How to handle this currency change in Toshl?

When Bulgaria adopts the euro, the best thing to do is to simply change your main currency in the Toshl settings to euro with the first (recommended) conversion option.

Your historic data will remain as it is, with historic entries remaining in the original currency you entered them in (BGN). The entires will just be given a conversion value so that the value of those past transactions will be correctly calculated in the new euro sums.

From there on, you simply add new entries in euros and that’s it. If you’re using the automatic bank connections, the banks should also send new entries in the new currency.

If you use the recommended historical exchange rates option, it will offer to also change the account currencies for manual accounts in lev to euro. We recommend you use this option if you plan on adding to the same accounts. See here for more info on how currency changes work in Toshl.

Financial accounts that update automatically (those with the green globe icon) should be automatically updated by your bank. Most could change the account currency on the same account, but some banks might also report the accounts in euros as new financial accounts.

If the euro accounts get reported as new accounts, you can keep them as they are, or merge them with the existing account if you’d prefer the continuity that provides. If you plan on merging, make sure to select to correct account pair to merge and select the option to keep updating the account from the newer one.

Several countries joined the euro area before and the conversion process on Toshl went well. We expect the same to be true this time.

For those a bit more curious, here’s how the euro area participation looks at the time of writing.

Blue – euro area, green – Bulgaria joining soon, purple – Denmark in ERM2 stability mechanism but opted out of euro, yellow – not yet in ERM2 but expected to join euro later. Orange – using the euro with a monetary agreement. Red – using the euro unilaterally. Source Wikipedia.

General financial checkup

• Set some financial goals for the year. Are you looking to increase your investments this year? By how much and where? Are you saving up for any large purchases? Setting goals will also inform your budgeting requirements and hopefully your general attitude to your finances as well.
• Build or Boost Your Emergency Fund. Prepare for the unexpected. Your emergency fund should probably contain about 3-6 months of your living expenses, so you can overcome new circumstances that life may throw upon you. You can start small and set just bit on the side every month until you reach that level. Put it in an account that pays out interest, just make sure the funds are liquid and accessible in case of emergencies. The peace of mind with having that fund available will help you make more rational financial decisions elsewhere.
• Set a plan to pay off debt. Make sure you plan for repaying debts regularly if you have any to pay off. If the interest rates have fallen since you originally took out the loan, it might be worth checking with your financial institution if the debt can be reprogrammed or consolidated.
• Set up automatic savings and investments. There are quite a few financial services and banks – including lots that you can connect directly to Toshl as bank connections – that provide round-up options and other automatic saving options. Any purchase you make can round up to the nearest round amount and save the rounded up part. Some can also automatically invest the rounded up part into your funds of choice. Broad and well diversified ETFs with low yearly costs are usually a good long term choice – but make sure to do your own research.

Toshl-specific hints

• Reflect on the past year. What good is noting and organising all this info, if you don’t take a moment to analyse it? Set the time span to the entire 2024 and take a look at your expense and income graphs. See which categories and tags had higher or lower amounts that you expected. The Planning graphs can also be useful here, as they’ll show the movements over the entire year. This can be even more useful when filtered to individual accounts, categories or tags.
• Set up yearly, monthly or weekly reports by email. If you’re not the reflective type on your own, the automatic email reports can help with a nudge in that direction. Automatically producing infographics based on your finances, right to your inbox. You can also customise what kind of info you’d want included there.
• Re-evaluate your budgets. It’s always good to have a general monthly budget for all expenses to monitor your general spending. Does the amount you have set reflect your finances well? Does it allow you to save some of the incomes each month? Also check your category and tag budgets, see if they’re tracking the right spending and with the appropriate amounts. At Toshl we like to track just a few categories where your spending can vary most based on your personal choices, but budgeting styles can vary.
• Make sure your bank connections are updated. If you’re using the automatic bank connections, go to main menu / Bank connections and check if all is green and in order there. Some bank connections may require a re-authorisation every 6 months or so, while the semi automatic ones might need a log in with every update. Keeping them up to date, makes sure that all the transaction data is flowing in as expected.
• Set a reminder for the non-automatic stuff. Buying with cash often? The Toshl apps can send you a daily reminder at the time of your choice, so you’ll remember to add any cash expenses from the past day. You can set it in Settings / Notification. It can also serve as a reminder to import from file, if some of your accounts require that.

Make sure your financial 2025 will be cooler than a ninja with a lightsaber riding a unicorn.

This also means you can save Toshl in your dock for more convenient, easier access.

To do that, open toshl.com in the Safari web browser and log in with your Toshl account. Next, click File / Add to Dock… in the menu bar on top. Alternatively you can also use the sharing button in the Safari toolbar.

Confirm or edit the naming of the dock shortcut and you’re done. The icon will be applied automatically based on the favicon already specified in Toshl.

Once you click, it will open the Toshl web app with your account already logged in and a somewhat simplified, less cluttered version of Safari without the address / toolbar.

It’s also worth mentioning that such shortcuts have already been available for a while on the iPad (Add to home) and Windows, so you can set it up in a similar way there as well if you like.

