Complete guide

This guide covers everything you need to know about using Sure, from creating your account to managing investments.

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Creating your account

Once Sure is installed, navigate to localhost:3000. You’ll see the login page. Click Sign Up to begin. Complete the setup screens to configure your login details, personal information, and preferences. When you reach the main dashboard showing “No accounts yet”, you’re ready to go.

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Using integrations

The next sections cover how to manually add accounts and transactions. If you’d prefer to use an integration with a data provider, Sure supports:

• Self-custody wallets — Bitcoin, EVM, and Solana wallets tracked natively
• Binance (beta)
• Coinbase (beta)
• CoinStats (beta)
• Enable Banking (beta)
• Lunch Flow
• Plaid
• SimpleFIN
• SnapTrade (beta) for brokerage and investment accounts

Even if you use an integration, we recommend reading this guide to understand account types and how they work in Sure.

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Account types

Sure supports several account types, grouped into assets (things you own) and debts/liabilities (things you owe):

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How asset accounts work

Cash, checking, and savings accounts increase when you add money and decrease when you spend money. Example:

• Starting balance: $500
• Add an expense of $20 → balance is now$480
• Add an income of $100 → balance is now$580

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How debt accounts work

Liability accounts track how much money you owe, so the math works differently than asset accounts. Key rule:

• Positive balances = you owe money
• Negative balances = the bank owes you (overpayment or refund)

Transaction behavior:

• Expenses (purchases) → increase your debt (you owe more)
• Payments or refunds → decrease your debt (you owe less)

Credit card example:

1. Balance: $200 owed
2. Spend $20 → You now owe$220 (balance goes up in red)
3. Pay off $50 → You now owe$170 (balance goes down in green)

Overpayment example:

1. Balance: -$44 (bank owes you$44)
2. Spend $1 → Bank now owes you$43 (balance shown as -$43, moving towards zero)

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Quick reference

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Adding accounts

This example shows how to add a savings account. Most bank accounts (checking, savings, money market) are cash accounts:

1. Click + Add Account → Cash → Enter Account Balance
2. Fill in details:
   • Account name
   • Current balance
   • Account subtype (checking, savings, or other)
3. Click Create Account

Once created, you’ll return to the home screen. You’ll see your new account in the accounts list and an overview in the center under the net worth bar.

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Account sparklines and trend percentages

Each account and account group in the sidebar displays a small 30-day sparkline chart and a percentage trend. The trend percentage shows how the balance has changed over the last 30 days. The sparkline and trend percentage only appear once there is enough balance history. For a brand-new account with no historical data, the sidebar shows a placeholder instead. Once balances accumulate over time, the chart and trend fill in automatically.

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Adding transactions

To add a transaction:

1. Go to the Transactions page (left sidebar)
2. Click + New Transaction (top right)
3. Choose the transaction type:
   • Expense → Spending money
   • Income → Receiving money
   • Transfer → Move money between accounts
4. Enter the details, then click Add transaction

You’ll see the transaction in your transaction history and the net worth chart will update accordingly.

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Managing investment accounts

If you’re tracking investments in Sure, there are additional features to help you manage your portfolio accurately.

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Cost basis tracking

Cost basis tracking helps you understand the original purchase price of your investments, which is essential for calculating returns and tax reporting.

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Cost basis sources

Sure tracks cost basis from three sources:

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Priority hierarchy

When multiple sources provide cost basis data, Sure uses this priority: Manual > Calculated > Provider This means:

• Manual values always take precedence
• Calculated values override provider data
• Provider data is used when no other source is available

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Lock protection

When you manually set a cost basis, Sure automatically locks it to prevent automatic updates from overwriting your value. This ensures your manual entries remain intact during account syncs.

