# How to use Bolgo

https://bolgo.io/en/docs/ (en)

Bolgo answers one question: how much you can spend until the next money comes in. This guide walks through every part of the app, from the first day to the AI assistant. Search a word in the field below or go straight through the index.

## Getting started

### What Bolgo is

Bolgo is a personal money app. Instead of only adding up what you already spent, it looks ahead: the balance of your accounts, what is already spoken for until the next income (rent, bills, the card bill) and what is left. That number is **Free to spend**.

It speaks English, Portuguese and Spanish, works with any currency and keeps your data in your account, in the cloud, so you can change phones without losing anything.

### Create your account

You sign in with an e-mail and a password, with Apple or with Google.

- With an e-mail, Bolgo sends a 6-digit code to confirm the address is yours.
- An account has one phone at a time. Signing in on another phone ends the first one, and Bolgo shows what had not gone up yet.
- Forgot the password? On the sign-in screen, "Forgot password?" sends a code to the confirmed e-mail.
- On the computer too: the sign-in page has "Create an account with e-mail" and "Forgot password?", with the same steps as the phone.

### The first day

A new account starts empty, and the first day takes three steps:

1. **Your account and today's balance.** Tap "Import from a statement" so Bolgo reads your bank's files and creates the accounts itself, or "Type it myself" to write the name and how much you have now (it can be zero).
2. **Your card.** Say whether you have a credit card, the day the bill closes, the day it is due and the limit. You can add more than one.
3. **What repeats every month.** Salary, rent, power, internet, subscriptions. If you brought statements, Bolgo already shows what it saw repeating, split into In and Out.

At the end, Today opens with your first Free to spend. On the computer, the first day takes the whole window, with no menu, and ends on "Preparing your Free to spend" before the overview; "Do it later" takes you to the overview whenever you want.

## Every day

### Today and Free to spend

Today shows one big number: Free to spend. Below it, two lines say where it comes from, for example "until payday, the 25th · $80 a day" and "out of $3,200 you have".

- Tap the number to see the sum written out: what you have, minus what is spoken for, equals Free.
- **In the next days** lists what is due or comes in soon, with the circle to mark it as paid.
- **Cards** shows each card on one line: the bill, when it closes, or a limit warning.
- **Budget** shows up only when one of them is at risk.
- At the bottom, the days in a row you logged your day and the months that ended above zero. "Nothing today" closes a day with no spending.

If Free goes below zero, Bolgo says in words how much is short, never with a loose minus sign on the screen.

### Add a spending or an income

The + button opens the sheet to add. Only the amount and the name are needed: the day is today, the account is the usual one and the category comes from Bolgo's guess.

- **The amount comes in from the right**, like a banking app: tapping 1, 2, 3, 4 writes 12.34. The 00 key sits where the decimal point would be.
- The keypad does math: add, subtract, multiply or divide and tap = to see the result.
- **The category guess** reads the name. It learns from what you already added and from a list of stores in your country.
- "Date and account" changes the day and the account, leaves it as "not paid yet", and adds a note or up to 5 tags.
- "Simulate first" shows how the purchase moves the next months before you add it.

### The detail of an entry

Tap any entry to open its detail. Everything in it changes in place: the name, the amount, the category, the account, the day and the note.

- When you change the category, Bolgo asks "Always use X for Y?". With Yes, the next ones with that name come right, and the earlier ones with the same name move too.
- A spending that was an income switches sides from the category sheet itself ("Spending | Income", or "Spending | Refund" on a card).
- **Duplicate** writes a copy dated today. **Delete** removes it.
- After any change, the bar at the bottom offers **Undo** for a few seconds.

### Mark as paid

A planned bill has an empty circle. When you tap it, Bolgo asks "Was it $X?" with the amount already written: confirm or fix it, because a bill paid with interest or a discount happens.

- An income asks "Did $X come in?".
- Paid on a different day than planned? Bolgo keeps both, and "Not paid yet" puts it back on the original day.

