Getting Started with Kemback: Your First Week

Setting up a new money app can feel like a weekend project you never quite finish. It doesn’t need to be. If you give Kemback fifteen or twenty minutes a day for a week, you’ll end it with your accounts in place, your recent history categorized, a budget built from what you actually spend, and alerts watching for the things you care about.

This guide walks through that week one day at a time. Every step happens in the web app at kemback.com, and the names below are the ones you’ll see on screen.

Day 1: Create your account and lock it down

Go to kemback.com and choose to sign up. The Create your account form asks for three things:

• Email
• Password (at least 10 characters)
• Household name (optional): something like “The Parkers” or “Home”. You can leave it blank.

Kemback emails you a verification link. Until you click it, a banner across the top says “Check your inbox to verify your email. Until then you can’t invite anyone.” If the email doesn’t arrive, the banner has a Resend link button.

Then take five minutes on security. Open Security at the bottom of the sidebar. You’ll find three cards:

• Passkeys: sign in with your fingerprint, face or device PIN instead of a password. Give it a name and choose Add a passkey.
• Two-factor sign-in: choose Set up two-factor sign-in, scan the QR code with an authenticator app, enter the 6-digit code, and save the recovery codes it shows you.
• Signed-in devices: a list of everywhere you’re signed in, so you can sign out a device you no longer use.

While you’re in the sidebar, look over what’s there: Overview, Accounts, Review, Alerts, Budget, Bills, Goals, Reports, Bank sync, Rules, Members, Activity, Your data and Security. You’ll visit most of them this week. The System / Light / Dark switch at the bottom sets the theme.

Day 2: Add your accounts

Open Accounts. How you add accounts depends on where you’re coming from.

If you’re switching from Quicken or Mint, the empty Accounts page offers a shortcut for each: Start the switch for Quicken and Switch from Mint for a Mint export. These wizards create every account and bring the whole history across in one go, so you can skip most of Day 3. We have separate step-by-step guides for both: switching from Quicken and switching from Mint.

If you’re starting fresh, use the Add an account form at the bottom of the page:

1. Name: “Joint checking”, “Visa”, “Car loan”.
2. Type: Checking, Savings, Cash, Investment, Other asset, Credit card, Loan or Other liability.
3. Current balance (USD): today’s balance. For a credit card or loan, type what you owe as a positive number; Kemback records it as a debt.
4. Private: only I can see this account: tick this for an account that other household members shouldn’t see.

Choose Add account and repeat for each one. Start with the accounts money moves through every month: checking, your main credit card, and any savings you add to regularly. You can add the rest later.

As you add accounts, the stat cards at the top fill in, including Net worth: your assets minus what you owe.

Day 3: Bring in recent transactions

Kemback’s free plan works from files your bank already gives you. Automatic bank sync is coming with the Plus plan; until then, the Bank sync page says so and points you to importing.

Download the last two or three months from each bank’s website as OFX, QFX, QIF or CSV, then:

1. On the Accounts page, choose Import a file.
2. Under Choose a file, pick the download.
3. For a CSV, a Match the columns card asks which column is the date, the amount and the payee. If your bank puts money out and money in in separate columns, choose Separate debit and credit columns. You can save the mapping under the bank’s name for next time.
4. For each account in the file, set Import into to the account you created on Day 2.
5. Check the badges: new, already imported and possible duplicates. Possible duplicates are left out unless you tick Possible duplicate: import anyway.
6. Choose Import.

Every import is listed under Past imports with an Undo button, so a wrong file is easy to take back.

Day 4: Clear the review inbox

New transactions from imports land in Review, and the sidebar shows how many are waiting. Each row has a category menu and a ✓ button. Choosing a category confirms the transaction.

When you change a category, Kemback often offers a rule, for example “Always categorize payees containing ‘SQ *BLUE BOTTLE’ as Dining out?” Choose Create rule and that payee is categorized for you next time. Saying yes a handful of times on Day 4 saves a lot of clicking later.

If you have a long list, the keyboard helps: j and k move, c confirms, e changes the category, and Shift+A confirms everything shown. On a phone, swipe a row right to confirm it or left to change its category.

Day 5: Build a budget from your spending

Open Budget. If nothing is budgeted yet, a Start from your spending card suggests an amount for each category: what you spent, averaged over the last three full months and rounded up.

Untick anything you don’t want to budget, change any amount that looks wrong, and choose Add to budget. Say your groceries averaged $612 a month; the suggestion might be $620. If you know you want to spend less, type $550 instead.

The budget starts in category mode: a plan per category and how much is left. If you prefer envelope budgeting, open Settings and choose Switch to envelope mode. Switching never changes your plans or transactions, so you can try both.

Day 6: Add your bills

Open Bills. If your imported history shows regular payments, a Looks recurring card lists them, with how often they repeat, how many times they’ve been seen, and what they cost a year. Choose Add next to each real bill.

For anything not listed, use Add a bill: payee, amount, account, how often, and the First due date. Tick Money in (income) for a paycheck.

Once bills are in, go back to Accounts. A Safe to spend figure at the top shows what’s in checking and cash, less card balances, minus what’s held for bills and budgets. Each account also shows where its balance is heading In 90 days, and warns you if it’s projected to drop below zero.

Day 7: Turn on alerts and look at the overview

Open Alerts and tick the ones you want under What to tell you about: Over budget, Unusual spending, Large purchase, Bank fees, Low balance and Bill due. Each has a threshold you can change. Below that, tick Email me a weekly summary for a Monday-morning email covering spending against budget, fees and bills due.

Finally, open Overview. This is the page to check from now on: net worth and how it moved since last month, what you’ve spent this month against last month, bills due in the next 14 days, and a bar for each budgeted category that turns amber at 80% and red once you’re over.

After the first week

From here, a short weekly routine keeps everything current:

• Import new transactions from your bank, or add them by hand in an account’s register.
• Clear the Review inbox.
• Glance at Overview and Bills.
• Once a month, reconcile your main accounts against their statements.

If you share money with a partner, Members lets you invite them as an editor or a viewer. If you’d like Kemback on your phone, the iPhone app is in beta and works offline. Android and Windows apps are in development.

And whenever you want a copy of everything, Your data downloads it as CSV or JSON, on any plan.

#getting started #kemback guides

This article is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice. For decisions about your situation, talk to a qualified professional.