If this doesn’t fit your workflow, you can easily change the default account that’s suggested.

The financial account that’s listed at top of the account list, is the one that’s suggested by default.

You can change this order by Editing the account list.

1. Click “Edit” below the account list.

2. The account list will now show up in Edit mode. Notice the new “reorder” icons to the left of the account titles. You can click and drag this icon to change the order of accounts. Reorder as you like and click “Done” below the list to save.

3. Your new order of accounts is now saved and will be synced across all the devices where you’re logged in to Toshl with the same account. When adding a new entry, the first listed account will be selected by default.

Newly added currencies:

• Binance USD – BUSD
• BNB – BNB
• Cronos – CRO
• Elrond – EGLD
• Hedera – HBAR
• Helium – HNT
• Fantom – FTM
• NEAR Protocol – NEAR
• Terra – LUNA
• TerraUSD – UST
• VeChain – VET
• Waves – WAVES
• Wrapped Luna – WLUNA

More info on currencies in Toshl.

This of course applies to new transactions, where the applied category and tags are based primarily on the transaction description that’s provided by the bank. On top of that, Toshl automatically learns from your corrections, so entries with similar descriptions will use your preferred categorisation.

In some cases it’s also able to determine the geographic coordinates based on the bank data and put the transaction on your map automatically, although this is still quite rare with most transactions.

If you’re very strict when it comes to your own accounting and would prefer to manually assign every category and tag, you can do that too. Just open the bank connections screen and tap Edit on an individual connection. You can set the categorization option to OFF there, so all new entries come in as “unsorted”. The same can be applied to transfer matching. Keeping the categorization ON however, can also help with transfer matching, as detecting an expense fits in the “Transfer” category is one of the factor that helps with detecting them. The system is then more inclined to look for the income part of the transfer and match it into a transfer.

Smaller improvements were also made in the way pending transaction categorisation is handled on all automatic bank connections, providing for more flexibility when the bank changes the transaction description considerably between authorising and fully settling the transactions.

Even when there are no new systemic changes such as the ones mentioned here, the categorization is constantly improving due to machine learning systems which learn from anonymized categorization data.

Before we get too off track, here are the kind of liberties that we’re enabling in Toshl today.

Let’s say you have a bank connection and automatically import your expenses, incomes and transfers that way. Until now, a few entry properties that were provided by the bank were locked from editing. With today’s updates of the Toshl mobile apps, all entry properties are freely editable, including:

• amount
• date
• currency
• exchange rate
• account
• reminders

Categories, tags and descriptions were already fully editable before.

It’s now also possible to add manual entries on accounts that are connected to the bank and usually add entries automatically. Connected accounts are the ones marked with a green globe icon.

Why this change?

Initially, we thought that banks would be much better at providing accurate data via their official channels, so locking some info from editing seemed like a safer option. After a few years of experience with various banking APIs, we now know that’s often not the case and now occasionally consider keeping our money in socks beneath our beds instead of bank accounts. Coincidentally, we also sell socks (see 3-year plan).

Only some banks are that problematic though and lots of bank APIs work well. The Shitty Bank List keeps track of worst offenders, if you’re interested. In some cases, the data is fine, but you’d just want to change the date for personal budgeting reasons or similar.

Bank connections in more detail

We’re now also providing more info about how bank connections work and how often they update. Go to main menu / Bank connections and tap Edit next to an existing connection to check it out.

There are several types of bank connections, depending on which technical capabilities the banks provide or don’t, which technical partners provide them and the type of regulations exist in the country. In short, this should help you better understand when and how often the connection updates.

Optional categorization

Entires imported from bank connections are automatically assigned categories and tags, if they can be deduced from the entry description. It also learns from your corrections. While most transactions should be categorized well, this can vary a bit depending on your bank and the type of information they provide. For example, if your bank reports only random numbers or huge blocks of text with every entry, the categorization system will have much a harder time determining the correct category.

To better accommodate such circumstances, we’ve made both this automations optional. They can be set on the level of the individual bank connections, so you can keep the auto-categorisation with the other banks that work well with it, for example.

If the categorisation is set to OFF, all the transactions imported via that bank connection will import as “unsorted” and you can manually assign categories later.

Optional transfer detection, improved review system

Transfers between accounts are also automatically detected, based on expense / income pairs on different accounts. If you have lots of financial accounts, with similar transactions that could be mistaken for 2 ends of a transfer, this could produce false positives. Transfer matches are now also optional and can be turned off per-connection.

We’ve also made other improvements to the detection system, removing the transfers category as detection criteria which should help with the accuracy and result in a lot less potential transfers to review.

Connections that clean up after themselves

When you remove a bank connection, the financial accounts and transaction data that it previously imported, remain. The financial accounts become manual and no longer update automatically, but the transaction data up to that point is still there. While this data preservation is desired in most cases, it can sometimes leave you with a bit of extra work, if you want to delete the transactions and accounts as well.

When removing a bank connection, you’ll now also be offered an option to delete all the data that the bank connection imported. Use this option cautiously as the deletion of data cannot be undone. This option requires a password or social log in confirmation. Additional warnings and explanations were added to make the data removal peril apparent.

