EveryDollar Import Transactions: Bank Connect, Not CSV

Quick Answer: EveryDollar has no file import. Its help center says it does not support importing bank statements, including CSV, QIF, QFX and OFX files. Transactions get in two ways: bank connect in EveryDollar Premium, which pulls posted transactions and can reach back up to 60 days, or manual entry, which works on the free version too.

To import transactions into EveryDollar you connect a bank through Premium; you cannot upload a file. EveryDollar's help center says CSV, QIF, QFX and OFX imports are not supported. Bank connect, through Plaid or Mastercard Connect, can sync up to the last 60 days. Anything older or anything from an unsupported bank has to be typed in, or summarized into budget lines instead.

Can you import a CSV or bank statement into EveryDollar?

No. EveryDollar's help article on importing bank statements states that EveryDollar "does not currently support the import of files such as bank statements. This includes CSV, QIF, QFX, and OFX." The article points Premium users to bank connections instead.

The export article confirms the one-way street. Premium users can export tracked transactions as a CSV, one month at a time, from EveryDollar.com, and the same page repeats that "importing files is not supported." So a CSV you exported from EveryDollar, or from another app, cannot be loaded back in.

That rules out the routes that work in other budgeting apps. If file import is the deciding feature for you, compare how YNAB handles file imports before committing to a zero-based app.

How does EveryDollar bank connect import transactions?

Bank connect is the only automatic route, and it is part of EveryDollar Premium. The help article Getting Started with Bank Connection says it "isn't available with the free version." New users can try it in a 14-day free trial. The EveryDollar product page lists Premium as costing $79.99 billed annually (shown as $6.67 a month equivalent) or $17.99 billed monthly, after the trial.

To connect on EveryDollar.com, per the help center:

1. Sign in on a desktop or laptop and click the Accounts icon in the left menu.
2. Click Connect Account, then Search For Your Institution with Plaid.
3. Search for your bank by name or website and enter the same credentials you use on the bank's site. EveryDollar advises against password autofill here.
4. Answer any security prompts, such as a one-time passcode.

The mobile app follows the same path from the Accounts icon at the bottom of the screen. During setup, EveryDollar's Cannot Find Institution article says you choose how far back transactions begin syncing, "up to the last 60 days." If Plaid can't find your bank, the same article suggests retrying through Mastercard Connect. If neither finds it, there is no connection for that bank yet; EveryDollar says a bank representative can request one, and building it takes about 6 to 12 weeks once approved.

Connected transactions do not land in budget lines on their own. On the website you click Transactions, open the New section, and drag each one onto a budget item. In the app, unassigned transactions appear as "coins" you drag onto a line.

Manual entry: the free route

Manual entry works on both the free and paid versions, per EveryDollar's manual transaction guide. On the website:

1. On the Budget page, click the Transactions tab near the top right.
2. Click the blue + circle at the bottom right.
3. Fill in Amount, Date and Merchant. If you added a bank account manually, pick it under Choose Account so the balance updates.
4. Choose the budget item and click Add Expense.

A useful shortcut for a backlog: click Add Expense without choosing a budget item. The transaction goes to the Transactions Queue, and you can drag items into lines later. That lets you type a week of receipts quickly and categorize in a second pass.

Comparing the three ways in

What do you do with months of history EveryDollar can't import?

Here is where people get stuck. You have six or twelve months of statements and want EveryDollar's budget to reflect how you actually spend. Bank connect stops at 60 days, and entering hundreds of old transactions by hand is a poor use of an evening, especially since EveryDollar's budget is monthly and backfilled history would sit in old months you no longer plan.

What you really need from that history is not the individual rows but the totals: what you spend on groceries, fuel, eating out and subscriptions in a typical month. Those totals become your planned amounts. A workable process:

1. Download the statements. Most banks offer a CSV export of recent activity. If they only give PDFs for older months, convert those into a spreadsheet. QuickBankConvert reads bank and card statement PDFs into rows with date, description, a category and a signed amount; the PDF to CSV page shows the output. A free account downloads CSV or Excel for a few statements a month, and pricing covers more. Files are uploaded and processed on our servers.
2. Combine the months in Excel or Google Sheets and delete transfers between your own accounts and card payments, which would otherwise count spending twice.
3. Map rows to your EveryDollar budget items. Add a column with the EveryDollar line name (Groceries, Gas, Restaurants). The converter's category is a starting point; your budget lines are what matter.
4. Total by line and divide by the number of months. A pivot table does this in a minute. Our guide to building a budget spreadsheet from bank statements covers the formulas.
5. Type the averages into EveryDollar as planned amounts. Look again at lines with big month-to-month swings; those are often better as a sinking fund, which the free version supports.

Then start live tracking from the current month, either through bank connect or by hand. You get a budget grounded in real numbers without importing a single old transaction.

Is Premium worth it just for importing?

Work it out by volume. Count the card and account transactions in a normal month from one statement. If it is a few dozen and most come from one or two accounts at a bank that Plaid or Mastercard Connect supports, the trial is the cheap way to find out whether streaming saves you time. If your bank is not listed, Premium buys you nothing on the import side, since there is no file upload to fall back on. Premium also adds the monthly CSV export, which helps if you later want your EveryDollar history in a spreadsheet or another app.

Practical notes

• EveryDollar does not automatically put a transaction into a previous month's budget. If one lands in the wrong month, its help center explains removing it from the budget item, switching months, and dragging it back in.
• Cash purchases are entered from the budget item itself with the blue + button. EveryDollar suggests deleting the ATM withdrawal that arrives through bank connect, since it is handled like a transfer.
• The Premium CSV export only includes transactions you have tracked to budget items, so a blank file usually means nothing was assigned that month.
• Canceling Premium does not delete your account; you keep the free version, which means manual entry continues to work.

Related guides

• How to import bank statements into YNAB
• Create a budget spreadsheet from bank statements
• Convert a PDF statement to CSV
• PDF statements into Google Sheets