Migrating from Excel, Google Sheets or a notebook
Kept your books in a spreadsheet or on paper? You don’t need to retype everything into the app. Fill in the ready-made template and import it into Svodly as a single file — from there you continue your bookkeeping in the app, with analytics, budgets and sync.
A ready-made income and expense spreadsheet
Not tracking anything yet, or prefer to keep working in a spreadsheet for now? Take the income and expense spreadsheet (Excel, XLSX). It is a working file rather than a blank template: you log transactions and it totals them by month and by category, leaving transfers between your own accounts out. It works in Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice. The labels inside the file are in Russian.
When the spreadsheet is no longer enough, there is nothing to retype: the file imports into Svodly as is, the same way as in step 3 below. The extra sheets do not get in the way — the import reads the first sheet. Delete the example rows before importing.
Step 1. Download the template
Download the template (Excel, XLSX) or in CSV format — a table with the right columns and a few example transactions. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice or “Numbers”.
Via Google Sheets. Open the downloaded XLSX in Google Sheets via File → Open → Upload, fill in the transactions and export it back via File → Download → Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) or CSV. Svodly imports both formats.
| Column | What to put | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Date | The transaction date, e.g. 2026-01-05 or 05.01.2026 | Yes |
| Amount | Expense — with a minus sign (−1200), income — with a plus (45000) | Yes |
| Category | For example “Food”, “Salary” | No |
| Subcategory | An optional second level: “Groceries” inside “Food”. Leave it empty to keep the category top-level | No |
| Account | “Card”, “Cash”, etc. For a transfer — the account money leaves | No |
| Account to | Transfers between your own accounts only: the account the money arrives in | No |
| Counterparty | A store, an employer, a person | No |
| Description | A free-form comment | No |
Step 2. Fill in the transactions
- From an Excel/Google spreadsheet. Copy your data under the right columns or rename the headers in your original spreadsheet — Svodly recognizes Russian and English names.
- From a notebook. Copy the records into the template. The date and amount are enough; the rest can be left empty.
- Expenses — with a minus sign, income — as a positive amount.
- A transfer between your own accounts. One row: “Account” — where the money left, “Account to” — where it arrived. The sign of the amount does not matter; Svodly sets the category itself.
Transfers don’t skew your statistics. A row with “Account to” filled in becomes a real transfer: the money leaves one account and arrives in another, but it counts as neither income nor an expense. Leave “Account to” empty and simply write “Transfer” in the category, and the row lands as an ordinary expense or income and inflates the month’s statistics.
How to move a notebook. Open the template next to your notebook and go day by day from top to bottom: one record from the notebook = one row. Each page usually has 10–20 records — 5–10 minutes per spread. If some dates are missing, that’s fine: import what you have and keep writing in Svodly from now on. Didn’t finish in one sitting — save the file and continue tomorrow; an extra batch is easy to undo (see below).
Step 3. Save and import
- Save the file in CSV or Excel (XLSX) format. In Google Sheets: File → Download → CSV.
- Open the migration wizard: on a computer and on the web — Settings → General → “Import data from another app”; on the phone — the import icon in the header of the Transactions screen.
- On the “Where are you migrating from?” step tap the “Excel / spreadsheet” tile and pick the file. Svodly recognizes the template columns by their headers — no need to map them.
- Look at the preview: how many transactions were recognised and how many of them are transfers, which accounts and categories will be created. Rows with no account land on the “Основной” (main) account.
- For every new account enter the “Current balance” — how much is on it now. Svodly works out the opening balance itself; leave the field empty and the account starts from zero.
- Click “Import N”.
A spreadsheet with headers of its own works too. If the tile doesn’t recognize the columns, the wizard says the file doesn’t look like the template and offers to open it as a universal CSV/XLSX — there you choose what each column means yourself, as described in the “Import & export” section.
Balances will appear on their own. An account’s balance is its initial balance plus its transactions. Svodly derives the initial balance of new accounts from the “Current balance” you enter in the preview. If the field was left empty and the spreadsheet is missing the oldest transactions, correct the “Initial balance” in the account card.
Undo, if something went wrong
Every import goes into the log: on a computer and on the web — Settings → General → “Import and export”. Press “×” in the row of that import and confirm “Delete” in the “Delete import data?” window: all of the import’s transactions are deleted at once. Accounts, categories and counterparties it created stay. On the phone the log only shows the history: delete the import from a computer or the web, or roll the book back to the “Before import” backup under “Backups”. Then you can fix the spreadsheet and import again. Details — in “Undo an import”.
Frequently asked questions
Can I keep the template in Google Sheets?
Yes. Open the downloaded CSV in Google Sheets (or copy the headers), fill in the transactions and export it back via File → Download → CSV. Svodly imports this file.
How do I mark a transaction as an expense?
Write the expense amount with a minus sign (for example, -1200) and income as a positive number (45000). Svodly determines the transaction type by the sign.
Do I have to fill in all the columns?
Only the date and amount are required. The category, account, transfer-to account, counterparty and description can be left empty — they’re easy to fill in later in Svodly.
How do I move a transfer between my own accounts?
As a single row: put the account the money left in the “Account” column and the account it arrived in in the “Account to” column. The sign of the amount does not matter there — the columns set the direction. Svodly creates a real transfer: it stays out of both income and expenses, so analytics and budgets are not skewed. The transfer category is set by Svodly itself — you don’t need to fill it in.
What if bookkeeping was kept in a paper notebook?
Copy the records into the template — at least the date and amount. You don’t have to enter everything in one go: you can import in several files and undo any extra batch.
Where to go next
- Transactions — how income, expenses and transfers work.
- Budgets — limits on categories after the move.
- Analytics — reports on the moved history.