Importing Transactions

Cadence works with standard CSV exports from your bank or credit card. Rather than looking for a specific bank, it inspects the header row and matches your columns using flexible header heuristics, so as long as your file is a standard CSV with one transaction per row, Cadence can almost always read it - even when the column order is unusual.

If you’re moving from another budgeting app, Cadence auto-detects the column layouts from Mint, Monarch, Lunch Money, and GnuCash. Files from other apps still import fine; you may just need to confirm a column or two in the mapping step.

The import flow walks you through upload, mapping, preview, and confirmation:

1. Open the global Add (“+”) dropdown and choose Import Transactions.
2. Upload your CSV file from your device.
3. Enter a Source Name for these transactions (or map a Source column from your file), and pick the source type.
4. Review the column mapping - in most cases Cadence detects everything correctly.
5. Preview the parsed transactions and check the dates, amounts, and merchant names.
6. Confirm to import the transactions.

Nothing is written until you confirm the preview, so it’s safe to back out at any step if something looks off. Once you confirm, transactions are added in chunks.

Cadence inspects the header row and tries to match each column to one of its standard fields. The required fields are date, transaction name, and amount - everything else is optional. If your file uses non-standard headers, or no headers at all, you can map each column manually using the dropdowns in the mapping step.

Optional fields you can map include category, currency, notes, and a source column. Unmapped columns are simply ignored, so it’s fine to import a file with extra fields you don’t care about.

Credit card statements often format charges as positive numbers and payments as negatives - the opposite of how a chequing-style export looks. On the upload step, set the source type to Credit Card to flip the signs so charges appear as expenses and payments appear as income, matching how Cadence expects to see them.

If your preview looks inverted (income where expenses should be), go back, switch the source type, and re-preview.

After you confirm, Cadence checks your imported rows against your existing Plaid and manual transactions to flag likely double-counts. A row is treated as a duplicate when it matches a transaction from a different source on date (within three days), amount (within one percent), and sign, with a similar name - so a $42.18 coffee from Tuesday that’s already synced from your bank won’t clutter your history a second time.

Detection runs server-side once the import is committed. There isn’t a per-row duplicate flag in the preview; instead, Cadence hides the duplicates it finds and reports how many were skipped as a count on the results screen.

Imported transactions go through the same smart category system as synced ones. Merchant names are matched against known patterns, your category learning is applied, and any rules you’ve set up are respected. The first import after switching from another app is a great chance to let Cadence absorb your historical merchant-to-category preferences in one go.

Read more about how categories work in categories and smart features.

A few patterns trip up imports more than others. If something isn’t looking right in the preview, check these first:

1. Amount column contains a currency symbol or thousands separator - clean these out before re-uploading.
2. Dates come through wrong because slash and dash formats are read month-first - if your export is day-first, reformat the date column to YYYY-MM-DD before uploading.
3. Blank rows or summary rows at the top or bottom of the file - delete them in your spreadsheet before exporting.
4. Multi-currency exports where some rows are USD and others CAD - import them as separate files, one per currency.
5. Statements that combine multiple accounts - split them apart so each import covers one account, and give each its own Source Name.