If you left a bank-linked app because you did not want your credentials in someone else's hands, Actual Budget is probably the first alternative you found. It is free, it is open source, and it stores your data on your own device first. That is a serious answer to the same worry we started from, so it deserves a straight comparison.
They are not the same kind of tool. Actual is a budgeting app built on envelope budgeting: you assign the money you have to categories and plan against it. We keep a book of account: you record what came in and went out, per client or project, and read the whole picture back.
Who looks after the software
Read from Actual's own pages on 2026-10-15, your data lives on your device and on a server you run, and it syncs between them in the background. It says the data never goes to an external server you did not choose, and you can turn on end-to-end encryption so even your own server only passes along changes. You run that server, or you pay a hosting service to run it.
With myClerkBook, we host your book and you open it in a browser. There is nothing to install, patch or back up. The price of that is trust: your book lives with us, and you cannot run it on a machine of your own.
Where the entries come from
Actual imports QIF, OFX, QFX, CAMT.053 and CSV files, and it can sync with a bank through GoCardless in the EU and UK or SimpleFIN in the US and Canada. The bank sync is optional, so you can run it without ever connecting one.
Ours arrive three ways: you type them, you photograph or upload a receipt, invoice or statement and we read it, or you import a statement file you exported yourself. There is no bank connection to switch on later, because it does not exist. The difference you will feel day to day is the reading: you hand us the paperwork and the entry comes back filled in for you to confirm.
What it costs
Actual costs nothing to use. You pay only for wherever you choose to host it, and it points to a hosting service that sets up a server in a couple of minutes. For someone comfortable running their own server, that is hard to beat.
myClerkBook Basic is $5 a month and reads 50 documents a month. Premium is $10 a month and adds 1,000 documents a month, daily conversion of your currencies and up to five separate books. You are paying for the reading and for not having to run anything.
| Dimension | myClerkBook | Actual Budget |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs itDifferent by design | We host it; you open it in a browser | You run your own server, or pay a host to |
| Where your data livesActual Budget | In your book with us | On your device and your server, with optional end-to-end encryption |
| Bank connectionmyClerkBook | None, permanently. No aggregator in the stack | Optional bank sync through GoCardless or SimpleFIN |
| Reading receipts and invoicesmyClerkBook | Photo, upload or statement file on every plan | File imports only; no receipt reading listed |
| Separate books per clientDifferent by design | Up to five on Premium, each with its own categories and insights | Several budget files, each its own budget |
| MethodDifferent by design | A book of account: record, then read back | Envelope budgeting: plan the money you have |
| PriceActual Budget | From $5 a month | Free; you pay only for hosting if you use it |
| Source codeActual Budget | Closed | Open, with a public API |
Where Actual Budget is better
Who each one is for
- Choose Actual Budget if you want to run the software yourself, you like envelope budgeting, and you want your data on your own hardware with nothing to pay for the software.
- Choose myClerkBook if you work for several clients or run several ventures, your records start as receipts and invoices, and you would rather read your paperwork in than set up a server.
- Stay with Actual if it already works for you. Self-hosting that runs is worth keeping.
- 0
- Bank connections
- No login, no aggregator, no read access. Architectural, not a setting.
- 166
- Currencies
- Stored exactly as entered, converted daily on Premium.
- 1,000
- Parsing credits a month
- One per entry read from a receipt, invoice or statement, on Premium. 50 a month on Basic.
- 5
- Separate books
- Each with its own categories, base currency and insights, on Premium.
One last thing, and it applies to every comparison on this page. myClerkBook is not trying to be the product with the most features on the page. It is trying to be the one that never asks you for something it should not need. If automatic bank import is the thing you want most, buy the product that does it well and ignore everything above. That is a real preference and it deserves a real answer rather than a sales rebuttal.