Export CSV format
Big Picture Money exports data as UTF-8 CSV files. Amounts are stored as integer minor units (cents for USD): divide by 100 for display (for example -4250 = −$42.50). Dates use ISO 8601 calendar dates (YYYY-MM-DD).
Exports are not encrypted. Treat them like any sensitive financial spreadsheet.
Full export (ZIP)
A full export is a ZIP archive named by you at save time (for example bigpicture-export-2026-07-12.zip). It contains one CSV per major data type:
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
accounts.csv | All accounts (active and archived) |
transactions.csv | All transactions with register-style columns (see below) |
categories.csv | Category tree |
tags.csv | Tag catalog |
category_groups.csv | Budget/report roll-up groups |
category_group_members.csv | Category ↔ group links |
budget_periods.csv | Budget periods |
budget_lines.csv | Budget line targets |
goals.csv | Financial goals |
saved_views.csv | Saved transaction views (names and filter rules as JSON) |
audit_events.csv | Export and security activity log |
Additional *.csv files | Other user-owned tables in your data file (imports, sync metadata, rules, etc.) |
Table dumps use database column names as the header row unless noted above.
transactions.csv columns (full and saved-view export)
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
account_name | Account display name |
date | Transaction date (YYYY-MM-DD) |
payee | Payee / transaction entity name |
category | Primary category name (empty if uncategorized) |
amount | Signed amount in minor units |
cleared | yes or no |
reconciled | yes or no |
memo | User memo |
description | Bank/import description |
tags | Semicolon-separated tag names |
id | Stable transaction identifier |
Saved view exports use the same columns; only rows matching the view’s filter rules are included.
accounts.csv columns
Includes id, name, account_type, currency, opening_balance, cached_balance, sort_order, archived_at, created_at, and updated_at.
Encoding and Excel
- Files are UTF-8 with a header row.
- Open in Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice Calc; if characters look wrong, import as UTF-8 explicitly.