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Actual Bench

Actual Bench documentation

The advanced admin, budgeting, diagnostics, and query workbench for Actual Budget. Inspect, repair, seed, audit, and reshape your budget data — with every change staged until you Save.
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What Actual Bench helps you do

Section titled “What Actual Bench helps you do”

Manage & clean up data

Bulk-edit accounts, payees, categories, schedules, tags, and rules with filters, inline editing, and impact-aware confirmations.

Edit a full-year budget

A spreadsheet-grade 12-month budget workspace with multi-cell selection, copy/paste, fill actions, and a draft review panel.

Build & diagnose rules

Create, merge, and lint Actual Budget rules with resolved entity names, templates, and formulas.

Query with ActualQL

Run, explain, save, and export ActualQL queries with table, JSON, scalar, and tree result views.

Inspect budget files

Open exported budget snapshots locally in the browser for read-only health checks and SQLite data browsing.

Sync & convert currencies

Sync data between budget files as preview-first flows, including multi-currency conversion with managed FX rates.

Who Actual Bench is for

Section titled “Who Actual Bench is for”

Actual Bench is aimed at Actual Budget power users and self-hosting administrators:

  • Users managing large or complex budget files.
  • Users who need bulk maintenance and cleanup.
  • Users building advanced rules or running ad-hoc queries.
  • Users consolidating multiple budget files, including across currencies.
  • Administrators running a self-hosted deployment.

Choose your path

Section titled “Choose your path”
New here? Start with the IntroductionWhat Actual Bench is, how it connects, and the safety model — then install and connect.
Install Actual BenchRun Actual Bench with Docker or Docker Compose.
Connect to Actual BudgetChoose Direct Actual Server mode or HTTP API Server mode and open a budget.
Understand core conceptsStaged edits, the Save model, connection scoping, and where data lives.

How Actual Bench keeps changes safe

Section titled “How Actual Bench keeps changes safe”

Most work in Actual Bench is deliberate and reversible before it reaches your budget:

  • Staged changes — most creates, edits, and deletes stay local until you click Save; a Draft Changes panel shows what is pending, with undo and redo.
  • Preview before apply — Budget File Sync produces a dry-run preview and only writes the items you select.
  • Impact-aware confirmations — destructive actions show transaction counts, rule references, and other impact before you commit.
  • Read-only inspection — Budget File Health and the Data Browser never write back to your budget.

Some specific actions (such as editing notes) save immediately — see Core Concepts for the full model.

Project & support links

Section titled “Project & support links”