### Move money between your accounts

"Between accounts" (Transfer, in the + sheet) moves money from one of your accounts to another. Both sides stay together: changing or deleting one changes the other.

- Into a savings reserve, outside what you have for every day, the button says **Set aside**.
- A transfer can repeat every month, like setting aside part of your salary.
- A transfer does not count as spending or income at the end of the month, because the money is still yours.

## Planning

### What repeats

In the + you mark **Repeats** for what comes back (salary, rent, a subscription) and **Installments** for a purchase split in parts.

- Repeats: every day, week, month or year, or every so many of them. It can fall on a business day or the last business day of the month, and move earlier or later when it lands on a Sunday or a holiday.
- It ends never, after a number of times, or on a date.
- Installments: the amount is the total. On a card, one part falls on each bill; on an account, one a month.

### Which ones?

When you change or delete something that repeats, Bolgo asks which ones:

- **Only this one**: changes this month and leaves the others as they were.
- **This and future ones**: from here on; the past stays.
- **All, including past ones**: the whole series.

Changing the rhythm (from every month to every 2 months, for example) asks "Starting when?" and says first what goes away. Nothing new is created in the past.

### Income that comes in parts until a day

For when you're paid in parts, like freelance work and commissions. In the + sheet, on an income that hasn't come yet, turn on **Receiving it until the day**: the amount becomes a goal ($2,000.00 by the 20th, for example) and the date becomes its last day.

- Each payment that comes is a real income, on the day it landed, and it takes from what's left. Nothing counts twice: what came is already in what you have, and only the rest stays planned.
- Tapping the goal's circle asks "How much came in?". In the + sheet, an income of the same category comes with **Part of** already on; turn it off when it's a different income.
- Free to spend counts up to the last day itself, because the rest may land at its end: "until your next income, the 20th at the latest".
- The day passed and money was missing? Today asks **Still coming?**: add what came, pick a new deadline or say it's not coming anymore. Until you answer, what's missing stays out of Month and Free to spend.
- In a repeat, each month has its own goal.

### The Month

The Month is a timeline: from the furthest day at the top to the 1st at the bottom, with today in between. It opens with today in sight.

- Each day shows the balance it ends with. The lowest point of the month is marked.
- The sentence at the top sums up the month ("Ends with X. The lowest point is Y, on the Nth."), and tapping it opens **Where the month comes from**, the sum written out.
- A card shows as its bill, on one line, or purchase by purchase.
- The arrows move through the months: next month on the free plan and up to 24 months with Premium.

### Find in the Month

The Month's magnifier looks for a name, a note, a tag or an exact amount.

- The chips **Out**, **In** and **Repeats** filter the list; so do **Account**, **Category**, **Tag** and **Origin** (typed or from a statement).
- "See the whole year" and "Last 12 months" take the same search across more months, with the total of what it found.

### Budgets

A budget is a monthly limit for a category, or for the whole month.

- When you create one, Bolgo suggests the average of the months you already have.
- The bar shows how much went and how much is left. When an entry goes over the limit, the undo bar says so.
- The detail of a budget lists what goes into it (subcategories too) and how the last months went.
- What is still left of each budget already comes out of Free to spend, on the "In budgets" line, and counts in the Month a little each day. Spending inside a budget doesn't move Free to spend: it comes out of what is left. The budget for the whole month is only a ceiling and stays out.
- A subcategory can have a budget of its own: choose the category and, under Subcategory, "Only Fuel". It leaves the category's budget, and each expense counts in one budget only.

### Simulate a purchase

"Simulate a purchase" answers whether it fits before you spend: the amount, the day, the account and, if you want, in how many installments. Bolgo shows the months with the purchase in them and where any of them gets tight. Nothing is saved until you tap "Save it".

- When it doesn't fit, Bolgo says why: how much you have on the day of the purchase, how much goes to bills until the tightest day, and on which days the balance would be below zero.
- A month that is already below zero without the purchase is shown apart and doesn't count against it.
- In **How it fits**, each card with enough free limit for the whole purchase shows the fewest installments that leave no new day below zero, and you see the first day the purchase fits at once. **Simulate this way** runs it again that way.