Availability

All these new features are available in the latest versions of Toshl apps on Android and iOS. They’re released gradually, so they become available to a larger percent of all Toshl users each day and will be available for everyone within a few days. Once available for your account, it will update automatically. If it hasn’t updated yet, you can also start the update manually on the Toshl app page in the App Store or Google Play. The features are not available in the web app yet and are expected later on.

Update: The full editing features have been enabled on the web app as well. The connected financial accounts and the entries on them are now fully editable on the web app as well.

• Tether (USDT)
• Solana (SOL)
• Polkadot (DOT)
• Avalanche (AVAX)
• Internet Computer (ICP)
• SHIBA INU (SHIB)

This brings the total to 289 currencies supported in Toshl. 170 fiat currencies, 103 crypto, 4 commodities (e.g. gold) and 12 deprecated currencies. Deprecated currencies are no longer in active use, but historical exchange rates are kept for archival reasons. Ever heard of the Slovenian tolar?

When we sum up all the requests for new connections to particular banks, a clear winner shows up – Monobank Ukraine. As we get a not-so-preverted sense of pleasure from fulfilling our customer’s wishes and requests, we’re quite giddy to announce that connecting to Monobank is finally available to everyone in Toshl Finance.

Instructions to connect:

Mobile app (Android, iOS)

1. Go to main menu / Bank connections, tap Add connection.
2. Find Monobank and tap it – it will show up among popular connections in Ukraine, or via search.
3. The web browser will open up. Tap the link “Open Monobank app and confirm”.
4. You’ll be redirected to the Monobank app to confirm the permission to connect.
5. Switch back to the web browser (step 3).
6. Tap the button “Finish connecting in Toshl”.
7. You’ll be redirected back to Toshl where you can limit the import by date and finish the importation. Accounts and transactions from Monobank will now import and continue updating automatically.

Step 5 is the crucial one, it’s the only thing you’ll really have to do manually other than tapping next/confirm, or similar.

Web app (toshl.com)

1. Go to main menu / Bank connections, tap Add connection.
2. Find Monobank and click it – it will show up among popular connections in Ukraine, or via search.
3. A web page with a QR code will open up. Use your mobile phone’s camera app to scan the QR code and open the contained link.
4. Provided that you have the Monobank app installed on this mobile phone, you’ll be redirected to the Monobank app.
5. Confirm the permission to connect with Toshl.
6. Check the web page on your computer again (where the QR code was displayed). The connection should now already be confirmed. Just click on the button “Finish connecting in Toshl”.
7. You’ll be redirected back to Toshl where you can limit the import by date and finish the importation. Accounts and transactions from Monobank will now import and continue updating automatically.
   
   

It sounds longer than it really is, the whole thing shouldn’t take more than a minute. The transactions coming in should also be categorised, provided that there was enough information in the transaction description. Also keep in mind that the transaction categorisation automatically learns from your corrections and transfers between accounts will also be detected.

There’s a better way. With iOS 15, you can tap into a text field use the camera to instantly scan text and insert it into the field, right from the app. Best you see how this works for yourself in the videos below.

This way, you can add lots of extra info to your expenses, incomes and transfers in a second or two. The text remains searchable and if you want the full photo, you could also save it in the photos tab.

While this excitement comes hot on the heels of the iOS 15 release, Android users, fret not. A similar feature has been available for a while on Android devices, albeit through the Google Lens / Camera app.

To use it, tap the Google Lens button on the top right corner of the camera app. Select the text you need in the camera app and copy it. You can then paste this text when adding the expense in Toshl.

We’re all a bit optimistic when we first set up the budgets. Yet the real trial of your budgeting resolve, comes when you see the results of past budget periods and decide what you’ll do about them. Sometimes your spending or the budgets just need a little re-adjustment, sometimes a whole new strategy is needed.

We’re introducing a much improved budget history graph to help you with that.

There’s been a budget history graph in Toshl for a while. You could just open any budget’s details and scroll all the way down. The budget history is still there, but the new graph tells you a lot more.

Before, you’d see how much you spent in total in any given month.

Now, you’ll see:

• The budget amount for the month.
• Total spending.
• How much you went under or over your budget amount, clearly marked with red where you went over or the light grey area, showing how much space you have until the budget amount would be reached.

You’ll notice that monthly budgets feature a bit more info still:

• Yearly sum of monthly budgets. In the case above, it’s a monthly category budget for food. The budget for the individual month in this case is 350 €. The budget history graph will now automatically project this for the full calendar year, showing the 4200 € yearly sum (350 € x 12) and also sum up your past monthly budget to see how much you’ve spent so far.

The budget details are already featured above the history. So the graph doesn’t show exact numbers by default, but you can easily dig into more detail. As with other graphs in Toshl, click and hold on the graph column to show the details for each column.

As with this yearly budget history, you can see exactly how much was spent in a particular period and how that compares with your budgeting goals.

