🐦
How does BankBird work?
BankBird is a personal finance app you run yourself. You upload your bank statements, the app reads your transactions automatically, and AI (optionally) sorts them into categories. Your data stays on your own computer or server — nowhere else.
📄
Upload bank statement
→
🔍
Read transactions
→
🏪
Match merchant
→
🤖
AI categorises
→
📊
View report
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AI is optional. BankBird works perfectly well without AI. You can categorise manually, or set up merchants that are recognised automatically based on the transaction description.
📥
Importing bank statements
Go to Finance → Imports → New. Choose an account, upload your file and BankBird takes care of the rest.
✅ Supported formats
🏦
ING PDF
Bank statement as PDF
🏦
ING CSV
Export via My ING
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SNS PDF
Transaction history as PDF
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Knab PDF
Account statement as PDF
🏦
Rabobank
Coming soon
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ABN AMRO
Coming soon
🔁 Duplicate transactions
BankBird spots duplicate imports automatically by comparing date, amount and description. If you import the same file twice, the duplicates are simply skipped.
⚠️
Tip for PDF imports: make sure the PDF is not password-protected. Some banking apps produce locked PDFs; for ING you can use the CSV export instead.
🏷️
Categories
Categories keep your spending organised. You can also group them — a parent category with subcategories underneath.
🌳 Example
🛒 Groceries
└─ Albert Heijn
└─ Jumbo
└─ Online groceries
🚗 Transport
└─ Fuel
└─ Public transport / Train
🏠 Housing
└─ Rent / Mortgage
└─ Energy
➕ Add a category
- Go to Management → Categories
- Click "New"
- Enter a name and colour
- Optionally choose a parent category
- Save
🤖 Let AI categorise
After an import, select uncategorised transactions and use the bulk action "AI categorise" to sort them automatically. AI picks from your existing categories.
🏪
Merchants — what are they?
A merchant is a shop, subscription or service that shows up regularly in your transactions. Once you set one up, BankBird recognises it automatically and assigns the right category — no AI needed.
📌 Example
Transaction description:
BEA NR:012345 ALBERT HEIJN 1234
Search term for merchant:
ALBERT HEIJN
✓
Category: Groceries → AH
✋ Add manually
- Go to Management → Merchants
- Click "New"
- Enter a name (e.g. "Albert Heijn")
- Enter a search term (a word from the transaction description)
- Link a category
- Save
🖼️
Add a logo to a merchant
You can upload a logo for any merchant. It shows up next to transactions in your overview, so you can see at a glance where your money went.
📁 Go to Management → Merchants and open a merchant
🖼️ Click the logo upload field
📐 Recommended: square PNG or SVG, at least 64×64 px
💾 Save — the logo appears straight away in your transaction views
🤖
AI categorisation — with or without?
✅ Without AI
- Completely free
- Works offline
- No account key needed
- Merchants recognise transactions by name
- Manual categorisation
🚀 With AI
- Bulk categorisation in one click
- Learns from your feedback
- Works with Claude (Anthropic) and ChatGPT (OpenAI)
- Small cost per batch processed
- Saves a lot of manual work
⚙️ Setting up AI
- Go to your profile (top right)
- Choose your AI service: Claude (Anthropic) or ChatGPT (OpenAI)
- Enter your account key — you get this from your chosen service's website
- After an import, select uncategorised transactions
- Use the bulk action "AI categorise"
💡
Tip: use AI for your first big batch of uncategorised transactions. After that, merchants handle new transactions automatically each month — no extra cost.
📊
Reports & overviews
BankBird has three report pages, found under Reports.
📅
Monthly report
Choose a month and see all your income and spending by category, with percentages and a comparison to the previous month.
📈
Yearly overview
Your income, spending and net balance side by side for each month. Great for spotting which months cost you most.
🔍
Zoom into category
Click a category in the monthly report to see every transaction in that category for the selected period.
⚙️
Settings
Accessible via your name at the top right → Settings.
Upload your own logo and favicon. The logo appears in the top left; the height is adjustable.
Change your name, email address or password. This is also where you set up your AI service and account key.
Two-step verification is built in. Turn it on via your profile with an authenticator app (such as Google Authenticator or 1Password).
Manage your bank accounts under Finance → Accounts. Add IBAN, name and colour.
🗂️
Backup — keeping your data safe
Click your name or avatar at the top right and choose Backup. With one click you can download a complete copy of all your BankBird data to your own computer.
📦 What is in the backup?
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Accounts
Name, type and IBAN of all your bank accounts
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Transactions
All transactions including amount, date and category
🏷️
Categories
Full structure with colours and icons
🏪
Merchants
Name, logo, search term and linked category
💾 Create a backup
- Click your name or avatar at the top right
- Choose "Backup" from the menu
- Click "Download backup"
- The file is saved to your Downloads folder
🔄 Restore a backup
- Go to Backup via your name at the top right
- Select your backup file
- Click "Restore" and confirm
- Existing data will not be overwritten
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Tip: create a backup before making major changes, such as merging categories or deleting merchants. The backup is saved on your own computer — not online anywhere.
Still have questions?
Check the technical documentation, or want to build something on top of BankBird? Read the Vibe Development guide.
