Mint export to business books: one multi-account CSV to a profit and loss
If you tracked a side business or freelance income in Mint, Monarch, Tiller or YNAB, you may hold one CSV with every account in it. That file is a good start for real books, as long as each account is read on its own and the card payment is not counted as spending.
Worked example: seven lines, two accounts
The tool ships a synthetic file in the Mint column layout (fixtures/mint-export.csv: Date, Description, Original Description, Amount, Transaction Type, Category, Account Name). Amounts are unsigned and the Transaction Type column says debit or credit. The commands were import fixtures/mint-export.csv --map "Business Checking"=1000,"Business Visa"=2000, accept 0.5 (two lines were filed by built-in keywords), three lines filed with confirm, then report.
| Original description | Account | Amount | Filed to |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACH CREDIT NORTHWIND LLC INV 2210 | Business Checking | 3,800.00 | 4000 Sales |
| ADOBE *CREATIVE CLD | Business Checking | −59.99 | 6060 Software and subscriptions |
| STAPLES 00123 PORTLAND | Business Visa | −84.12 | 6070 Office supplies and postage |
| UBER *TRIP HELP.UBER.COM | Business Visa | −23.40 | 6120 Travel |
| CHECK 1012 | Business Checking | −850.00 | 6080 Rent |
| PAYMENT THANK YOU / ONLINE PAYMENT TO BUSINESS VISA | both accounts | −100.00 / +100.00 | paired as a transfer |
| Net profit for March 2026 | 2,782.49 | income 3,800.00 less expenses 1,017.51 |
The balance sheet agrees: checking 2,790.01 equals the card balance owed 7.52 plus current earnings 2,782.49. The Mint category column is ignored on purpose; consumer categories (Taxi, Office Supplies) are not tax categories, so the tool suggests from the payee and your own corrections instead.
How to do it with your own export
- Download the CSV from your app (Mint is gone, but an export you saved, or a Monarch, Tiller or YNAB export, has the same shape).
- Open AI Bookkeeper, import the file and map each account name to a chart account. Keep only business accounts and business rows; personal spending does not belong in business books.
- Clear the review queue. Each line you file teaches the payee, so later months need fewer clicks.
- Read the reports or export a journal:
export qbo,export xero,export iif, or plain-textledger/beancount.
Honest limits: the layout comes from the column names of Mint exports as seen in a third-party project's sample file; the file here is hand-written and no real Mint or Monarch download was tried. Check a small month first. Cash-basis only: no invoices-first workflow here, no bank connection, no tax filing.
Questions
Mint shut down. What can a small business or freelancer use instead?
Mint's consumer app closed, but a Mint, Monarch, Tiller or YNAB-style CSV export is still just a file. AI Bookkeeper reads a file that names the account on every row, files the lines into double-entry books, and produces a profit and loss, balance sheet and journals for QuickBooks Online, Xero or QuickBooks Desktop. It is free and open source, and nothing is uploaded.
Does it understand a CSV with several accounts in one file?
Yes. Give it a mapping from each account name in the file to a chart code (for example Business Checking to 1000 and Business Visa to 2000). Each account's rows are imported separately and a payment from checking to the card is paired as a transfer, not counted as an expense.
Why is the credit card payment not an expense?
The payment moves money from checking to pay down the card. The purchases on the card were the expenses. Counting both double-counts. The tool pairs the two sides and keeps the transfer out of the profit and loss.
Is it a replacement for a budgeting app?
No. It does bookkeeping (a profit and loss and balance sheet from bank lines), not budgeting goals, net-worth tracking or a bank connection.
Open AI Bookkeeper and import your export.