Toshl adapts the graph scale based on the results, so you can see the differences in your budget’s performance between periods. Making those differences clearly visible, also means sometimes cutting off some outliers – columns with spending so far out of proportion with the rest of the periods, that they go over the graph’s scale. In those cases, you’ll see that as a dark red column being cut-off, to signify it goes over the graph’s scale.

See that dark red column above, going out? In the immortal words of Flight of the Conchords channelling Bowie; How far out are you man? I’m pretty far out man! Worry not, click on it and you’ll know exactly how far out that budget overspending really is. Though, I hope your bank account can handle what the graph’s scale can’t.

We’ve been gradually releasing this feature across the Toshl apps on the web, Android and iOS, so you might have already seen this in action. If not, make sure you’re updated to the latest app version, tap a budget and take a trip down the memory lane of your finances.

Download the latest version of Toshl Finance for Android

Most of the app is the same as the version available through Google Play. However, some features which rely on Google Play services are excluded;

• Adding locations to entries
• Log in with Google
• Upgrades to Toshl Pro or Medici using in-app purchases are disabled. You can however still upgrade on our website and your Android app will be upgraded as well, as long as you’re logged in with the same user account.

Popular devices without Play services

• Huawei devices made after May 2019
• Amazon Fire tablets

Countries where Google Play cannot be accessed

• China

We’ve also added a more permanent page where you can always download the latest Toshl Android app APK without Play services. The linked APK file is updated with each new release that goes on Google Play, but with Play services excluded.

Today, we’re adding a new sock design to the mix. Green, with blue fingerprint patterns and black white-columned spots. Check them out on the image below, but trust us, they look even better in person.

How do you get these socks, you ask? Upgrade to the 3-year Toshl Pro or Toshl Medici plan and we’ll send all three pairs your way. Consider this stylistic upgrade of your feet as another benefit of keeping your finances healthy and in order.

Excerpt from our pricing page below, click for more info. The 3-year plan with socks is only available on toshl.com, as in-app purchases in the Toshl mobile apps don’t allow for shipping of physical goods.

Helping people make better financial decisions is something Sberbank Slovenia and Toshl Finance have in common. So we’ve decided to partner up and offer our common customers better tools to control their finances.

2 years of Toshl Medici for free

Anyone with a Sberbank Slovenia personal bank account can connect it and get a free Toshl Medici membership that’s valid for 2 years. There’s an additional 50% discount on the next extension after that. Thus, helping to manage finances comes with an 80€ starting gift – the value of these services – to get started with managing finances better.

Sberbank, Medici, activate!

But how? Easy, start with any Toshl account. It can be free, no previous upgrades needed. In the Toshl app go to Main menu / Bank connections. Make sure popular Slovenian banks are shown, or search for “Sberbank” with the Slovenian flag. Click on it.

Follow the steps to connect your bank account to Toshl. You’ll be redirected to Sberbank’s website to log in and confirm connecting with Toshl.

That’s it! Once you’re connected with Sberbank, your Toshl user account will be automatically upgraded with 2 years of the Toshl Medici membership.

More detailed instructions and info about the bank connections is available in the Frequently asked questions – Sberbank (in Slovene).

Fruitful collaboration

We’re thrilled that we can finally announce this collaboration with the Sberbank team and doubly so for what’s still ahead. Sberbank Slovenia is consistently rated as a trustworthy and reliable bank by its customers and one they’d recommend to their friends and family. The bank will also be celebrating 30 years of presence on the Slovenian market this year. A presence marked not only by quality banking services, but also social responsibility, including support for Slovenian sport teams in Nordic skiing (ski jumps and cross-country), volleyball and beach volley.

The Sberbank group globally has more than 98 million retail clients, 2,7 million corporate clients, 290 000 employees and 14 100 branches, building on a 180-year tradition of banking.

So, what are you waiting for? Connect your Sberbank account and feel that fresh air flow through your finances.

New or re-added bank connections

Austria

• Oberbank
• UBS

Belgium

• Banque Transatlantique
• Banque de Luxembourg 
• CBP Quilvest

Denmark

• Pleo

Estonia

• Luminor

France

• AXA Banque
• Banque BCP
• Banque Courtois
• Banque Kolb
• Banque Laydernier
• Banque Nuger
• Banque Populaire (with regional branches)
• Banque Tarneaud
• BBVA
• BRED Banque Populaire
• Caisse d’Epargne (with regional branches)
• Crédit Coopératif
• Crédit du Nord
• Crédit Mutuel de Bretagne
• Crédit Mutuel du Sud-Ouest
• Max
• Natixis Wealth Management France
• Société de Banque Monaco
• Société Marseillaise de Crédit
• UBS

Finland

• OP

Germany

• WEG Bank
• UBS

Hungary

• Takarék Bank
• Erste Bank Hungary is a special case. While an API connection has been re-added to test, the bank is very unresponsive and slow in fixing their API connection. We’ve had to resort to re-enabling the older semi-automatic scraping connection under “Erste Netbank”. Erste Hungary remains on our Shitty Bank List.

