Managing Your Budget

Now that MoneyWell has transitioned from the "document" model to a more streamlined approach. Instead of managing individual documents, the MoneyWell app now takes care of all your budgets.

In contrast to earlier versions of MoneyWell (MoneyWell 1, MoneyWell 2, MoneyWell 3), where your Document existed as a separate file that could be freely moved and saved. As of March 2023, MoneyWell operates differently with its new sync system. Now, MoneyWell takes care of managing all your Budgets internally. As a result, there have been some adjustments to processes such as Backing up and Restoring. Additionally, there are new procedures for Enabling and Disabling Sync.

In this article, we will provide a concise overview of the following topics:

• How to Backup a Budget
• How to Restore a Budget
• How to Delete a Budget
• How to Sync a Budget
• How to Un-Sync a Budget

Backing up a Budget

You have two primary options for backing up your Budget:

1) One Off Backup (Export)

To create a One Off Backup:

1. Open MoneyWell
2. Open the Budget you wish to make a backup of
3. Go to File -> Export -> Export As Archive
4. Follow the onscreen prompts

This process will generate an .mwarchive file, which is stored in your chosen location, that you can subsequently back up using any of the following methods.

For more information on One Off Backups, please see our article, Making a one off backup

2) Snapshot

Every time you open your Budget, MoneyWell automatically creates a snapshot of that Budget. These snapshots are available by heading to Help -> Show Backups Folder.

Snapshots are saved as .mwarchive files, which are then able to be backed up by using any of the following methods.

For more information on Snapshots, please see our article, Backing Up MoneyWell

Now that you have a file that can be backed up, we recommend two additional levels of backup. An Off-computer Backup and an Off-site Backup.

You can find out more about our backup recommendations by heading to our article, Backing Up MoneyWell

Restoring a Budget

You can easily restore from either Backup method, both the One Off (Export) and the Snapshot.

To Restore from a One Off Backup:

1. Locate the .mwarchive file that you wish to restore
2. Double click the .mwarchive file
3. Follow the onscreen prompts to restore your file

For more information on Restoring a Budget, please see our article, Restoring from Backup MoneyWell

To Restore from a Snapshot:

1. With MoneyWell open and all Budgets closed, go to Help -> Show Backups Folder
2. This will open a Finder Window containing all MoneyWell Snapshots
3. Locate the .mwarchive file that you wish to restore (The naming structure of Snapshots is as follows "BudgetName@_@UUID@_@TimeCode.mwarchive")
4. Double click the .mwarchive Snapshot file
5. Follow the onscreen prompts to restore the Snapshot

For more information on Restoring a Budget, please see our article, Restoring from Backup MoneyWell

Deleting a Budget

With a Budget now having three possible states (Local only, Syncing, Remote), there are a few additional steps required to fully delete or remove a Budget.

Delete a Local only Budget

The following steps outline the process to remove a Budget that has not been enabled for sync, meaning it exists solely on one device:

1. With MoneyWell open and all Budgets closed, go to MoneyWell -> Settings -> Sync
2. Under the 'Local only' tab, will be displayed a list of your 'Local only' Budgets
3. Simply click the 'Delete' button next to the Budget you wish to delete
4. Follow the onscreen prompts to fully delete that Budget

For more information on deleting a 'Local only' Budget, please see the Local Only section of our article, Deleting a Budget

Delete a Remote Budget

The following steps provide an overview of the process to remove a Budget from the cloud. This refers to the copy stored in the cloud that other devices utilize for the syncing process.

1. With MoneyWell open and all Budgets closed, go to MoneyWell -> Settings -> Sync
2. Under the 'Remote (available to download)' tab, will be displayed a list of all your Budgets that only exist in the cloud
3. Simply click the 'Delete from cloud' button next to the Budget you wish to delete
4. Folllow the onscreen prompts to delete this Budget from the cloud

For more information on deleting a Remote Budget from the cloud, please see our article, Deleting a Budget

Delete a Sync Enabled Budget

There are three distinct steps to fully deleting a Sync Enabled Budget. Detaching, Deleting from the cloud, Deleting the local copy.

Detaching severs the connection between the local copy of your Budget stored on your Mac, and the copy of your Budget that is stored in the cloud, for use by other devices.

Deleting from the cloud removes the copy of your Budget from the cloud.

Deleting the local copy completely removes the local copy of your Budget from your Mac.

All three steps need to be completed in order for the Budget to be completely deleted.

1. With MoneyWell open and all Budgets closed, go to MoneyWell -> Settings -> Sync
2. Under the 'Syncing' tab, will be displayed a list of all your Sync Enabled Budgets
3. Simply click the 'Detach budget' button next the Budget you wish to delete
4. Follow the onscreen prompts to detach this Budget
5. Once the Budget has been detached, follow the above steps on how to Delete a Remote Budget
6. Once the Remote Budget has been deleted, follow the above steps on how to Delete a Local only Budget

For more information on Deleting a Budget, please see our article, Deleting a Budget

Delete a Budget from Express (iOS):

From the Budgets selection screen, swipe left on the Budget that you wish to remove. That's it!

Sync a Budget

Setting up Sync on your Budget is as simple as a single button click.

To Enable Sync on an existing Budget:

1. Open MoneyWell
2. Open the Budget you wish to Enable Sync
3. Go to File -> Enable Budget Sync...
4. Follow the onscreen prompts

To create a new Sync Enabled Budget from scratch:

1. Open MoneyWell
2. Select 'Start a New Budget' from the Welcome Window
3. Follow the onscreen prompts for setting up your new Budget
4. On the 'MoneyWell Budget Syncing' page, select 'Set up this Budget for syncing'
5. Continue with the onscreen prompts

To Enable Sync upon importing an old MoneyWell Document:

1. Open MoneyWell
2. Select 'Import MoneyWell Document' from the Welcome Window
3. Select the Document you wish to import, ensure that the 'Enable sync' box is checked before clicking 'Open' (If the 'Enable sync' button is not visable, you can find it by clicking the 'Option' button)
4. Click 'Open'

For more information on Enabling Sync on a Budet, please see our article, Sync

Un-Sync a Budget

In order to disable Sync on a Budget, there are two distinct steps to removing sync from a Sync Enabled Budget. Detaching, Deleting from the cloud

Detaching severs the connection between the local copy of your Budget stored on your Mac, and the copy of your Budget that is stored in the cloud, for use by other devices.

Deleting from the cloud removes the copy of your Budget from the cloud.

Both steps need to be completed in order for Sync to be removed from the Budget.

1. With MoneyWell open and all Budgets closed, go to MoneyWell -> Settings -> Sync
2. Under the 'Syncing' tab, will be displayed a list of all your Sync Enabled Budgets
3. Simply click the 'Detach budget' button next the Budget you wish to delete
4. Follow the onscreen prompts to detach this Budget
5. Once the Budget has been detached, go to the 'Remote (available to download) tab
6. Under the 'Remote (available to download)' tab, will be displayed a list of all your Budgets that only exist in the cloud
7. Simply click the 'Delete from cloud' button next to the Budget you wish to delete
8. Folllow the onscreen prompts to delete this Budget from the cloud

Sync can always be re-enabled by following the above instructions in the Sync a Budget section.

For more information on Sync, please see our article, Sync