Common questions

Privacy, file formats, plans, what happens to your data, and the community — 9 straight answers.

What file do I need?

A spreadsheet with one row per record and, at minimum, a date and an amount: CSV, TSV or a text export, an Excel workbook (.xlsx or .xls), or a Parquet or JSON-lines file (.parquet, .ndjson, .jsonl). Sales and invoices land in Revenue view, oil & gas production in Operations (with completion data, formation tops and LAS well logs alongside if you have them), and a trade log or broker export in Trading. Exports from QuickBooks, Stripe, Square, Shopify, Toast POS, a brokerage, or a plain spreadsheet all work. Going the other way, the Full dataset export writes CSV, TSV, JSON or Excel.

Is my data stored anywhere?

No. Files, pasted data, spreadsheets, and trade logs are processed entirely in your browser and never uploaded. AI insights send only anonymized summary totals — never your raw rows, client names, or trades. The one exception is ledger photos, which are sent to AI vision to be read — see the Privacy section below.

Can I drop in a raw export from my broker?

Yes. Robinhood, Public, ThinkOrSwim, and Interactive Brokers exports list separate buy and sell fills with no per-trade P/L — PlainSight pairs them into round-trip trades for you (FIFO per symbol), nets out fees, handles shorts and same-day flips, and sets aside any still-open position. A journal export that already has a P/L column works too. Trade across several accounts? On Pro, ＋ Add data on the dashboard combines multiple brokers or accounts into one book — round-trips pair within each account, differently-formatted exports get a quick column-match step, and you get a per-account performance breakdown.

Do options and futures calculate correctly?

Yes. Options apply the 100× contract multiplier, and futures are scaled by each contract's point value — ES at $50/point, MES $5, CL $1,000, GC $100, and about 40 common contracts, with expiry codes like ESZ5 or /MESH6 resolved automatically. A rare contract that isn't in the table pairs correctly but is valued per-point as 1×; the detection banner tells you what was applied.

Can I upload a photo of my paper ledger?

Yes — upload up to 5 photos and AI reads the transactions, combining multiple pages into one dataset. You review and can fix everything in an editable table before it's used. This is opt-in and counts toward your monthly AI usage.

My columns have different names — will it work?

Yes. PlainSight detects columns by their content, not their names, across every mode, and shows you exactly what it detected at the bottom of the dashboard so you can verify. The exception is a few second numbers that content alone can't tell from the money, which it reads by their header: Labor cost and Crew hours, Days on market (or List date and Contract date), and on an invoice export the Due date (or Terms, like Net 30) with the Paid date, Status or Balance that turn on Who owes you.

Can I use bank exports or a household budget?

Yes — any file with dates and amounts works. Deposits read as revenue and negatives as refunds or credits. A personal or household budget is recognized too: the wording shifts to spending and categories, and benchmarks use household guidelines like the 30% housing rule and the 50/30/20 savings target.

What does it cost?

Free explores every industry on sample data and includes ONE upload of your own file: create a free account, upload a CSV/Excel (or paste a table), and get your full on-screen dashboard computed on your device — saved to your account so you can return to it. You can also download the one industry sample as a format template. To view or download the summary report, export your analysis, upload more files, or use the AI features (AI benchmarks, live sector news, Ask-your-data, ledger-photo import), upgrade to Pro ($19.99/mo or $99/year). Prefer no subscription? A one-time Report pack ($12.99) lets you upload and download a full report on that device.

Is there a community?

Yes — optional, and for adults. The same free account opens PlainSight, Alabaster Box and PlainSight Comedy, and one community runs across all three: follow people, see who's live, like Floor clips, Residency episodes, micro series and Good News issues, and message the people you follow (anyone else waits in Requests). Profiles can be public or private, with one picture of your own, you can block, mute or report anyone, and you can turn it off for your account. plainsightai.app/community walks you through joining, step by step. Your files and dashboards never go near it: they stay on your device either way.