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Your Data

Afford’s position on your data is simple: it’s yours. It lives on your devices and in your own iCloud, it exports completely, and nothing about the app is designed to lock you in.

Everything below lives in Settings → Import, export & repair. (Settings is the gear button at the end of every tab’s toolbar; on the Mac, Afford → Settings.) None of it needs Afford Pro.

Importing from Actual Budget

Coming from Actual? The whole thing comes across. In Actual, use Settings → Export data to get a .zip (with db.sqlite inside — the bare db.sqlite works too). Then in Afford: Import from Actual Budget… and pick the file.

What transfers:

  • Accounts, category groups and categories (as groups and envelopes)
  • All transactions and monthly budget amounts
  • Goal templates in category notes — #template … by …, repeat every …, schedule …, #goal — become Afford goals, sub-goals and recurring bills

After an import, Afford rebuilds all envelope figures from the ledger so every balance is consistent from day one.

Exporting

The Export section offers two levels, both saved through the standard Files (iOS) or Finder (Mac) panel:

  • Export envelope setup… — your groups, envelopes, goals and recurring bills, without accounts or transactions. Perfect for seeding a fresh budget or sharing a plan template with someone.
  • Export all data… — everything in the open budget, as JSON: accounts, transactions, envelopes, goals, bills, allocations and payee rules. (Your chat history with Penny isn’t included, and neither is your SimpleFIN connection.) This is your backup and your exit door, and it’s always available.

The matching Import envelope setup… and Import all data… options bring either file back in. Envelope setup can be added alongside what a budget already has or replace its groups and envelopes — you choose at import time. Importing all data restores a backup, replacing everything in the budget. Either way the file is checked before anything changes, so a wrong or damaged file costs nothing.

Backups, practically

Between iCloud sync (every device is a live copy) and Export all data (a file you control), you’re covered from both directions. If you’re about to do something dramatic — a big import, a restructuring — take an export first. It’s one tap and it makes experiments free.

iCloud sync

With Sync with iCloud on (Settings → iCloud), your budget, accounts, transactions and settings are kept in your iCloud account and in step across your iPhone, iPad and Mac. The same section shows the sync status and offers:

  • Sync now — check for changes right away.
  • Changes to settle — appears when two devices edited the same thing; pick which version to keep.
  • Send everything to iCloud again — re-uploads this device’s copy (budget owners only).
  • Download the budget again from iCloud… — replaces this device’s copy with what iCloud holds, including dropping changes that haven’t reached iCloud yet. Your other devices aren’t affected.

Your SimpleFIN connection stays private to your own devices, even on a shared budget.

Repair

If a balance ever looks wrong after an import or a sync, Rebuild budget figures recomputes, from the raw ledger, how each envelope’s money covers its spending month by month and what each card payment envelope holds. It’s safe to run any time — it changes no transactions, only derived figures.

Starting over

Different resets for different moods:

  • Start over with bank data… (shown when SimpleFIN is connected; needs Afford Pro) keeps your SimpleFIN connection, appearance and assistant settings, and rebuilds the budget from your bank: you pick which bank accounts to bring in, the month the budget starts, how much history to take, and how the envelopes begin. It downloads from the bank first, so nothing is erased unless that worked — then it erases envelopes, accounts, transactions and budget history and brings the chosen accounts back.
  • Reset all data erases the budget, its accounts and transactions, and disconnects SimpleFIN. With iCloud sync on, it’s erased on your other devices too (and for everyone a shared budget is shared with).
  • Deleting a budget (Settings → Budgets) removes that budget entirely — its store on your devices and its data in iCloud. Other budgets are untouched. For a budget someone shared with you, the same button is Leave: it disappears from your devices and stays with its owner.

If Pro lapses

Moving from Afford Pro back to Free never deletes anything. Every budget and envelope stays and opens as before — you just can’t create more than the Free plan allows — and bank sync pauses with your accounts and transactions intact.

Where your data physically lives

  • On device: a local database per budget, in the app’s private container.
  • In iCloud: your private CloudKit database (and the owner’s, for shared budgets) — carried between devices, readable by no one else.
  • The demo budget is sample data kept on the device only — never in iCloud, never synced with a bank — and starts fresh each time it opens.

See the Privacy Policy for the complete picture.

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