Start Here

The front door to the Aventurine user guide.

Aventurine is a personal finance app that runs entirely on your own computer. You give it the transaction files your bank already lets you download, and it turns them into a ledger, statements, and charts. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no account to create.

If you are brand new, read the four pages under Getting started in order. They take you from a fresh install to a working dashboard.

Getting started

What Aventurine Is — what the app does, what it does not do, and who it suits.
Installing Aventurine — download, install, and what happens the very first time you open it.
Your First Five Minutes — create your database, name your first account, import your first file.
The Monthly Routine — the short habit that keeps everything current.

Guided tour

One page per screen, describing everything on it.

Getting Around the App — the window, the menus, the sidebar, and the small signals the app uses.
The Dashboard — your home screen and its two views.
The Transactions Page — the ledger where every transaction lives.
The Statements Page — Cash Flow and Balance Sheet, month by month.
Cash Flow Reports — the money-flow diagram and the forward-looking forecast.
The Spending Page — how each spending category changes over time.
The Credit Cards Page — a planner for comparing cards.
The Portfolio Page — a manual tracker for investments.

How things work

The ideas behind the screens. Read these when something surprises you.

Accounts — what an account is in Aventurine, and why you name it yourself.
Categories — the labels that organize everything.
Money In Money Out and Transfers — the three directions money can move.
Automatic Categorization — how the app fills in categories, and why it sometimes refuses to.
Merchant Names — why some descriptions get tidied up and others do not.
Computed and Typed Values — the single most important rule in the Cash Flow statement.
Statement Years — why your statements are organized one year at a time.
Where Your Data Lives — the file that holds everything.

Importing

Importing Transactions — the full walkthrough, screen by screen.
Supported File Formats — what to download from your bank.
Matching Your Columns — telling the app which column is which.
Duplicate Transactions — how repeats are caught before they land.
Balances From Your Statement — how imports can fill in your Balance Sheet.
Import Problems — what each error message means and how to fix it.

Everyday tasks

Adding and Editing Transactions
Editing Many Transactions at Once
Finding Transactions
Working in the Tables — typing, selecting, copying, and pasting in the grids.
Exporting Your Data

Settings and data

Preferences — every setting, explained.
Databases and Passwords — creating, opening, moving, and locking your file.
Backing Up Your Data — how to keep a copy, and what to copy.

Reference

Default Categories — the categories you start with.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Rules and Limits — field lengths, allowed values, and hard rules.
Questions and Answers
Troubleshooting

Three things worth knowing up front

Everything stays on your computer. There is no sign-in, no sync, and no connection to your bank. The app never sends your financial data anywhere. See Where Your Data Lives.

Aventurine would rather leave a blank than guess wrong. When it is not sure which category a transaction belongs to, it leaves the category empty instead of picking something plausible. You fill it in once, and it remembers for next time. See Automatic Categorization.

Your data is one file. Backing up your finances means copying one file. Moving to a new computer means copying that same file. See Backing Up Your Data.