Switching from Monarch
Bring your Monarch budget over in five minutes
Export the transactions CSV, choose it in PathForward, and your categories become this month's plan — each with what it has actually cost you. No retyping, and nothing to pay for.
What comes with you
- Your categories, as budget lines in the groups that fit them.
- What each costs — the monthly average over the last three whole months in the file, rounded to $5, yours to change.
- Your merchants, as filing rules: anything the file saw under a category files itself from now on.
- Your transactions, with their categories, if you want them in the inbox (part of Pro).
What doesn't
- Monarch's own goals, reports and account balances — PathForward builds its own from your plan and, with Pro, your bank.
- History older than the file you export.
- Transfers between your accounts and income rows: they are not spending, so they never become lines.
1. Export from Monarch
- Open Monarch on a computer and go to Settings → Data.
- Choose Download transactions. One file covers every account.
- If you have years of history, Monarch suggests 5,000 rows or fewer at a time — three or four months is all PathForward needs.
Monarch writes money out as negative amounts; PathForward reads it that way automatically.
2. Then, in PathForward
- Start free — no card, and the free plan is enough for this.
- Open Settings and, under Profile, tap Bring my budget over. Choose the file.
- Every spending category appears with what it cost a month, already sorted into groups. Change an amount or a group, untick anything you don't want, then tap Build my budget.
- Your month is planned. Every merchant the file saw becomes a filing rule, so when your bank's transactions arrive they come suggested.
Questions people ask
- Does it cost anything?
- No. Building your budget from the export works on the free plan. Pro ($9.99 a month) adds bank sync, the transaction inbox and the monthly report; for comparison, Monarch is $14.99 a month, or $99.99 a year.
- Is the file uploaded anywhere?
- The file is read in your browser. Only the lines you build — and, on Pro, the transactions you choose to import — are saved to your account.
- What if a category lands in the wrong group?
- Change the group on the spot before you build, or drag the line between groups on the Budget page afterwards.
- What's different about PathForward?
- The plan is built around your paychecks. Home shows the day your account would dip below zero and whether you're good until the next paycheck, before it happens — and the monthly report says what to change next month.
Five minutes, then a plan that follows your paychecks
Start free, bring your Monarch export over, and see this month planned the way you actually spend.