Income and expense tracking guide
Why does income and expense tracking start with a ledger?
Income and expense tracking starts with seeing the difference between the money you earn and the money you spend. Holding that difference only in your head becomes hard, especially once credit card statements and irregular freelance income come into play. Small and regular notes make the picture that emerges at the end of the month clear.
An income and expense ledger does not have to copy your bank transactions. The aim is to record in your own words where your money flows and to see the summary that makes the decision easier at the end of the month. That is why categories like groceries, rent, bills, transport and food are ready from the start.
The biggest benefit of keeping regular records is that it takes the emotion out of spending decisions and ties them to numbers. After two or three months, instead of guessing which category is stretching the budget, you see it in the chart.
Adding an entry: type, amount, date, category
Every entry has four main fields: type, amount, date and category. The type field decides whether the entry is income or an expense. The amount field accepts Turkish formats; you can type 1.234,56 as well as 1234.56. The date defaults to today and lets you pick a day in the past.
The category is the backbone of the summaries. System categories are ready from day one; if none of them fits your habits, you can add a new one in seconds. For example, when you want to split rent into home and office, creating a new category is all it takes.
The note field is optional, but it is the field that helps most. A short note about the bill, the customer or the project lets you remember the entry at the end of the month. The search box searches exactly these notes.
Monthly summary and budget control
The summary cards show the total income, total expenses and the net result for the date range you choose. You set the range with ready-made buttons or with the date boxes: this month, last month, this year or all. The same choice applies to the list and the export, so the number you see and the file you download do not contradict each other.
The category breakdown shows which categories the totals come from. When fixed expenses (rent, bills) and variable expenses (groceries, food) sit side by side in the same list, it gets easier to see where the budget bends. The monthly breakdown, in turn, lets you follow how income and expenses move over time.
If the net result is positive, the month closed in surplus; if negative, in deficit. This number is not a judgment, only an indicator; the real value is knowing which category made the difference.
Categories: the system set plus your own
The ledger opens with separate system categories for income and expenses. On the income side there are salary, rental income, freelance and other; on the expense side groceries, rent, bills, transport, food, health and other. These categories are shared by every member and cannot be deleted, so the common vocabulary stays intact.
Adding your own categories is free and there is no limit on how many you can have. If you no longer use a category, you archive it: old entries are not disturbed, the breakdown history stays the same, and the category does not appear on new entries. Archiving instead of deleting keeps past reports consistent.
You can change a category's name and color whenever you like. The color choice may look like a small detail, but in long lists it helps your eye find the right row faster.
Filter, review, download as CSV
The list is filtered by date range, type, category and note search. Filters are applied on the server, so the list stays fast even with thousands of entries. Long lists load page by page; you continue with the show more button.
The CSV export button is tied to the same filters. The file carries the date, type, category, note, amount and currency columns; it is separated with semicolons and starts with a UTF-8 BOM for Turkish characters. That way you can open the table directly in Excel or Google Sheets.
Editing and deleting entries happen from the list. Deleting really deletes; the fastest way to fix a wrong entry is the edit button on the row. To avoid losing an important archive, you can take a CSV backup at any time.
Privacy and data security
When you close your account, your ledger entries and your own categories are deleted along with your account. That is why taking a CSV backup at regular intervals is a good habit. You can find details about how data is stored on the server in the FAQ section.