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Setting cost basis manually

You can set cost basis in two ways: From the holdings list:

1. Navigate to your investment account
2. Find the holding in your portfolio
3. Click the pencil icon next to the average cost
4. Enter either:
   • Total cost basis: The total amount you paid for all shares
   • Per-share cost: The average price per share
5. The form automatically converts between total and per-share values
6. Click Save

The system will show a confirmation if you’re overwriting an existing cost basis. From the holding drawer:

1. Click on a holding to open its detail drawer
2. In the overview section, click the pencil icon next to “Average Cost”
3. Enter the cost basis (total or per-share)
4. Click Save

After saving, you’ll see:

• A lock icon indicating the value is protected
• A source label showing “(manual)“

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Unlocking cost basis

If you want to allow automatic updates to recalculate your cost basis:

1. Open the holding drawer
2. Scroll to the Settings section
3. Find “Cost basis locked”
4. Click Unlock

After unlocking:

• The lock icon disappears
• Future syncs can update the cost basis
• Calculated values (from trades) will replace the manual value

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Bidirectional conversion

The cost basis editor provides real-time conversion between total and per-share values:

• Enter total cost → automatically calculates per-share cost
• Enter per-share cost → automatically calculates total cost

This makes it easy to enter cost basis in whichever format you have available.

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Investment activity labels

Activity labels help you classify and understand investment transactions. They appear as badges in your transaction list and can be used to organize and filter your investment activity.

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Available activity types

Sure supports these investment activity labels:

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Setting activity labels

You can set activity labels in two ways: Manually for individual transactions:

1. Open a transaction from an investment or crypto account
2. Scroll to the Settings section
3. Find “Activity type”
4. Select a label from the dropdown
5. The change saves automatically

Automatically with rules: Create rules to automatically label transactions based on patterns:

1. Go to Settings > Rules
2. Create a new rule
3. Set conditions (e.g., “IF transaction name contains ‘DIVIDEND’”)
4. Add action: “Set investment activity label”
5. Choose the label (e.g., “Dividend”)
6. Save the rule

Example rules:

• IF name contains “DIVIDEND” THEN set label to “Dividend”
• IF name contains “INTEREST” THEN set label to “Interest”
• IF name contains “FEE” THEN set label to “Fee”

Rules apply automatically to new transactions and can be run on existing transactions.

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Viewing activity labels

Activity labels appear as badges in:

• Transaction lists
• Transaction detail drawers
• Account activity views

They help you quickly identify the nature of each investment transaction without reading the full transaction name.

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Investment contributions in cashflow

Investment contributions are now automatically visible in your cashflow and transaction history. When you add money to an investment account, Sure automatically:

• Categorizes the transaction: Contributions are auto-categorized so they appear in your cashflow reports
• Labels the activity: The transaction receives a “Contribution” activity label
• Tracks the movement: The money flow is visible in your overall financial picture

This ensures that money moved into investment accounts doesn’t disappear from your financial tracking - you can see exactly where your money went and how it affects your overall cashflow. How it works:

1. When you transfer money to an investment account, the transaction is created
2. Sure automatically applies the “Contribution” activity label
3. The transaction is categorized appropriately for cashflow tracking
4. You can view these contributions in:
   • Your transaction list
   • Cashflow reports
   • Category breakdowns
   • Investment account activity

This feature eliminates the “black hole” effect where investment contributions would seem to vanish from your financial overview.

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Dashboard

The Dashboard gives you a live snapshot of your financial picture. Several widgets are available, and you can reorder and collapse them to suit your workflow.

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Spending trend chart

The spending trend chart shows cumulative daily expenses for a selected month plotted against the previous month’s curve, so you can see whether you are spending faster or slower than last month at the same point in the month.

• Use the month picker to review any of the last 12 months.
• Both curves share a day-of-month axis, so the comparison is day-for-day regardless of how many days each month has.
• The current month’s curve stops at today while the month is in progress.
• The chart uses the same transaction scoping as the Reports page: pending transactions, manually excluded transactions, tax-advantaged account activity, and investment portfolio movements (Transfers, Sweeps, Exchanges) are all excluded, so the totals always agree with what you see in Reports.

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Reports

The Reports page gives you a breakdown of your income and expenses by category for any date range.

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Drilling into categories

Income and expense category rows in the breakdown are clickable. Clicking a category row takes you directly to your transaction list filtered to that category, so you can see exactly which transactions make up the total. Investment-only rows (such as Other Investments) are not clickable because those entries are trade records rather than regular transactions and cannot be shown in the transaction list.

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Next steps

Now that you have your account set up:

• Explore other account types that Sure offers
• Categorize and tag transactions for better searching and reporting
• Experiment with budgets to track your spending habits
• Use bulk import to load historical transactions