### Reminders

In Settings, Reminders turns on what you want, at the time you choose, never between 9 pm and 8 am:

- **Bills to pay**: a day before and on the day. When several fall on the same day, one reminder comes with the total.
- **Card bill**: three days before and on the due date.
- **Below zero**: three days before the day the money runs out, with what causes it.
- A daily reminder to log your day.
- A backup reminder after 30 days or 50 entries without a backup.

## Accounts and cards

### Accounts

Accounts holds your checking accounts, savings, cash and cards.

- A savings reserve (Saved) stays outside "You have", so Free does not count on it.
- An account you do not want to add up, like your company's, stays an account: turn off **Count toward You have** on its sheet. It moves to **Outside the total**, and you keep recording on it. Its salary and bills show in the Month with "outside the total", without moving the balance, and stay out of spending and budgets. Only what it sends to your accounts counts, as money coming in. Nothing warns you if that account itself runs out of money, and a card purchase is still yours.
- The institution is chosen by name, from the list of your country.
- **Correct the balance** matches the account with the bank: Bolgo writes the difference as a balance correction.
- An account you no longer use can be archived and brought back later.
- An account below zero is said in words: "below zero".

### Cards and bills

Each card has the day its bill closes, the day it is due, the limit and the account that pays it.

- A purchase goes into the bill of its cycle; one in installments, one part per bill.
- What has not been charged yet (next month of a subscription) shows as planned and does not use the limit.
- **I paid the bill** records the payment you made at the bank. **I paid another amount** pays a part or more: what is left over becomes a credit on the next bills.
- A bill nobody paid keeps showing as overdue until it is paid.
- Changing the closing or the due day counts only for the bills to come.
- "Check against the bank's bill" imports the bill and fixes what was typed differently.

### Another currency

With Premium, the currency pill in the + adds in another currency: a trip, a subscription in another money.

- Bolgo converts at the day's rate. What is still to come is an estimate and shows with ≈.
- Later, fix it with the amount that showed up on the bill or the statement. On a card, the foreign transaction fee can stay apart.
- Each currency has a screen with its rate and what you added in it.

## Statements

### Import a statement

In the sheet of an account, "Import statement" reads your bank's file.

- **OFX, QFX, QIF and CSV** are read by Bolgo itself. In a CSV, you say the columns once and Bolgo remembers them for that account.
- **PDF** is read by an AI service. Before the first one, Bolgo says where it goes and sends it only after your "Got it".
- The review shows what is new, what was already in the app and what fixes an amount you typed differently. You take out what you do not want.
- Everything goes in as one write, with one Undo. Importing the same file again duplicates nothing.

### Many statements at once

In Accounts, "Import statements" takes several files in one pick, from different banks.

- Bolgo finds each file's account by the bank and the number, and creates the accounts and cards that do not exist yet.
- A transfer between two of your accounts, seen in both files, becomes one transfer.
- A file with no bank asks "Which account is this file from?".
- Then, "Found what repeats" offers to turn into Repeats what came back every month.

## Reports and data

### Reports

The bar at the end of the Month opens **Reports**:

- **Spending by category**: what went out in the month, or in the last 12 months, with each category's entries. With Premium, compared with last month.
- **Month by month**: how much came in, how much went out and how much was left each month (6 months, or 12 with Premium).
- **Spoken for**: how much of the next months is already committed, and to what.

### Spreadsheet, PDF and backup

- **Export spreadsheet** (on any plan) makes a file with everything that happened, to open in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.
- **The month's PDF** (Premium) is a report ready to keep or send.
- **Backup** saves a file with all your data, and **Restore backup** brings it back, replacing everything or merging.

## On the computer

### Bolgo on the computer

Bolgo also runs in the browser, with the same account and the same numbers as the phone. Just go to app.bolgo.io.

