Frequently Asked Questions

PFM (Personal Finance Manager) is a web application that helps you take control of your money using the envelope budgeting method. You allocate your income into spending categories before you spend, so every dollar has a job.

Envelope budgeting is a method where you divide your income into "envelopes" — named spending categories like Groceries, Rent, or Entertainment. You decide how much goes into each envelope at the start of the month, then spend only from those envelopes. When an envelope is empty, you stop spending in that category or move money from another envelope.

Yes. PFM is currently free for all users with full access to every feature, including budgeting, goal tracking, reports, receipt scanning, and the financial assistant.

Create an account, verify your email, then add your bank accounts on the Accounts page. Next, set up your monthly budget by allocating income to categories. Finally, start recording transactions — PFM will track your spending against each envelope automatically.

PFM supports checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, cash wallets, and investment accounts. Each account tracks its own balance independently.

Go to the Transactions page and click "Add Transaction." Choose the account, select a category, enter the amount and date, then save. You can also scan a receipt to auto-fill the details.

Yes. PFM supports importing transactions from CSV and OFX files exported by most banks. Go to Import in the main menu and follow the guided steps to map your file columns.

Recurring transactions are scheduled entries (like rent, subscriptions, or salary) that repeat on a set frequency — daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. PFM automatically creates them on the scheduled dates so you don't have to enter them manually each time.

Go to the Budget page, select the current month, and assign amounts to each category. Your total income appears at the top — allocate it across your envelopes until "Available to Assign" reaches zero. This means every dollar has a purpose.

Category groups are containers that organize related categories together. For example, a "Housing" group might contain Rent, Utilities, and Internet. Groups make your budget easier to read and manage.

Absolutely. You can rename, reorder, or delete any default category, and create new ones. Go to Categories in the main menu to manage your category groups and individual categories.

"Available to Assign" is the amount of income you haven't yet allocated to a category. Ideally it should be zero — that means every dollar of your income is assigned to a specific purpose, which is the core principle of envelope budgeting.

Yes. Create goals on the Goals page — set a target amount and optional deadline. You can contribute to goals from any account, and PFM tracks your progress with a visual progress bar.

PFM lets you choose your preferred display currency in Settings. All amounts are shown in your chosen currency. Multi-currency account support with automatic conversion is on the roadmap.

When adding a transaction, click the camera icon to open the receipt scanner. Take a photo or upload an image, and PFM will extract the merchant name, amount, date, and individual items automatically. Discounts and rebates on the receipt are merged into item prices so you see only the net amount you paid. Review the details, pick a category, and save.

Two-factor authentication adds a second step to your login. After entering your password, you also enter a 6-digit code from an authenticator app on your phone (such as Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, or Microsoft Authenticator). Even if someone learns your password, they cannot sign in without that code.

Go to Settings, find the Two-Factor Authentication section, and click "Enable Two-Factor Authentication." Scan the QR code with your authenticator app, enter the 6-digit code the app shows to confirm setup, and PFM will then display 10 single-use backup codes. Save those codes somewhere safe — they are the only way back into your account if you lose your phone.

Backup codes are 10 single-use 8-character recovery codes generated when you enable 2FA. If you lose access to your authenticator app, enter a backup code on the 2FA challenge screen instead of a 6-digit code. Each backup code works exactly once and is then permanently consumed. You can regenerate the full set at any time from Settings (which invalidates any unused codes).

On the 2FA challenge screen, enter one of the backup codes you saved when you set up 2FA. After you sign in, go to Settings and either set up 2FA fresh with your new phone or regenerate a new set of backup codes. If you also lost your backup codes, contact support — your password alone is not enough to bypass 2FA, by design.

Go to Settings → Two-Factor Authentication, expand "Disable two-factor authentication," enter a fresh 6-digit code from your authenticator app to confirm it is really you, and click Disable. Your device entry and all backup codes are removed. You can enable 2FA again any time.

Yes. The shared secret that links your account to your authenticator app is signed with Django's cryptographic signer before being stored in the database, so a stolen database row alone cannot generate valid codes. Backup codes are stored as one-way SHA-256 hashes — even PFM staff cannot read them after creation. The 2FA challenge endpoint is rate-limited to slow brute-force guessing.

For your security, PFM signs you out after 8 hours of inactivity. As long as you keep using the app the clock resets, so an active session never expires mid-use — only a session left idle for more than 8 hours is ended. This protects your financial data if you step away from a shared or unlocked device. Just sign back in to continue.

There are generous daily fair-use limits so the smart features stay fast and available for everyone: the Financial Assistant handles up to 50 messages a day (and a short-term burst limit to prevent runaway loops), receipt scanning up to 20 receipts a day, and the transaction-parsing and category-suggestion helpers up to 30 uses a day each. Normal use never comes close. If you do hit a limit you'll see a brief "you're doing that too often" message — wait a moment (or until the next day) and try again.