Italy

• UBS
• Credem – Credito Emiliano Privati e Famiglie (Carte)
• Banco di Credito P. Azzoaglio Corporate
• Banco di Credito P. Azzoaglio

Latvia

• Luminor

Lithuania

• Luminor

Luxembourg

• Banco Safra
• Bankinter
• Banque Transatlantique
• Banque de Luxembourg
• Banque de Patrimoines Prives
• CBP Quilvest
• DNB
• East-West United Bank
• Eurobank Private Bank
• Intesa Sanpaolo Bank
• Julius Baer
• POST Luxembourg
• Raiffeisen
• Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken 
• Spuerkeess
• UBS
• Union Bancaire Privée

Norway

• DNB 
• Nordea Business
• Nordea Corporate
• Nordea
• SEB

Netherlands

• bunq

Romania

• CEC Bank

Spain

• UBS

Sweden

• SVEA Bank

Turkey

• ING Bank
• ING Bank – Corporate

United Kingdom

• Coutts ClearSpend
• NatWest International 
• NatWest International Online
• Royal Bank of Scotland International Limited ClearSpend
• Royal Bank of Scotland International Limited EQ
• UBS

United States of America

• Capital One (almost, pending) – the bank has not been available for connection for a while, due to past disagreements between our bank connection partner Plaid and the bank. They’re reached an agreement, we filled a bunch of paperwork and the connection is supposed to be available from April 30th onward with the authentication done on the bank’s website. However Plaid still has technical issues which prevent us from displaying and linking the new connection. We hope and expect  that this will be resolved shortly.
• Many, many more banks and credit unions were added, some removed. The US have A LOT of smaller banking institutions like credit unions, so the changes to the list are too numerous to list here. Best to check searchable our bank connection list.

Removed connections

Canada

• Capital One – Plaid had issues with the scraping type of connection of Capital One Canada for a long time, it was recently removed. We’re expecting the bank to be connectable under the new Capital One API connection, but are still experiencing some technical difficulties there. See under United States above.

Italy

• UBI Banca – while the API connection was removed, scraping connections remain available. Likely due to API issues on the bank’s end.
• UBI Banca (Carte)
• UBI Banca Corporate
• Enel X Corporate
• Enel X
• Igea Banca Corporate
• Igea Banca
• BCC di San Biagio Platani
• BCC di Verona
• BCC Trevigiano

Mexico

Mexico enacted a new law, requiring location checking on bank log ins. A workaround was possible for most institutions, but problems remained with 2 banks. The Scotiabank connection was disabled. Our partners are continuing work on BBVA, but the viability remains in question. We hope that official bank APIs become a mandatory requirement in Mexico in the future to avoid such issues.

• Scotiabank
• BBVA Bancomer?

Moldova

• MobiasBanca

Shitty Bank list updates

We’re glad that we could remove Intesa Sanpaolo Italy from the shitty bank list. They’re resolved the API errors that have come up and we hope the connection remains in working order this time.

Unfortunately not all is well with the Intesa Sanpaolo group. We’re adding Privredna Banka Zagreb (PBZ), who is also a part of the Intesa Sanpaolo group. They have proven extremely unresponsive in resolving API issues an onboarding valid PSD2 licences. Intesa Sanpaolo Slovenia also continues to be unable to offer a stable API connection.

We’ve also added SKB and Sparkasse (Slovenia), Aqua Card and all Newday cards (UK). See why they’re shitty on the shitty bank list.

In conclusion

Overall, the connections are slowly but surely improving. We sure wish it was faster. Our bank connections partners at Salt Edge and Plaid take the brunt of the work here and we’re thankful for their efforts.

Email reports

They come in regular weekly, monthly and yearly instalments. They’ll help you see the state of your finances right now, discover how you got there and what’s coming up in the near future.

What’s in the report?

• Left to spend amount comparisons of your average spending in this period to past ones.
• Monthly overview graph.
• Account balances of financial account on the last day the report includes. As this might be sensitive information in some cases, this option is deactivated by default and can be added at will.
• Sums of expenses, incomes as well as their categories, tags and daily averages.
• 3 largest expenses and 3 largest incomes in the past period.
• Budget summaries for budgets that match the time span of the reported period.
• Coming up, the list of largest expenses and incomes coming up in the next period after the email report.
• Net worth in the past year (yearly report only)
• Monthly balances in the past year (yearly report only)
• Monthly budgets in the past year (yearly report only)
• Exported files for the same period can be automatically added to email reports as well, including files with custom filters.

Exports

Sometimes you’d also need to inform others about the state of your financial affairs, or at least the part that affects them. For example, notify your roommates about the sums of shared expense tags last month. Perhaps you need to send a report including your business expense receipts from last month to the office. Last but not least, sometimes you just need a summary of a financial period and some extra records for backup. In any case, the new file export and email report improvements in Toshl have you covered.

While we’ve offered file exports in Toshl from the start, this update takes them to the next level.

