BudgetForge AI: frequently asked questions

Yes. BudgetForge AI is free to download and use on Windows 10 and 11. There is no subscription, no premium tier, no ads and no in-app purchases. You do not need to create an account or enter a card.

Yes. BudgetForge AI runs entirely on your PC. Budgets, transactions, reports and the spending insights are all computed locally, so you can use it on a laptop with no connection at all. Nothing is uploaded to a server.

No, and there is no option to. Instead of handing over your online-banking login to a third-party aggregator, you import the CSV or QFX file your bank already lets you download, or enter transactions by hand. Most people do this once a week in a few minutes.

It analyzes your own transaction history on your PC to flag unusual charges, categories that are trending over budget, recurring subscriptions you may have forgotten, and realistic places to save. The analysis runs on your device. No data is sent anywhere.

Envelope budgeting (allocate money to envelopes and watch what is left), zero-based budgeting (assign every dollar until "To Budget" reaches $0), simple monthly category budgets, sinking funds for irregular expenses, and recurring bill tracking. You can mix methods.

Yes. Export your transactions as CSV from your current app (or download them from your bank), then use File > Import in BudgetForge AI. Categories can be mapped during import. Your data can be exported back to CSV at any time, so there is no lock-in.

In a local database file on your PC. Back it up like any other important file: copy it to an external drive or an encrypted folder, or use Windows File History. You can also export everything to CSV from the app.

Download only from budgetforge.ai. The file is BudgetForge.AI-windows-x64.exe, about 117 MB. Windows SmartScreen sometimes warns about installers from newer publishers until they build reputation; you can scan the file with Windows Security or VirusTotal first, then click "More info" and "Run anyway". See our SmartScreen guide for details.

There is no premium tier, no ads and no data selling. The app is published by QWF Group LLC as a free product. If that changes, existing installs keep working and your data stays yours because it is a local file you can export to CSV.

The app does not transmit your financial data. The only network request it can make is an optional update check, which you can disable in Settings. The website uses Google Analytics to count visits and downloads; see the privacy policy.

You can install it on as many Windows PCs as you like. The budget itself is a file, so to use the same budget on two PCs you copy the file (for example via a USB drive or a folder you sync yourself). There is no built-in sync.

Yes, on the same PC or by sharing the budget file. There are no user accounts, so there is no per-seat pricing.

Any bank that lets you download a CSV or QFX file, which in the US is nearly all of them. The import wizard lets you map date, description and amount columns and remembers the mapping for next time.

CSV for accounts, categories, transactions and reports. CSV opens in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice and most other finance apps.

No. BudgetForge AI is a Windows 10/11 desktop application. If you need cross-platform or mobile, see our comparison with Actual Budget.

Install BudgetForge AI on the new PC, copy your budget file from the old one (the app shows its location in Settings) and open it. Or export to CSV and import.

The program is removed; your budget file is not deleted. Reinstall later and open the same file.

Email [email protected] with the app version (shown in Settings > About), what you expected and what happened. Screenshots help.