Statements from Australian banks including CommBank, ANZ and Police Credit Union now import more accurately. Payee names are cleaner, unknown merchants are matched with names and logos, transfers and card repayments are no longer mistaken for income, and fewer files are skipped. If you delete your data, you can re-import the same statement again.
Adding a transaction is now quicker. Search and pick the merchant, category and account as you type, and choosing a merchant can fill in the name and category for you. You can also add a transaction straight from an account's details screen with that account already selected, and search your transactions by name, merchant or amount.
While your transactions are syncing, you'll now see a percentage showing how far along it is. New transactions appear in your list as they arrive, so you can start looking around without waiting for the whole sync to finish.
Getting started in Australia is now quicker. Your time zone is set automatically, sign-up links open the right place on your phone or computer, and onboarding prompts you to upload your latest statement, ideally covering the last three months, so you're up and running straight away.
Australians can now share a statement file or link from another app, like your email or banking app, straight into BudgetBuddie to import it. You can share several files at once, and they open ready to import in the app.
You can now sign up and log in with your Google or Apple account, with no extra password to remember. It works on the mobile app, the website and the accounts portal where you manage your plan. If you already have a BudgetBuddie account with the same email, it's linked automatically.
Bank syncs and statement imports now finish faster. BudgetBuddie is also smarter at categorising your transactions automatically, recognising things like wages, refunds, interest, insurance, loan repayments and transfers between your own accounts, so there's less for you to sort out by hand.
Zero-based budgets are now more accurate. Past months settle at zero once their leftover moves forward, only money you actually owe on a card or loan shows as underfunded, and amounts with cents are saved exactly. You can move money back to Ready to Assign, tapping a budget on the dashboard opens it straight in zero-based view, and reconnecting a bank no longer throws your numbers out.
The retirement planner now works for Australians. It projects your super and savings year by year using Australian retirement ages, contributions, tax and inflation, and includes Age Pension options so you can see what your retirement income could look like. A short guided tour explains how it all works.
Australians can now import transactions straight from screenshots of their banking app. Take screenshots of your transactions, then share them to BudgetBuddie or upload them, up to 12 at a time. BudgetBuddie reads the dates, payees, amounts and balances, skips anything you've already imported and categorises the rest, with no statement file needed.
Australians can now bring their transactions into BudgetBuddie by uploading bank statements, with no bank feed needed. Upload a PDF, CSV, OFX or QFX statement from your bank and BudgetBuddie matches it to the right account, skips any duplicates, categorises your transactions and updates your balance. You can also edit merchant names and logos, and set your time zone in Settings.
Australian users can now close accounts they no longer use and view them later in a closed accounts list. If you want a clean slate, you can delete all your accounts, transactions and merchants in one go. When importing a statement, you can also choose to bring in the account balance only, or the account and all its transactions.
Reconnecting your bank is now more reliable. If you reconnect an account, BudgetBuddie picks up your existing account instead of creating a duplicate, and accounts you remove no longer leave a leftover balance behind. Syncs complete properly after reconnecting, and your bank connection stays active until your plan actually ends.
Cancelling a paid plan is now clearer. When you cancel, you keep full access until the end of the billing period you've already paid for, and we confirm the date your access ends and that you won't be charged again. You'll also get a confirmation email so you have it in writing.
You can now add notes and receipts to any transaction. Open a transaction to type a note, which saves automatically, and attach up to 10 photos, images or PDFs straight from your camera, photo library or files. Attachments open in a preview right in the app, you can rename them, and they stay with the transaction even if you split it. It's perfect for keeping receipts for tax time, warranties or shared expenses.
When you categorise a transaction, BudgetBuddie now suggests categories based on similar transactions. If it finds other uncategorised transactions that match, you can apply the same category to all of them at once, which also updates the merchant so future transactions are categorised for you. It saves heaps of time when you're catching up on uncategorised transactions.
Zero-based budgets are now more flexible. You can move leftover money from one category to another by tapping its Available amount, and you can include overdrafts, revolving credit and loans alongside your credit cards. Budget groups also expand and collapse with a tap on mobile.
Transactions and accounts in less common currencies, such as Chilean pesos, now convert at a real exchange rate. If a rate isn't available for the exact day, we use the most recent rate instead of treating it as one to one, so your totals and net worth stay accurate.
