banking app and he adds the accounts. This page is for doing it by hand. Both ways write to the same book.

1. Add an account

  1. Open Accounts in the sidebar and click Add account.

  2. Name — what you call it, for example “Everyday account”.

  3. Account type — click it to choose one of seven types (you can search, for example “401k”, “mortgage” or “credit card”):

    TypeWhat it’s for
    CashBank, e-wallet, physical cash · spendable · in budget
    Fixed depositTime-locked cash · counts to net worth, not spendable
    InvestmentBrokerage or crypto exchange · holdings + settlement cash
    RetirementCPF, SRS, pension · locked until retirement
    ReceivableMoney someone owes you
    CreditCredit card, BNPL, line of credit · paid from cash · in budget
    LoanMortgage, car, personal, student, margin loan

    A checking or savings account is Cash. The type decides how the account counts toward your net worth and whether it’s in your budget.

  4. Currency — the account’s own currency. It doesn’t have to match your base currency.

  5. Current balance — what’s in it today. For a Credit or Loan account the field is Amount currently owed: enter what you owe as a positive number, and it’s tracked as a debt.

  6. Click Add account.

To add optional details later — institution, last 4 digits, a note, and for cards and loans the interest rate, credit limit and statement and payment days — open the account, click the More actions menu (⋯) at the top, and choose Edit account.

A house, a car or anything else you own isn’t an account — add it on the Assets screen. Stocks and funds are added as holdings on the Investments screen, inside an Investment account.

2. Your starting balance

The balance you entered becomes the account’s Starting Balance — a transaction dated today. Your ledger starts from it: transactions dated before it are left out, so you don’t need years of history. Most people just check today’s balance in their banking app and start there.

Want to start earlier, for example on the first of the month, so you can import that month’s statement? Open the account, choose More actions (⋯) → Edit account, find Starting balance, click Open, and change the amount and date to match the balance on that day.

You can edit the Starting Balance’s amount and date, but you can’t delete it or merge it with another transaction — it’s what the account’s balance is built on. More in Accounts and opening balances.

3. Log a transaction

  1. Open the account and click Add transaction. A new row appears at the top of the register.
  2. Fill in the date, the payee, an optional category, and the amount. The − button next to the amount means money out; click it to switch to + for money in.
  3. Click Save, or Save and add another to keep going. Press Enter in the amount to save, Esc to cancel.

Worth knowing:

  • Category is optional. A blank category shows as “Uncategorized”. That’s a valid state, not an error. See Categories.
  • Picking a saved payee fills in its usual category for you.
  • Another currency is fine. Enter the amount in the account’s currency; every report converts it into your base currency. See Base currency and FX.

4. Move money between your own accounts

Paying your credit card or moving savings is a transfer, not spending. In the payee field, pick the other account from Payments & transfers at the top of the list. The row shows “To/From …”, and both accounts update together from one entry. Don’t log it twice.

5. What happens next

Your account balance and net worth update the moment you save — there’s nothing to recalculate.

Typing every transaction isn’t the only way. You can also:

  • Import a statement — click Import from file on an empty account, or see Importing for CSV, OFX, QIF, Excel and PDF.
  • Connect your bank in Connectors — see Bank and brokerage connectors.
  • Log from email automatically — see Email.
  • Ask Lucius — “I spent $12 on lunch at Café Rio with my Visa” is enough.

Troubleshooting

  • “Name is required” — every account needs a name.
  • “Enter a valid current balance.” — use a plain number like 1250.50. Zero is fine.
  • A card balance shows as money you have — check the account type is Credit, not Cash.

Next: see a full month

Your first month walks through what a normal month looks like once your accounts have real data in them.