Leaving Copilot Money: What Actually Transfers

A move from Copilot can be about household access, portfolio coverage, or a different budgeting workflow. Copilot supports iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and web, according to its transaction export documentation. Browser access alone is not a reason to say a move is necessary.

The practical question is how much of the categorization work you did inside Copilot survives the move. The answer is most of it. Nethaven has a dedicated Copilot adapter, so the export is recognized by its headers and imported without a mapping step, and the categories you cleaned up over months come with the transactions.

How do I export from Copilot?

On iOS, open Settings, find Account, and choose Export your transactions. Save the CSV from the share sheet. On iPadOS, macOS, and web, check the filters in the Transactions view before exporting. Follow the Copilot export instructions and the Nethaven import limitations.

Nethaven recognizes a Copilot export by a header combination that includes Account Mask, the partial account number Copilot writes into every row. That is what distinguishes it from a generic bank CSV, and it is why a Copilot file imports without you telling Nethaven what it is.

What transfers from Copilot to Nethaven?

• Accounts, built from the account column.
• Transactions, one per row.
• Transaction names, using Name or, when present, Original Name as a fallback.
• Categories, as you assigned them.
• Notes, carried into the note field.

The categories are the part worth caring about. Copilot’s categorization is one of its strengths, and the months you spent correcting it are encoded in that column. They arrive as a category list you can build a real budget on rather than a blank template.

What does not transfer from Copilot?

• Opening balances. Absent from the export, so each account opens at zero.
• Budget history. The transactions file has no monthly plan in it, so past budget months cannot be rebuilt.
• Transfer links, recurring rules, and any Copilot-specific review state.
• Loan payoff details, which need an original amount and start date no export contains.

Why do my balances not match after import?

Because a transaction export describes movement, not position. Nethaven reconstructs each account from the rows it receives, so the balance equals the sum of imported activity rather than what the account holds today.

Every affected account is flagged on the preview, so this is visible before you commit rather than discovered afterwards. Open accounts once the import lands and set the real balance. That is the whole fix.

How are Copilot transfers handled?

Copilot documents a Transaction Type field, but that is not the same as a link between two transfer rows. Nethaven's current adapter infers pairs from same-day, opposite-sign amounts across accounts. Check each inferred pair and compare unmatched card payments with the source account.

Payments that settle a day apart, or two identical amounts on the same date, can slip through as ordinary transactions and inflate both income and expenses. Check the warnings on the preview and merge the leftovers after the import.

What should I check before confirming?

1. Transaction, account, and category counts against Copilot.
2. Per-account balances, all of which will need correcting.
3. Inferred transfer warnings.
4. Guessed account types. The export does not say whether an account is checking, savings, or a card, so Nethaven infers it from the name and flags every guess.
5. Whether “Replace my starter data” should be on. It deletes onboarding sample data before applying the import, so leave it off if you have already set anything up manually.

What should I set up after the import?

Correct balances first, then account types, then transfers. After that, rebuild the pieces Copilot handled that live elsewhere in Nethaven: recurring charges become tracked subscriptions, and the investment side that a budgeting app tends to treat as an afterthought moves into portfolio tracking.

If a household member was the reason for the move, set up shared access so both people sign in separately against the same budget rather than one person relaying screenshots. The Copilot Money alternative page covers that case, and Nethaven vs Copilot covers the feature-by-feature split.

If part of your history also lives in Monarch, consult its migration guide before combining exports and creating duplicates.