Backups

A Backup is a complete copy of a Household that can be restored. Use it to take your data with you, move to another machine, or recover when something goes wrong.

What a Backup contains

A Backup covers all of a Household's data:

Income Sources
Fixed Outgoings: Recurring Charges, Debt Obligations, Savings Allocations
Categories and Budget Lines
Expenses (including which are Special Expenses) and their Expense Items, including voided entries and older versions replaced by edits
Windfalls

Nothing is lost: the principal, number of payments and rates that the calculations need are all there. A Backup does not contain your login password, so the file is safe to keep.

Download a Backup

Open the Household you want to back up, tap the "Settings" tab at the bottom, then "Backup" at the top.
Press "Download". Your browser saves a .zip file named "Household name-date.zip".

If the page says "… offline entries haven't synced yet. Sync them before downloading a Backup.", some Expenses recorded offline are still on this device and haven't reached the system. A Backup only contains synced data, so get back online, let them sync, and then download.

The zip contains two files:

budget-planner-export.json: the actual content of the Backup.
README.txt: which Household this is, when it was backed up, the format version, and how to restore it, so you can still tell what the file is years later. It's written in the Display Language of whoever downloaded it; the data itself is the same in every language.

We recommend downloading one regularly, for example once a month, and keeping it somewhere other than the same device.

Restore a Backup

Restoring always creates a brand-new Household and never overwrites existing data. The original Household isn't affected at all. The new Household keeps the name it had when it was backed up.

Open the restore page:
- If you don't have a Household yet, press "Or restore a Backup" under "Create your first Household".
- If you already have one, go to the "Backup" page in the Settings tab and press "Or restore a Backup" at the bottom.
Choose the Backup file: either the downloaded .zip or the .json inside it.
Press "Restore".
While the page says "Restoring in the background. This may take a moment; please stay on this page…", wait for it to finish.
When it's done, you're taken to the new Household's home screen.

The restored Household keeps the Backup's currency. Backups from earlier versions don't record a currency and are restored as New Taiwan dollars.

If a restore fails, no new Household is created. See "When a restore fails" below for the reason and what to do.

When a restore fails

Message	Reason and what to do
The file is too large to restore	The file is over the 25 MB limit.
This isn't a readable Backup file	The wrong file was chosen, or it's damaged. Make sure you chose the downloaded `.zip`.
This Backup's format version (…) is newer than this system supports. Update the system, then restore it	The Backup came from a newer version. Update the system first, then restore it.
Your previous restore is still running. Wait for it to finish before uploading another Backup	Only one restore runs at a time; wait for the previous one to finish.
This Backup's currency (…) isn't supported, so this file can't be restored	The Backup's currency isn't on the supported list, so it can't be restored.

Can older Backups still be restored?

Yes. Every Backup carries a format version, and whenever the format changes, the system also gets a way to convert older versions, so a Backup you save today can still be read by later versions.

The reverse doesn't work: a Backup newer than the running system is rejected, so update the system first.

Replacing a Household with a Backup

Restoring doesn't touch existing Households, so afterwards you'll have both the old and the new one. Once you've checked the new Household is correct and you no longer need the old one, delete it from the old Household's "Settings" → "Delete".

Deleting a Household removes all of its data permanently; it can't be undone. Before deleting, make sure the new Household is fine, and consider downloading a Backup first.

Moving to another system

A Backup can be restored on another system running the same software. If the person who added an Expense has no User with the same email on the new system, those Expenses are kept and marked "(who is no longer on this system)" in the list. Amounts, Categories and dates are unaffected.