PDF

• Completely redesigned and redone.
• Printer friendly, with most of the document in black and white, using less surfaces to save up on ink.
• Transaction lists are much easier to read now, include descriptions, repeat, location, splitting and paid / unpaid information. 
• Transfers between financial accounts and balance reconciliations are now included by default.
• Foreign currency amount, main currency amount and exchange rate are included if the transaction is in a foreign currency.
• Photos and PDF attachments can now be added to the exported PDF. Images of expense receipts can be included as 1 per page or 4 per page, depending on how large you need them to report. Receipt images also linked from the transaction list itself, so the receipt copy can be easily referenced.
• Monthly overview graph with the current state of finances and average spending.
• Account balances on the last day of the exported time span.
• Expense, income graphs are now included. This includes the donut graph for categories as well as the tag bubbles to get a better sense of proportions. 
• Expense, income sums listed per category, per tag and per financial account. Listed from the largest to the smallest sum in the period for easier comparisons. 
• Budget summaries for budgets that match the time span of the exported period.

CSV, XLS (Excel), OFX

• Transfers and account balance reconciliations are now included by default.
• Photos and attachments can now be added to these exports. They come in the form of the transaction file and images sorted into folders, packed together in a ZIP file.
• New support for the OFX file format. Quick to export and import (no column matching required), but unfortunately cannot include category and tag data.

General notes

• The exported files are no longer sent via email in the mobile apps. They’re now available directly, with the file downloaded in the app. Further actions are available using the system “open with” and share dialogues on iOS and Android. 
• The CSV, XLS and OFX files can also be imported back into Toshl.
• While most exporting should complete quickly, picking a long time span with lots of data – especially images, can take a bit longer. If that happens to take more than a few minutes, fear not, all is still well. You can freely close the app and when the exporting finishes on our servers, we’ll send you a notification informing you that the exported file is now available. 
• If you’re having issues with the CSV not displaying unicode characters in Excel – like in Arab, Hebrew or pretty much any non-Latin script, make sure to import it to Excel as a CSV file. If you just open the CSV, Excel doesn’t detect text encoding well. If you import the file as CSV, set encoding to UTF-8, it will import correctly.

Filtering data for export

What makes these features really powerful, is the option to filter the exports however you want. For starters, you can select the types of data you want included in the file, as seen on the left screen.

Tap the global filtering button on the top right of the screen. There, you can filter by:

• financial account, or group of financial accounts
• time span; my financial months or any custom time span

Tap the funnel icon just below the tabs and the filtering screen on the right opens up, to filter by:

• categories
• tags
• locations

You can use a combination of filters to get the report you desire.

A common use for this is making a report of shared expenses. Marking the expenses that you share with someone with an additional tag. Then make a PDF report filtered by that tag to figure out how much you owe each other. The report can also include individual transactions, so everyone can see how you got to that sum.

You can also make business expense reports this way. Mark business expenses with an extra tag, as well as add the expense receipt images if you need additional information. Export to PDF and you can attach the expense receipts right in there. Moreover, you can also send a report like this to yourself every month, attached to the email report.

All data exports

• Export all images and file attachments. Can also be filtered by time span or account.
• Export all data you have on Toshl in CSV form, including data on past payments, devices used etc. Additional metadata is available via the Toshl Developer API.

How do I get started?

The updated features are already available in the web app on toshl.com and in the latest Toshl Finance apps on Android and iOS. Version 3.5 and upwards.

Some features require Toshl Pro or Toshl Medici membership plans.

• CSV exports are free. PDF, XLS (Excel) and OFX files require either Toshl Pro or Medici.
• Images of expense receipts require either Toshl Pro or Medici.
• Email reports are free for all users, but become a lot more useful when paired with an automatically updating bank connection included in Toshl Medici.

Free 30-day trials are available for all new users.

• A new set of colours for the graphs. Expenses, incomes, River flow, Planning… All the graphs in the web app got a fresh coating of paint, increasing the contrasts between categories while keeping our aesthetic standards satisfied. Web app is the first to get this update, with mobile apps following later on.

• Overhauled budget history graph on the web app. It previously showed only your budget spending in past periods. It now compares your spending to the budget amount that you have set for the period. Go over your planned budget and the overspending will glow with increasingly menacing shades of red. Click on the graph to show details for the period. Previously available in the Android app, coming soon to iOS as well along with some yearly budgeting stats to boot.

• 8 new cryptocurrencies with constantly updated fresh exchange rates added. They’re already available in all the Toshl Finance apps, just pick the currency and you’ll find them there. This bring the total of available currencies to 258. You can use any of these currencies for your entries, budgets, accounts or even as your main currency. New additions:
  • Aave (AAVE)
  • Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC)
  • SushiSwap (SUSHI)
  • Storj (SOTRJ)
  • NuCrypto (NU)
  • Ethereum 2 (ETH2)
  • Polygon (MATIC)
  • Ankr (ANKR)

• Company VAT ID numbers for companies from the European Union can now be added to Toshl invoices as a part of the upgrade process when upgrading on our website. The ID is automatically matched with the company list and further details are pre-filled.
• The upgrade process was streamlined, with less promotional imagery. We’ve added an option to skip the free T-shirt or socks that normally come with the 3-year plan.
• Membership status translations on the user settings (Me) were improved for clarity in cases where the free trial auto-renewal had been already cancelled.
• Bank connectivity systems were improved in app updates both on iOS and Android, with iOS getting the larger overhaul this time. We’re continuing work on these issues, in particular; handling redirections after authenticating on the bank’s website. Due to various web browsers on Android handling this quite differently and these behaviours changing, the last step of connecting can sometimes fail. The connection will normally fix itself in the next retry in an hour, but this skips limiting the import by date. A workaround is in the making. If this happens when connecting your bank, please also try connecting from the web browser on toshl.com. Such issues affect a minority of bank connections, most should connect fine on all devices.
• Speedier syncing of the iOS mobile app with Toshl servers and consequently with other Toshl apps as well.