- It has the whole app: the overview, the Month, Accounts and Card, Budgets, Reports, adding, importing statements and Settings.
- **Open sea** shows the next 24 months at once, one square per month: green when every day stays above zero, red when one of them ends below.
- The phone and the computer stay signed in at the same time. A new sign-in on a browser sends an e-mail.
- You can create the account on the computer itself. Bolgo Premium is subscribed in the phone app and works on the computer too, with the same account.

## AI assistant

### What the assistant does

You can connect to Bolgo any AI assistant that uses MCP, like Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code, and ask in words: "how much can I spend until Friday?", "add 42.90 for Uber", "when does my balance get lowest in the next months?". The assistant reads the same numbers the app shows and makes the same changes you would.

- The tools that change something are marked that way, and the assistant asks for your approval before using them.
- Every change can be undone while it is the last one.
- Left out on purpose: deleting the account, erasing everything, the password, the plan, backups and importing statements.

### Connect an assistant

In Claude:

1. Open Settings and then Connectors.
2. Tap "Add custom connector" and name it Bolgo.
3. In the address, write `https://api.bolgo.io/mcp` and tap Connect.
4. Sign in to Bolgo with your account, if it asks.
5. Read what Claude will be able to do and tap **Allow**.

In another assistant that uses MCP (ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code and others):

1. Add a remote MCP server with the address `https://api.bolgo.io/mcp`. If it asks for the transport, it is HTTP.
2. When it opens the Bolgo page, sign in with your account.
3. The page says the name the assistant gave itself, and that Bolgo has no way to confirm that name. If you asked for this just now, tap **Allow**.

To disconnect, open Bolgo's Settings on the computer and end the assistant's line in "Where you are signed in".

### What to ask

Copy one of these to start:

> How much can I spend until my next paycheck?
> Add 42.90 for Uber today, on my usual account.
> Which bills are due this week? Mark the power bill as paid.
> Does my balance go below zero in any of the next 12 months?
> How much did I spend on groceries in the last 12 months?
> Set aside 300 in my savings every month, starting on the 5th.
> Create the subcategory Fuel under Transport.

What the assistant reads from your account goes to its company, under that company's rules. The [privacy policy](https://bolgo.io/en/privacy/) explains.

## Account, plans and privacy

### Bolgo Premium

The free plan already handles the whole day to day. Premium adds:

- 24 months ahead in the Month and in simulations.
- Accounts, cards and categories with no cap (the free plan goes up to 5 accounts, 3 cards and 50 categories).
- The below zero reminder for any month, not only this one.
- The month's PDF, 12 months in Month by month and the comparison with last month.
- Adding in another currency.

The price and the free trial show on the Premium screen, as your country's store shows them. It shows once right after the first day, with "Not now" at the top, and after that when you reach a limit of the free plan, like the Month's arrow past next month. On the free plan, Today shows "After November" with what the first closed month holds, and the last month the plan sees starts with "December onward". When Premium ends, nothing is deleted: what you added stays there.

Premium is subscribed in the Bolgo app on iPhone or Android, through the App Store or Google Play, and works on the computer too, with the same account. It is not sold on the computer. Cancelling and changing the plan happen in the store where you subscribed.

### App lock and discreet mode

- **App lock**: a 6-digit code and Face ID or biometrics, asked when the app opens and when you come back after the time you choose.
- **Discreet mode**: the eye hides the amounts on the screen, to open the app near other people.
- Usage statistics never carry amounts, names or descriptions, and you turn them off in Settings.

### Without internet

Your data lives in your account, in the cloud. Without internet, you can still add and mark as paid: the number shows "to be confirmed" until the connection comes back.

- Importing statements, exporting and changing accounts, cards, budgets and categories need internet, and the app says "This needs the internet".
- Pull the screen down to refresh.
- If something was not saved, Bolgo says so right away and shows what, with "Try again".

### Delete your account

In Settings, "Delete account" asks for the word DELETE and a proof that it is you (the password, a code by e-mail, or Apple or Google). You have 7 days to come back by signing in again; after that, everything is deleted. The steps are in [Delete your account](https://bolgo.io/en/delete-account/).

"Erase all data" is something else: it erases the entries and the accounts, and keeps your account to start again.
