Taly Help & Guide

A step-by-step guide to setting up Taly and getting the most out of it — from your first 90 seconds to backups, security, and billing.

1. Getting started

You can either create an account or look around with example data first — no commitment either way.

1. On the welcome screen, choose how to begin. To explore risk-free, tap Try the demo to load example data instantly (no email needed). To keep your data, tap to create an account.
2. If you’re creating an account, sign up with email + password, a one-tap magic link, Google, or Apple.
3. The first-time setup wizard runs next — about 90 seconds. It builds a starting budget for you. Pick one of four paths:

• Use a starter template — choose a 50/30/20 plan, a Ramsey-style plan, or a simple 3-bucket setup.
• Build from your bills — enter your recurring costs and Taly sizes categories around them.
• Build from your imported transactions — Taly suggests categories from what you’ve already imported.
• Skip and set up manually — start from a blank slate and add categories yourself.

4. A short guided tour points out the main areas. You can replay the tour any time from Settings.

2. How Taly works (the split)

This is the idea that makes Taly different. You decide once how your income should be divided, and every paycheck sorts itself.

• You give each category a percentage of your income, and optionally a dollar cap.
• When income arrives, Taly distributes it across your categories by those percentages.
• If a category hits its cap, the leftover automatically overflows into the categories that still have room — a second pass that fills the rest.

The result: set it once, and you don’t have to re-decide where money goes every payday. Caps make sure no single category hoards cash, and overflow makes sure nothing is wasted.

3. Building your budget (categories)

Your categories live in Budgets. Each one carries a share of income and, if you want, one or two caps.

1. Open Budgets and add a category.
2. Set its Share of income (%) — how much of each deposit it should receive.
3. Optionally set a Max per month ($) and/or a Max balance ($) cap. When a cap is reached, overflow sends the rest elsewhere.
4. Check that your shares total 100%. Taly shows you the running total so you can balance them.
5. Tap Re-evaluate any time to redistribute existing balances under your current rules.

You can edit, retire, or un-retire a category as your life changes. When you edit a category, Taly offers three save modes:

• Update current values — change the numbers from now on.
• Apply from a future date — schedule the change to take effect later.
• Replace the rule history (advanced) — rewrite the category’s past rules.

A Rule History view shows the timeline of how a category’s rules have changed over time, so you can always see what was in effect and when.

4. Getting your money in

There are three ways to get transactions into Taly. Use whichever fits — you can mix them.

a) Add a transaction by hand

1. Open Activity and start a new transaction.
2. Enter the amount, date, and category, then save.

b) Import a CSV

1. Go to the Import tab.
2. Pick a preset for Mint, YNAB, Monarch, or Copilot (these map the columns for you).
3. Upload your CSV file and review the matched transactions before confirming.

c) Connect a bank (Plaid)

1. Open Settings.
2. Go to Connected banks.
3. Tap Connect a bank and follow the secure Plaid flow.

5. Your Home / Dashboard

Your Home screen is the at-a-glance view of where you stand right now. It shows:

• Total Balance, with the date you’ve reconciled through and your category count.
• An over-budget warning if a category has gone negative or beyond plan.
• The Balance by Bucket donut — a visual split of where your money sits.
• A Category Balances list with the current balance in each category.
• Insights — quick observations like month-over-month changes, your top vendor, and your savings rate.

6. Activity (transactions)

The Activity tab is where you review and fix up transactions.

1. Search and filter by date range, account, or text to find what you need.
2. Tap a transaction to recategorize it.
3. Use split to divide one transaction into parts across multiple categories (handy for a single store run that covers several things).
4. Bulk-select several transactions to recategorize or delete them at once.
5. Made a mistake? Use undo / redo.
6. Export your filtered transactions to CSV when you need them outside Taly.

7. Trends

The Trends area helps you see the bigger picture over time:

• Income vs Spending — net of refunds, so the numbers reflect reality.
• Money on Hand / Net Worth over time.
• A 12-month Forecast projecting where you’re heading.
• A What-If simulator with income and spending sliders to test scenarios.
• Spending by Group and Top Categories to see where the money actually goes.

8. Goals & Bills

Goals and Recurring Bills help you plan ahead.

• Goals link to a category and auto-track as that category grows. You can pause or resume a goal any time.
• Recurring Bills are templates for predictable costs. When a bill is actually due, tap Post bill to record the transaction — nothing is charged until you post it.

9. Reconciling

Reconciling means cross-checking Taly against your real bank statement so you trust the numbers.

• The Last reconciled marker reminds you when you last did that check.
• Reconcile whenever you like — a quick monthly pass keeps Taly and your bank in sync and catches anything missed.

10. Backups & restore

Your data is yours, and you can take a full copy whenever you want.

1. Open Settings, then Backup.
2. Choose download a full JSON backup to save a complete copy of your data.
3. To restore, pick a backup file — Taly snapshots your current data first, so a restore is never one-way.

For hands-off safety, you can turn on Google Drive auto-backup, which uploads backups to your own Drive. On iPhone, iCloud backup is also available. These backups live in your storage — keep them somewhere safe.

11. Account & security

Taly gives you several ways to sign in and lock things down.

• Sign-in options — email + password, magic link, Google, or Apple.
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) — optional, via an authenticator app, plus one-time recovery codes in case you lose your device.
• Biometric app-lock on mobile — Face ID, Touch ID, or fingerprint, so the app stays locked when your phone isn’t in your hands.

To delete your account and all of your data, see how to delete your account. A 7-day grace period applies, so an accidental deletion can be reversed within that window.

12. Billing & subscription

Taly starts with a 14-day free trial — no card required to start. After the trial, it’s $11/month or $96/year.

1. Manage or cancel your plan any time in Settings.
2. If you cancel, it takes effect at the end of the current billing period — you keep access until then.

See the Terms for refund details.

13. Privacy

Your money data stays yours. We never sell your data, never show ads, and never train AI on it. For the full details, read the Privacy Policy. Questions about your data can go to privacy@taly.app, and anything security-related to security@taly.app.

14. Still need help?

If something isn’t covered here, we’re happy to help.

• Email support@taly.app from the address on your account, and tell us what’s happening (a screenshot helps).
• Have a billing question? That goes to support@taly.app too.
• Want to request a feature or see what’s coming? Check the roadmap.
• Prefer a form? Use the contact page.

Published at taly.app/support.