We have better news today. The issues with connections have been abating for a while now, as our bank connection partners resolved the issues. Salt Edge provided an alternative AISP registration and onboarded banks shortly after, but still experienced delays in some cases due to the onboarding process. Plaid’s complete EU downtime continued for 2 months. They were granted a new AISP registration in middle of February and have been onboarding banks again since, most are now available again, but some exceptions remain. Where the connections are still not available, the ball is likely in the bank’s court, either due to slow processes of approving the new registration or errors on the connection itself.

At the time of writing 15 152 bank connections around the world are available on Toshl.

Yesterday, a larger batch of French and Spanish and Irish connections have been re-enabled. Where Salt Edge provided replacements during Plaid’s downtime, those connections will continue to use the Salt Edge connection. The connections which remained missing on Salt Edge, but are available again over Plaid, have been enabled.

Recent additions and re-additions to bank connections:

• Ireland Allied Irish Banks, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB (now over API), KBC, Ulster Bank
• France Credit Lyonnais (LCL), Société Générale, HSBC, La Banque Postale
• Netherlands American Express, Garantibank
• Poland PKO Bank
• Italy Banca Sviluppo Tuscia, Intesa Sanpaolo Corporate, BCC di Massafra, CRS, Banca Capasso Antonio, Banca Macerata, Banca Santa Giulia, Banca d’Alba, Banca di Sconto e Conti Correnti, Banco Marchigiano CC, Mediocredito Trentino, Prader Bank, Solution Bank
• Belgium AXA
• Germany Sparda Bank (7 regional veriations now over API), Barcalycard (now API)
• Hungary MKB Bank
• Spain Novo Banco
• United Arab Emirates ADIB (Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank)
• Croatia HBP
• Slovakia OTP Banka
• Czechia Fio Banka
• Slovenia Delavska Hranilnica started supporting business accounts

Notable removals

• Unites States several Charles Schwab connections in the US.
• Israel Yahav Bank due to “technical issues” with scraping.

Still Missing in action – were available until Brexit issues, waiting to get them back. In most cases waiting for the bank to approve the new registration.

• France Banque Populaire (multiple regions), Caisse d’Epargne (multiple regions), Crédit Coopératif, AXA, BBVA
• Sweden ICA
• Finland OP
• Norway DNB, Danske
• bunq (in multiple countries, originally Dutch)

Providing transparency about shitty banking

With API connections – which banks need to provide by law in the European Union, the banks provide a large part of the functionality on their end. The authentication and the sending of account, transaction data, if we simplify a bit.

While we understand that there are usually some glitches with the implementation of new solutions, some banks are showing remarkable consistency in not resolving issues for long periods of time. As for the reasons, we leave the Hanlon’s razor to you.

To better explain what goes on in some of these cases, what are the legal limitations of PSD2 and in hopes of improvements in the future, we’ve started the Shitty Bank List, where we’ll keep you updated on the depths of bank depravities. Our sincere hope is to shrink that list to 0 as connections and attitudes to Open Banking improve.

File exports are new as well. We’ve added OFX, but the real emphasis was on the PDF. Much like the e-mail reports, it’s no longer just about the list of transactions, but becomes a full report in its own right. Sums, graphs, budgets all while keeping it modular and printer friendly.

If you’re curious, you can get access to these new features a bit early.

Sign up for the Exports & Reports Beta

We’re interested in your feedback. Both in how useful or not you find the features, as well as any reports about technical issues, if you run into them. While working well in cases we tried, the more different different types of data we can test the feature with, the better. In short, we’d like you to report some reports regarding these reports.

WTF does all this have to do with Toshl Finance? 

I’m glad you asked.

Banks in the European Union have a legal obligation to provide automatic data access (APIs) to transactions, financial accounts upon client’s authorisation. In turn, companies accessing that data, need to comply with the regulations as well and get a licence from the national banking regulator. Once the banking regulator in an EU member state issues the licence, it can be easily recognised (passported) by all other EU members. This way, an EU company can access this kind of financial data across the EU.

Lets, for the moment, leave aside that the banks are in many cases still woefully unprepared and merrily breaking this legislation, years after it was first announced and over a year since the last implementation deadline passed (Sep 14 2019). In most cases though, it’s working in at least a good-enough way.

As there are thousands of banks, each with their own peculiarities in technical implementations, we work with partners who help unify these connections and provide data access. The companies we work with right now are Salt Edge and Plaid.

