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Budget File Health

Use Budget File Health to inspect an exported budget snapshot and run structural checks in your browser. It does not change your budget.

Open it from Tools → Budget File Health (/budget-diagnostics).

Budget impact: Budget File Health does not change budget data. Everything happens in your browser.

Budget File Health's overview: counts for every object in the snapshot, its metadata, and the file it came from.

What the snapshot contains, down to the byte: 807 transactions, 74 payees, 42 rules, a 924 KB database - plus the sync ids and timestamps you need when reporting a problem.

When to use it

Section titled “When to use it”
Your questionWhere to look
Is this exported file structurally healthy?Diagnostics tab, below
What does the snapshot contain, and how large is it?Overview tab, below
What rows and columns exist in a table?Data Browser
I need a reusable query against live saved dataActualQL Queries

Start here. Go to the Data Browser when a finding needs the actual rows.

Load a budget snapshot

Section titled “Load a budget snapshot”

The first time you open this page, Bench downloads and opens the active budget’s snapshot. After that it is cached - you get a “loaded X ago” label and a Reload button - and shared with the Data Browser. Load it once, and both tools open instantly.

Loading shows its stages as it goes, and offers a retry if one fails.

Review snapshot metadata

Section titled “Review snapshot metadata”

Overview lists the export metadata, how many of each object the snapshot holds, the ZIP and SQLite sizes, and where it came from. There is a button to download the ZIP.

Run diagnostics

Section titled “Run diagnostics”

Diagnostics checks the schema, the relationships between rows, the metadata and SQLite’s own health, then groups what it finds by severity. From there you can:

  • Run a full SQLite integrity check. It takes a while.
  • Export findings to CSV.

Nothing here writes to your budget.

Safety and limitations

Section titled “Safety and limitations”
  • Read-only. It cannot change your budget.
  • A very large snapshot is limited by your browser’s memory.
  • The full integrity check is slow on large files. That is SQLite, not the page.

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”
  • It will not open - retry from the progress rail. On a large file, check browser memory.
  • The snapshot is stale - press Reload for a fresh export.
  • A CSV looks wrong in a spreadsheet - it is UTF-8, with formula protection. Open it as UTF-8.
Section titled “Related pages”