Welcome to My Spending Register (MSR). This guide walks through every screen and function. Have a question rather than needing a walkthrough? See the FAQs.
Open MSR and you’ll land on the Login page.
New to MSR? Use the Sign Up option to create an account with your email address and a password. You may be asked to complete a quick verification check first — this just confirms you’re a real person, not a bot, and takes a moment. MSR then sends a confirmation email — click the link in it before signing in for the first time.
Returning? Enter your email and password and tap Sign In. On a keyboard, Tab moves from email to password and Enter signs you in.
Forgotten your password? Tap Need help signing in?, then Forgot Password? at the top of the help page that opens. Enter your email and MSR sends a reset link — follow it to set a new password, then sign in as usual.
When you’re done using MSR, use Logout to sign out.
Tap the ⓘ Help icon on the Account List, then Edit Profile & Password, to change the email address or password on your MSR account while you’re signed in.
Email: shows your current address, read-only. Tap Change email, enter the new address, and tap Save. MSR sends a confirmation link to both your old and new email address — the change only takes effect once you click the link in both. Your old email keeps working to sign in until then.
Password: enter a New password and Confirm new password — at least 8 characters, including an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, a number, and a symbol — and tap Save. Unlike email, this applies immediately; no confirmation link needed. You’ll need the new password next time you sign in, but you won’t be signed out of your current session.
Deleting your account: scroll to the bottom of this same page for Delete My Account — this permanently removes your MSR account, every account you’ve added, and every transaction in them. This cannot be undone. Type DELETE to confirm; the button stays disabled until you do. If you want a record of your data first, export each account individually (Account List → ⋮ → Export Transactions) before deleting — MSR doesn’t ask you to do this automatically, so it’s worth doing before you tap Delete.
After signing in you’ll see your Account List — one card per bank account, each showing the account’s details and its live current balance (opening balance plus every transaction recorded in MSR). A balance below zero shows in red.
From this screen you can:
Tapping ⋮ on an account card opens a menu for that specific account:
The Account form is used both for creating a new account and editing an existing one. Fields:
Tap Save to store the account. If you tap the back arrow instead, MSR asks you to confirm before discarding anything you’ve typed.
Tap an account card to open its Register — the heart of MSR. The register displays in landscape so all columns fit; it will rotate automatically.
Each row shows:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Date | Transaction date (dd/mm/yy) |
| Payee | Who was paid, or who paid you |
| Description | Free-text memo |
| Clr | Shows c when the transaction is cleared |
| Amount | Negative = money out, positive = money in |
| Balance | Running balance after this transaction |
| ✏ | Edit — shown only on rows that can be edited |
Above the table, the header strip shows the account’s Current Balance, which updates instantly after every add, edit, delete, or import. Negative balances — in the Balance column and in Current Balance — display in red.
Once you’ve reconciled an account at least once, a second, smaller line appears just below Current Balance — “Last reconciled: [date] · [balance]” — showing your most recent statement date and the balance MSR rolled forward to at that reconciliation. You won’t see this line until your first reconcile; it’s not shown at all beforehand.
Both open the same entry sheet (in portrait — the screen rotates automatically).
Fields:
Each field has a ? icon — tap it for a short explanation of that field.
Saving: tap Save and MSR shows a confirmation listing the Date, Payee, Description, and Amount you entered — the amount shown with its final sign (negative for money out) — so you can check everything before it’s written. Tap Save to confirm, or Cancel (or tap outside the box) to go back and keep editing. The register and current balance update as soon as the sheet closes.
Deleting: when editing an existing transaction, a Delete button appears. You’ll be asked to confirm.
Cancelling: tap the X at the top of the sheet. You’ll be asked to confirm; nothing is saved.
The register isn’t limited to what’s already happened. Enter a bill, subscription, or expected paycheck for the date it will actually occur — even if that’s next week or next month — and it takes its place in the register in date order, included in the running balance from that point on, just like any other row.
Many people use this to plan a whole month at a time: enter every bill you know is coming (rent, loan payments, subscriptions) and every paycheck or expected deposit, each dated as it will actually happen. Scroll down the register and you’ll see your balance exactly as it’s projected to be on any given day — including the day it might run short. That’s your cue to plan a transfer from savings ahead of time, instead of reacting to an overdraft after the fact.
Future-dated transactions behave like any other row while they wait: uncleared and fully editable, so you can adjust the amount or date if a bill changes before it actually clears. Mark them cleared normally once your bank catches up, or delete them if a scheduled payment never eventuates.
MSR uses a simple two-state model, like ticking off a paper register against your bank statement:
To toggle: tap the row’s Clr cell. Tap once to mark cleared (locks it); tap again to unclear (unlocks it for editing or deleting).
Transactions you enter manually always start uncleared. Imported bank transactions arrive already cleared (they came from the bank, after all) — except rows flagged as possible duplicates, which stay uncleared so you can review them.
When a new bank statement arrives, reconciling brings MSR in line with it and clears out everything that’s now confirmed — the same job as ticking off a paper register against your statement, just automated.
To reconcile:
MSR then shows a confirmation summarising what it found:
Tap Reconcile to confirm, or Cancel to back out. Nothing changes until you confirm.
What actually happens: MSR permanently deletes every cleared transaction dated on or before your statement date — they’re confirmed and already accounted for in the balance going forward — and rolls the account’s opening balance forward to match your statement. Any uncleared transaction dated on or before the statement (money you’ve entered that hasn’t shown up at the bank yet) is kept, not deleted, so it still counts toward your balance. Anything dated after the statement — cleared or uncleared — is left completely untouched either way; it isn’t part of this statement, so reconciling doesn’t touch it.
Because the deleted transactions are gone for good, the Export backup first step matters — it’s your permanent record of everything before it’s cleared out, and it’s free every time, with no catch.
After you confirm, the Register header picks up a new “Last reconciled: [date] · [balance]” line beneath Current Balance — see The Register above. It only appears from your first reconcile onward.
Instead of typing everything in, you can load transactions straight from a file exported by your bank.
Supported formats: CSV and QIF.
CSV file requirements: the first row of the file must be a header row naming the columns. MSR recognises these column names:
| Column | Required? |
|---|---|
date | Yes |
amount | Yes |
payee | Optional |
description | Optional |
status | Optional (MSR sets cleared status itself on import) |
Column order doesn’t matter — MSR finds each column by its header name (upper/lower case doesn’t matter either). If date or amount is missing, the import stops with an error. Any other columns in the file (such as a balance column) are simply ignored.
To import:
What happens to imported rows:
Have a question this guide didn’t answer? Check the FAQs, or email us at team@myspendingregister.com and we’ll help you out.