Through either misfortune or lack of foresight, both these companies are registered in the United Kingdom. They got their AISP licence from the banking regulator in the UK (Financial Conduct Authority – FCA).

Due to the upcoming no-deal variation of Brexit, the legal system as described above will no longer apply in the UK. Licences issued by the UK banking regulator will no longer be automatically valid across the EU. They will be automatically revoked on Jan 1 2021.

Due to this, the existing connections via API to banks in the European Union will stop working on Jan 1.

Some will just need to be reactivated, some will not be able to. If you’re not interested in the why and how, skip ahead to instructions on how to fix the connections.

We checked with both Plaid and Salt Edge multiple times during the last few years, especially in recent times when it was becoming clearer that Brexit likely won’t be orderly. Both companies reassured us that they’re taking the required measures and that there won’t be any disruption. Obviously, that didn’t happen as planned.

We also obtained our own AISP licence from the Slovenian banking regulator in 2020 in addition to using the licences of our partners to connect. Due to this, we can certainly appreciate that filling in all the regulatory checkboxes is a large task. The requirements of the PSD2 legislation and consequently of the regulator, are often unnecessarily complex while doubtful in usefulness. We did not yet start the migration to using our own licence as we initially expected to do this more gradually and seamlessly to the end user in 2021. 

Had we known that Plaid and Salt Edge were not prepared with their AISP licences, we could have started this process sooner.

However, Plaid only notified us of these problems on 11 Dec, Salt Edge on 1 Dec.

The two companies came to rather different solutions for these issues. 

Salt Edge

Salt Edge is in the process of registering its new licence with the National bank of Romania, but they were not able to complete it so far and plan to do so in the first half of 2021. They ended up buying (or leasing?) the AISP licence from another company.

The current connections will become inactive, but should be able to be immediately re-added on Jan 1 by using the new AISP licence. The new connection will need to be authenticated again by logging in to your online bank. The connection will also create new financial accounts to import on and they’ll need to be merged with the previous accounts. See instructions.

A secondary issue is that these connections will need to be re-added again once Salt Edge gets its own proper licence. Wherever possible, we will try to use our own licence from here on, so that this second switch won’t be necessary.

Plaid

Plaid is in the process of registering its new licence with the National bank of Netherlands. They however did not even provide a wonky attempt at replacement like Salt Edge did. From Plaid, we just got a straight up notice on Dec 11 that they won’t be offering their services in January 2021 until they receive the new licence. Without even adding an apology. Quite an attitude, especially coming from a well funded company that Visa intends to pay 5,3 billion dollars for. Not exactly starved for resources, if for competence.

Needless to say, we are extremely disappointed with this outcome.

Our action plan

• Use of our own AISP licence and certificates. Transitioning to them was the plan all along for 2021, but we’re now greatly speeding up those efforts. Unfortunately this also takes some time, as banks need to onboard our certificates, have varying degrees of IT sophistication and there could be staffing issues due to Covid-19 and the end of the year.
• Replacing Plaid bank connections with the ones from Salt Edge, where available. We currently offer European Plaid connections in Spain, France, the Netherlands and UK. UK will, ironically, be unaffected by this. Quite a few of these connections will have replacements available via a Salt Edge connection, but unfortunately, we cannot promise this will be the case for all. We will likely be experiencing a prolonged downtime with certain connections in France, Spain and the Netherlands until Plaid has a registered AISP licence again. 
• Searching for new bank connection partners to provide both wider connectivity as well as backup connections precisely for such cases as described here.
• Notifying all our customers of these issues via this blog, social networks and emails to provide re-connecting instructions and lessen the impact.
• As we investigate the replacement connection options for banks, we will be providing more detailed information about which banks will be affected, how and notifying the affected users.

How will this look in practice? How can I resolve this with my own bank connections and accounts?

1. On January 1st, an affected connection will become inactive. 
2. Re-add it as a new bank connection.
3. Limit import by date. After authenticating the connection, you’ll be asked what time period you want to import the transactions for. Choose from Jan 1 2021 onward. This is to avoid duplication with your previously imported transactions.
4. Merge old and new financial accounts. The re-added connection will also add new financial accounts and import on these new accounts. You can then easily merge them with the financial accounts from before, to keep them unified. Select to keep updating the account from the new bank connection.
5. Done.

Only bank connections to banks in the European Union over an API connection are affected by these issues. 

Replacement connections will be provided for most banks.

Due to Plaid’s January shutdown we won’t be able to provide replacements for some connections in France, Spain and the Netherlands in the meantime.

Connections elsewhere around the world and connections using the scraping method are not affected by this issue.

In conclusion, we realise this is a big letdown. We sincerely apologise to our customers who will be affected by this issue. We will be doing our utmost to remedy the situation and provide more robust connectivity options in the future so that such situations won’t be able to reoccur.

The Brexit omnishambles makes fools of us all. We wish our English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish brethren and all affected by this pest, the strength and perseverance to overcome.

Update 17. 12. : removed a direct quote from Salt Edge upon request and a made factual correction regarding licence purchase.