Your money.
Your machine.
Export a CSV from your bank, credit card, or brokerage. Drop it in. See where your money went; privately, locally, without giving anyone your credentials or paying a monthly subscription.
Why it exists
Most finance apps work against you.
They ask for your bank login, upload your transactions to their servers, and charge you monthly for the privilege. If you cancel, your data disappears for you, not them. Compass was built as the alternative.
Privacy by default
No bank login. No credentials. No cloud upload. Your transaction data never leaves your machine. There is no server to receive it, no account to breach, no subscription to cancel.
Instant clarity
Drop in a CSV. Categories apply automatically. See your top spending, monthly trends, budget progress, and ghost subscriptions in seconds, with no setup required.
Full control
Your database. Your encryption key. Export everything as CSV at any time. No lock-in, no account deletion risk. The data is a file on your machine, yours to keep.
How it works
Three steps to get started.
Export from your bank or brokerage
Log into your bank, credit card issuer, or brokerage and export a CSV. Every institution supports this with no special access, no new account, and no permissions to grant.
Investment portfolios: Fidelity, Wells Fargo Advisors, Thrivent, and more.
Drop it into Compass
The guided 6-step wizard detects your bank's column layout automatically. Bank presets pre-fill the mapping. Returning users skip straight to preview with one click.
See where your money went
100+ built-in categorization rules apply instantly. Navigate your Dashboard, Trends, Reports, Budgets, and Goals. Everything populates automatically with no manual entry.
See it working
See it in action.
Recorded at full resolution.
Features
Everything you need. Nothing you don't.
6-Step Import Wizard
Guided import with column auto-detection. Bank presets for Chase, Capital One, Wells Fargo, Discover, Amex, Venmo, and more. Investment portfolio presets for Fidelity, Wells Fargo Advisors, and Thrivent. Batch import multiple files. Duplicate detection via content hash.
Auto-Categorization
100+ built-in rules cover Amazon, Walmart, DoorDash, Starbucks, Netflix, and more. Manual corrections optionally save as rules so future imports self-categorize. Manage all rules from the sidebar.
Dashboard & Trends
Monthly income, expenses, and net savings at a glance. 3, 6, or 12-month trend charts showing income vs. expenses and per-category breakdowns. Navigate any month freely, past or future.
Budgets & Goals
Soft monthly spending limits with on-pace projections so you can catch a potential overspend before month end. Track net savings, spending limits, and income targets as goals with progress bars.
Ghost Subscription Detector
Finds recurring charges with the exact same description and amount appearing in 2 or more months. Lists monthly and estimated annual totals for every subscription you may have forgotten about.
Insights & Privacy
Automatic spending analysis surfaces budget warnings, top merchants, detected subscriptions, paycheck timing, and overdraft alerts, all processed locally. SQLCipher AES-256 encrypted database. Zero telemetry.
Compare
Simpler. More private. No subscription.
Compass owns a specific lane: more private than Monarch, simpler than Firefly, more modern than HomeBank, less budgeting-dogmatic than Actual Budget.
| Feature | Compass | Monarch / Simplifi | Actual Budget | Firefly III | HomeBank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local-only data | ✓ | ✗ Cloud | ✓ | ✓ Self-hosted | ✓ |
| No account required | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Free, no subscription | ✓ | ✗ $10–20/mo | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| No bank login needed | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Encrypted database | ✓ AES-256 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Modern Windows desktop UI | ✓ | ✗ Web only | ✓ | ✗ Web only | ~ |
| Ghost subscription detection | ✓ | ~ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Try before importing | ✓ Demo Mode | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Security & Privacy
Questions you should ask before trusting any finance app.
%APPDATA%\com.compass.app\ on your Windows machine. Only your user account can access it. No other location, no remote copy.
Compass for macOS
Free. Private. Yours.
Not code-signed or notarized yet - macOS will warn that the app "can't be opened" or "is damaged".
Right-click the app → Open (or run xattr -cr Compass.app in Terminal) to launch it anyway.
This goes away once Compass is signed with an Apple Developer ID.