Private beta · tester brief

First five minutes with a bank export.

Garden is a private friends-and-family beta. Use a copy of a statement or export you already own, keep the original, and do not treat the beta as the only copy of anything.

Before opening the app

Export a copy of a statement or an export from the budgeting app you already use. Keep the original file. Do not cancel an existing service or treat the beta as the only copy of your records.

Open Garden

Use the beta link for the web app or the macOS build. When TestFlight is open, use the TestFlight build. Confirm the version from the Settings drawer before importing.

Import the copy

Choose the import action and select the file. Supported paths described by the site are CSV, TSV, OFX/QFX, QIF, XLSX, and PDF statements, plus direct exports from the documented budgeting apps. Let the review screen finish.

Review before saving

Check the account name, a few dates, positive and negative signs, merchant names, categories, duplicate-looking rows, and the imported total. If the shape is unfamiliar, that is a useful beta result.

Do one useful edit

Open Transactions, correct one category, and make one rule for a repeated merchant. Then open Overview or Plan and confirm that the change is reflected. If a document is generated, read every value before using it anywhere.

What makes a useful report

Include the version string, device and operating system, file type and source application, the exact action, what happened, what was expected, and a redacted sample or screenshot when it does not expose private financial information. Never send the raw bank export by default.

What Garden is and is not

It is: a local-first personal-finance ledger for records, imports, accounts, budgets, goals, rules, recurring activity, reports, and documents. In this beta, the important path is importing a file that you already own and checking the result on your own device.

It is not: a bank, a financial adviser, a tax preparer, a filing service, a guarantee that an imported record is correct, or a replacement for the original export. The beta is local-and-import focused; do not promise bank connections to a tester. Do not use a generated document without checking it. There is no account to create and no customer data to sell.