Zero-based budgets now show the right numbers. Ready to Assign updates straight away when you add accounts or income, only counts income on the accounts you've included in your budget, and ignores anything from before your budget start date. Credit card Ready to pay amounts now ignore payments from before you added the card, underfunded amounts show in red, and weekly and fortnightly periods always line up with your start date.
Zero-based budgeting is here. Give every dollar a job: money coming into the accounts you choose lands in Ready to Assign, and you assign it to your expense categories until there's nothing left over. It works with weekly, fortnightly, monthly or custom periods, carries leftover money forward, and lets you plan credit card payments so you can see what's ready to pay. Switch it on in Budget settings, and a short guided tour shows you how it works.
If you're a New Zealander with a KiwiSaver account, you can now request a free KiwiSaver review with MoneyGuide right from the app. Eligible KiwiSaver accounts show a card with your provider, balance and estimated fees, and you can fill in a short form without leaving BudgetBuddie.
If you have accounts in another currency, your net worth now converts them into your own currency, so your total is accurate. Account cards show both the converted and original amounts, your net worth history fills in correctly for linked foreign accounts, and a rising debt now shows in red while a falling one shows in green.
Goals have been rebuilt around the date you want to reach them. Set a target date and how often you'll contribute, including daily, weekly or monthly, and your goal card shows your progress, balance and whether you're on track. Goals work for paying down debt too, and once you've reached a goal you can archive it to keep your list tidy and restore it later if you need to.
Net Worth has been completely redesigned. You can now see how your net worth changes month by month with clear charts, and your assets and liabilities are grouped by type and sorted from largest to smallest. You can edit the value of any asset or liability for each of the past 24 months, link items to your connected accounts so their history fills in automatically, and see at a glance how each one changed since last month.
You can now mark any expense category as a savings category. Money you regularly put away, like transfers to a savings account, KiwiSaver top-ups or a sinking fund, is tracked on your budget so you can see you're sticking to it, but it no longer counts as spending in your totals, Money Insights, merchants or cash flow. Savings categories show a badge so they're easy to spot.
New to BudgetBuddie? A guided welcome tour now walks you through the app step by step. Every main area, including budgets, transactions, accounts, goals, cash flow, Money Insights, net worth and retirement, has its own short tour with images and videos, and you can open it any time by tapping the info icon on that screen.
Meet BudgetBuddie Assist, a helper built into the app and website. Ask it how to do anything in BudgetBuddie, like setting up a budget or connecting an account, and you'll get an instant answer with links to the right help articles and a Try it button that takes you to the right screen. You can rate answers, and turn Assist on or off in your settings.
You now stay signed in through app updates and plan changes instead of being logged out unexpectedly. When you do log in again, your Face ID, PIN and theme settings are kept, and a temporary connection hiccup no longer signs you out.
If you've split a transaction or changed its date, it no longer comes back as a duplicate when your bank resyncs or you reconnect. Duplicate detection now recognises edited dates, split transactions, delayed transactions and reconnections, so your transaction list stays clean.
Connecting your bank when you sign up in New Zealand is now clearer. Instead of a long explainer, you get short expandable answers about how Akahu connects your bank securely, what data is shared and how to delete it. Once you're connected, an All set up screen confirms you're ready, with the option to connect more accounts.
Choosing and paying for a plan is now much smoother. Plan screens fit properly on your phone, the Pro plan discount is applied automatically at checkout, and free plan users are no longer caught in a redirect loop. Once you've finished setting up on desktop, you're taken straight into the web app already logged in.
If your verification code doesn't arrive when you sign up, log in, use two-factor authentication or reset your password, you can now request a new one right from the screen. A 30-second countdown shows when you can ask again, and your email address stays filled in so you don't need to retype it.
When you tap a Manage plan link from the app, the website or one of our emails, you're now signed in automatically and taken straight to your plan. This works reliably on iPhone too, including when you open the link from the Gmail or Mail app, so you no longer get bounced back to the login screen.
You can now organise your budgets into groups, each with its own colour and emoji, and see a summary for the whole group at a glance. Budgets can also run on a custom period, so you can match them to your pay cycle by choosing a start date and how often it repeats. When you add a new budget, BudgetBuddie suggests an amount based on the last six months of your real spending, and Quick Add lets you add several suggested income and expense budgets in one go.
This update to the mobile app tidied up a few everyday frustrations. Your budgets now load straight to the right numbers instead of briefly showing $0, signing in with Face ID is more dependable, and Money Insights now displays long date ranges correctly so your charts and totals line up.
