Empower CSV to Beancount
Convert an Empower Personal Dashboard transactions CSV — the export formerly known as Personal Capital — into balanced double-entry Beancount transactions, with the column mapping already set.
Column mapping verified against a real Empower export
How to export your Empower transactions
- 1
In the Empower Personal Dashboard on the web, click Overview, then Transactions.
- 2
Set the date range you want and select the account-type tab you are converting — Bank, Credit or Investment. The CSV contains exactly what the screen is showing and nothing else.
- 3
Click the CSV button to the right of the “Search transactions” field.
- 4
Open the download in a text editor. Every row names its own account in the Account column, so keep one account's rows, copy them with the header line, and paste them below.
The CSV is a snapshot of the Transactions screen
Whatever date range and account-type tab are active when you click CSV is precisely what lands in the file — “my export is missing accounts” is nearly always the Bank, Credit or Investment tab doing its job. The signs need no work: Empower writes the change to the account, so a card charge is negative and a loan payment positive, which is what a posting on a Liabilities: account looks like — leave “Flip every sign” off, unlike an Amex export. Amounts sometimes arrive with one decimal place or none (3200, -8.5) and are padded to two. The file still mixes accounts under a column the converter does not read, so keep one account's rows before you paste.
Beancount output
Empower export questions
Why does my CSV contain only some of my accounts?
Because the export mirrors the Transactions screen: the account-type tab you have selected and the date range you have set are the whole filter. Widen the range and export once per tab, converting each file separately — or export everything and split the file on its Account column.
Do credit-card charges need their sign flipped, the way an Amex export does?
No. Empower writes the change to the account, so a purchase is already negative and a payment positive — the same signs a Beancount posting on a Liabilities: account uses. Leave “Flip every sign” switched off here; it is the Amex preset, not this one, that needs it.
Can I convert my brokerage transactions this way?
Only as cash movements. The transactions CSV has six columns — date, account, description, category, tags, amount — and carries no quantity, price or ticker, so a stock purchase converts to money leaving the account rather than shares arriving. Convert your bank and card accounts here, and record trades with explicit commodity postings in your ledger.
Keep the ledger you just converted
Beancount.io hosts your plain-text ledger, imports future statements for you, and keeps every number auditable.
Start Free→