You can download your transactions from Beacon at any time. Open the side panel, select Settings, then find Export transactions under Data. Pick a date range, pick CSV or JSON, and select Export.
Export is not a paid add-on. Getting your own data out is part of the deal on any plan.
Choose a date range
The screen opens with From set to beginning and To set to today, so out of the box it covers the full available history. Under Include you get a live count of how many transactions the current range matches. Change either date with the picker, or select Show quick selections for the common ones.
- This month
- Last 30 days
- Last 90 days
- This year
- Last year
- All time
Tip. For the most complete export, choose All time. It covers your full history in one file, which is what you want at tax time or when you are moving to another tool.
Pick CSV or JSON
CSV opens in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets, and it is what most budgeting tools and bank importers expect.
JSON is the same data in a structured form, for scripts or anything that reads it programmatically. Amounts are represented as text in JSON rather than numbers, so the exact decimal value is preserved when another program reads the file.
What is in the file
One row per transaction, with these columns.
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Date | The authorized date when available, otherwise the posted date |
| Amount | The amount, negative for money out and positive for money in |
| Account Name | The account the transaction belongs to |
| Account Bank | The banking institution behind that account |
| Raw Description | The description exactly as the bank sent it |
| Description | The cleaned-up description you see in the app |
| Notes | Your note on the transaction, or the note on the split |
| Category Folder | The parent group the category sits in |
| Category | The category |
| Bucket | The bucket it is assigned to, or Free-to-Spend if it is not in a bucket |
| Round-Up | The round-up amount, when one actually happened |
| Pending | Yes or No |
| Split | Blank for a normal transaction, or “1 of 3” for a split |
Why money out is negative
Inside the app an expense reads as $50 and income reads as +$50. The export flips that to the convention every spreadsheet and importer expects. Negative is money leaving your account, positive is money coming in. So a SUM over the Amount column gives you a real net figure with no cleanup first.
Split transactions
If you split a $120 Costco run into $80 groceries and $40 household, the file has two rows and no parent row. Each one carries its own amount, category, bucket, and note, and inherits the date, account, and description from the transaction they came from. The Split column reads “1 of 2” and “2 of 2”.
Splits are not double-counted. The export contains the split rows, not a separate parent transaction, so the Amount column still sums to the $120 that actually left your account.
Offline note. Split details need a connection to retrieve. If you are offline, a split transaction exports as one row carrying its full amount rather than as individual split rows. The totals are still right, you just lose the split detail. Beacon tells you how many could not be loaded when it hands you the file.
Why the Round-Up column is often blank
Round-Up is filled in only when a round-up actually occurred. Otherwise the field is blank. That includes income, savings-account transactions, transactions from before round-ups were enabled, and round-ups that haven’t been processed yet.
On a split transaction, the round-up appears only on the first row so it isn’t counted multiple times.
What the export leaves out
- Hidden transactions. Anything you marked with Hide lives in Archives and is not included. Restore it first if you want it exported.
- Transactions from accounts you have removed or turned off. They stay out of the export the same way they stay out of your budget.
- Other budgets. The export covers the budget you are currently in. If you have a shared budget or a second one, switch to it and run the export again.
- Everything that is not a transaction. Buckets, goals, funding schedules, and bucket history are not in this file yet. The screen has an Include list with Transactions in it because that list is where those will appear as they are added.
What happens when you select Export
On a phone or tablet, Beacon builds the file and opens the share sheet, so you can send it to Files, Drive, email, or anywhere else. On the web, your browser downloads it.
The file is named for its range, like beacon-transactions-2026-01-01-to-2026-08-27.csv. A full export starts with all instead of a date.
Large exports may take a moment to generate, but full history exports are supported.
Does export work offline?
Yes. The export reads from the copy of your transactions already on your device, so it does not need a connection and does not wait on a sync. The one exception is split details, noted above.
In short
- Export from the side panel, then Settings, then Export transactions.
- Formats are CSV or JSON.
- Date ranges include quick selections and All time.
- Works offline, except split details need a connection.
- Available on every plan.