Import historical data: bring your past records into Wert

Before you start: back up and choose the right records

Historical import turns account balances or net worth totals from past dates into snapshots. Use the state of your assets on each date, not transactions, income, expenses or individual trades. Importing screenshots of current holdings is a separate workflow.

Keep a backup of your existing Wert data and the original source file. Pay particular attention to overwrites: undoing an import removes the snapshots written by that import, but does not restore older snapshots that it replaced.

1. Start with a template or an existing export

Open Wert → Settings → historical data import. Get the template to see a CSV example, or choose a file. Supported formats include wide and long CSV tables, Wert CSV exports and Wert JSON exports. Export Excel or Numbers spreadsheets as CSV first; .xlsx files are not supported directly.

Exports from other apps may need their columns rearranged into a supported format. JSON must follow the Wert export format; arbitrary JSON files and other apps’ backups cannot be imported directly. This workflow is also separate from restoring a complete backup.

2. Organise dates, accounts and amounts

A wide table has one row per date and one column per account. Use headers such as Date, Net Worth, Savings (CNY) and Investments (USD); a three-letter currency code at the end of an account header identifies its currency. A long table has one row per account on a date, with headers such as Date, Account, Amount and Currency.

Use dates in YYYY-MM-DD format, such as 2025-10-21. Enter balances in their original currency and use currency codes such as CNY or USD. Do not convert a balance to CNY and then label it with its original currency. The current import workflow uses CNY as the basis for net worth totals and exchange rates.

If you only have totals for earlier dates, provide Date and Net Worth to create total-only snapshots. These fill gaps in your history without reconstructing account, category or currency details. Blank account amounts do not carry forward a previous balance; enter each balance you want included on that date.

3. Review parsing and map your accounts

After choosing a file, check the detected dates, columns and skipped records. Invalid dates, future dates and invalid amounts may be skipped. If headers are not recognised correctly, assign columns as prompted or edit the source file and select it again.

Map each account in the file to an existing Wert account, create a new one or ignore it. Check names, categories and currencies, especially for mortgages and credit cards. Liabilities are deducted according to their category; a minus sign alone does not identify a liability. Negative amounts in asset accounts are converted to positive amounts and flagged for review.

4. Check historical exchange rates

Valid rates supplied in the file take priority, followed by retrieved historical rates. Fallback rates are flagged. When rates are missing, enter how many CNY equal one unit of the original currency and apply the rate.

A manually entered rate applies to dates still missing a rate for that currency, rather than being entered separately for each date. Check this carefully for records spanning a long period. Supply rates in the file if you need precise daily rates. Do not first convert historical balances using today’s exchange rate.

5. Review totals and date conflicts, then import

On the review screen, check the number of snapshots to write, new accounts and warnings for each date. Dates with an existing manual snapshot default to skipping; dates with an existing imported snapshot default to overwriting. You can choose skip or overwrite for each date. Review these choices before importing the same file again. If the file repeats an account on the same date, the last entry is used.

When the file’s net worth differs from the account total, choose to put the difference in Other, use the accounts or keep only the total. Adding a difference to Other only works for a positive difference. If the account total exceeds the file total, that option still uses the account total; check for missing liabilities or duplicate accounts first.

Confirm the import after checking dates, currencies, rates and conflict choices. Then inspect the earliest, latest and conflicting dates in your snapshot history, comparing net worth and account details with the original records.

If something went wrong

The success screen offers an option to undo this import. It deletes snapshots written in this batch and accounts created by the batch that are not used by other records. It does not restore overwritten snapshots. Use your earlier backup if you need those old records back.

If fewer records appear than expected, check skipped records, future dates, blank amounts, ignored accounts and date conflicts. For unexpected totals, check currencies, liability categories, duplicate accounts, exchange rates and difference handling before correcting and importing the file again.

Historical import does not automatically grant ChatGPT or Claude access. AI connections and asset sharing have separate authorization and controls. Production asset sharing is not yet available.