Documentation

Built-in help system
Travel mode
Sync between devices
Transaction search
Budget editor
Receipts - SMS/Email parsing
Command Line
Backup file structure

Built-in help system

Basic information on working with Monetal is collected inside the application Monetal -> Help. This is excellent plan for exploring the capabilities of applications, flexible and unobtrusive.

Complete these mini-tasks in any order and quickly find instructions for the actions you need. All actions are marked completed/uncompleted, which will help you not waste time learning what you already know.

Seriously, if you haven't seen it yet, definitely check it out!

Travel mode

When we travel, we spend more than usual on entertainment, restaurants and museums. In order not to blur the overall picture for the year, Monetal has a special mode for recording such expenses.

Create a new category "Thailand 2024". Now create an expense for this category by long pressing on the tag and specifying the note #global . Now this category has become global and all future expenses and incomes will be its subcategories. If you need to temporarily turn it off and create a regular non-travel transaction, you can do this on the New Transaction screen.

After turning off travel mode, you can see the entire amount spent, and when filtering by tag, all transactions will again fall into different categories.

Sync between devices

Synchronization in Monetal works very flexibly and assumes that devices belong to different people. You can enable synchronization by Monetal - Settings - Synchronization

Accounts with the same names become common and can be changed from any device. Monetal does not synchronize amounts in accounts, but only takes into account transactions that affect them. Editing transactions is only possible from the device from which it was created. Identical categories also become shared, and now you can view general statistics for them.

Synchronization works automatically when data changes on any device. If the sync status number is the same on all devices, then they are already synced.

If the amounts on the accounts on different devices do not match, edit them before or after the start of synchronization, bringing them to the same value. This will not affect your transaction history in any way.

Transaction search

The search bar on Transactions screen will turn up a lot of useful information. Search is performed across notes, therefore the categories may be different. You can search for parts of a word or several words, case does not matter.

The search bar has several commands that allow you to retrieve additional data. For example, if you enter “*”, then Monetal will display a list of all transactions with notes:

* - transactions with notes
<> - transfers
+ - incomes
- - expenses
>5500 - transactions more than 5500
<1000 - transactions less than 1000

The search is carried out based on transactions of the selected period. Use the bottom panel to switch periods, and Monetal will immediately recalculate search results.

Budget editor

Budgets allow you to calculate something useful and keep track of spending in categories of interest. To open the Budget Editor:
Monetal - Expenses tab - Long tap on three parameters below expenses

// Let's calculate something useful
Pets: Cat + Dog
Mandatory expenses: Groceries + Transport + Taxes + Cat
// [-] and [+] - system categories that indicate expenses and income for the month
Additional income: [+] - Salary
Optional expenses: [-] - Mandatory expenses
Economy level: Mandatory expenses / [-]
// [$] - total balance of all accounts
Amount on cards: Visa + MasterCard
Amount without cards: [$] - Visa - MasterCard

If you add a limit, you get a budget

Lunch < 5000
[Products] < 14000
Pets: Cat + Dog < 4000

What else might be useful?

Fueled the car: Gasoline.daysago
maxday - number days in month
todayexpenses - today expens
#bold - bold font
#year - shown only when viewing the year
#month - shown only when viewing the month
#red - highlighted in red
#green - highlighted in green
#blue - highlighted in blue
space - adds space between budgets. Used independently at the beginning of a line

Example of a finished script

space
Mandatory expenses: Groceries + Transport + Cat + Gasoline + Transport + [Health] #bold
Optional expenses: [-] - Mandatory expenses #bold
Savings: Mandatory expenses / [-] * 100 #bold
space
Pets: Willy + Cat + Aquarium
Additional income: [+] - Salary
Income from the bank: Interest + Cashback
Products per month: Products / 12 #year
//Budgets
Products < 14000
Lunch <4000

Receipts - SMS/Email parsing iOS

Receipts are just plain texts from Email, SMS etc:

25.00 USD
VISA GOLD (***1588)
Sports and Youth
13/04/2024 07:59:54
Balance: 4321.11 USD

Create Automation

Since iOS doesn't allow third party apps to read Messages and Emails, create new Automation to redirect receipts to Monetal.

Open "Shortcuts" app in iPhone
Select "Automation Tab "and tap "+" above
Choose "Message" or "Email", adjust and enable "Run Immediately"
New blank automation -> Add Action -> "Process receipt"
Tap "Process receipt" action and tap text field. Choose "Shortcut Input"

Configure parsing rules

To parse receipts and create paired transactions Monetal uses Receipts Rules. Every line is a single rule. Left side is a matched pattern, right is a value - account or category. You can specify also a note, amount limits, or amount position (the right one in case the receipt has several amounts). In order to create a transaction Monetal needs to find amount, account and category.

Match every receipt contained text "***1588" to "Visa card" account
***1588>>Visa card

Match keyword "Wolt" to "Groceries" category
Wolt>>Groceries

Add note "Ice cream" for every transaction from "Baskin"
Baskin>>Cafe//Ice cream

Wolt receipts with amount between 0 and 20 match to "Fast Food"
Wolt::0..20>>Fast Food

Every receipt with space (this way you can match all) match to "Other"
 >>Other
NOTE: It will be applied if none of the rules above worked. You can use rules like this to set a default values

Monetal applied rules one by one from first to last line, so the order of defined rules can effect to parsing result.

Command Line

Rarely used functions grouped in Command Line to keep the interface simple.
Monetal -> Settings -> Command Line

backupeveryweek - perform backups weekly
backupeveryday - backup every day
lefthander - swap + and - on the account panel
righthander - swap + and - on the account panel

Backup file structure

Monetal does not store your data on the server, so it is really important to make a backup sometimes. Backup files are stored in Dropbox/Applications/Monetal on Android, and iCloud/Monetal on iOS.

Monetal uses *.mon files to store backup data. It's a simple text file which you can open by any Text Editor.

// Accounts - Name, amount, currency, includeToTotal
A	Visa	2345600	USD	true	0	true
A	Cash	23400	USD	true	0	true

// Transactions - Date, account, sum, currency, category, note
T	10.11.2023	Cash	399	payment	USD	Groceries	Storytel	false		100.6102353	10
T	17.10.2023	Visa	175100	income	USD	Salary		false		36.318058	

// Tags - Name, RGB color, type
t	Salary	79.79.79.	income
t	Groceries	86.115.202.	payment
t	Anna	51.51.51.	both	$Debt

// Wallets - Name, every account included
w	Euro	MasterCard, Visa.EUR, Cash Eur
w	Italy	Visa.EUR, Cash Eur

// Default currency
c	RUB

// Learned skills - used on Help screen
s	skill_createAccount	skill_createTransaction	skill_browseAccountTransactions

// Userscript - it's your script from Budget editor

--- userScript ---
Cafe <  100000
[Groceries] < 300000