User guide

Getting started

Choose your currency

On first launch, the app asks which currency to use. It suggests one based on your phone's region, and you can pick any standard currency. Amounts are formatted the way your phone's language and region settings expect, for example with the right decimal and thousands separators.

You can change the currency later in Settings. This only changes how amounts are displayed. It does not convert them, so a balance of 1,000 stays 1,000 in the new currency.

Add your first account

An account is any place money lives: your wallet, a bank account, a mobile wallet or a credit card.

1. Open Accounts and tap Add account.
2. Give it a name (for example "Wallet" or "Main bank") and choose a type.
3. Enter the opening balance: how much is in it today. For a credit card, enter what you currently owe as a negative amount.
4. Save. Add your other accounts the same way.

Account balances are never typed in after that. The app calculates them from the opening balance plus every entry linked to the account, so they always match your records. If you stop using an account, archive it instead of deleting it so its history stays intact.

Set up categories

The app comes with a set of common categories such as Food, Transport, Rent, Utilities and Salary. You can rename them, add your own, and add one level of subcategories, for example Food → Groceries and Food → Eating out.

Keep the list short at first. It is easier to split a category later than to tidy up dozens of rarely used ones.

Income, expenses and transfers

Tap the add button and choose the type of entry.

Each entry has an amount, a date, an account, and for income and expenses a category. You can add a note and tags (for example trip or office) to find related entries later. Photo or receipt attachments are not available in the mobile app at the moment.

To fix a mistake, open the entry and edit or delete it. Balances update immediately.

Daily tracking tips

• Record at the moment you pay. Ten seconds at the counter beats trying to remember a week later.
• Pick one evening check-in. Glance at the day's entries and add anything you missed.
• Group small cash spending. If tracking every tea or bus fare is too much, add one "Daily cash" expense at the end of the day.
• Reconcile weekly. Compare the app's balance with your real wallet or bank. If they differ, add an adjusting entry with a clear note rather than changing the opening balance.
• Use tags for events. A tag such as wedding-2026 lets you see the total cost of something that spans many categories.

Budgets

A budget is a monthly spending limit for one expense category.

1. Open Budgets and choose the month.
2. Tap Add budget, pick a category and enter the limit.

Spending in the category's subcategories counts toward its budget. A budget of 15,000 for Food includes Groceries and Eating out.

Each budget shows how much you have spent and what is left. It turns to a warning at 80% of the limit and shows as over budget at 100%.

Budgets apply to one month at a time. Start with your two or three largest categories and adjust the limits after a month or two of real data.

Investments

Use investments for anything you put money into expecting a return: shares, mutual funds, fixed deposits, savings schemes, bonds, gold, crypto, property or a small business. The same rules work for all of them.

Recording entries

Create the investment first (name and type), then add entries to it as things happen.

If you link an entry to an account, that account's balance moves too: a buy or expense takes money out, a sell or income puts money in. Leave the account empty for entries that didn't pass through any account you track.

How profit and ROI are calculated

cost          = buys + expenses + all fees
returned      = sells + income
current value = latest valuation
profit        = returned + current value − cost
ROI           = profit ÷ cost × 100

If you have never added a valuation, current value is estimated as buys minus sells (never below zero). If you mark the investment as closed, current value is zero, and profit is simply what came back minus what it cost.

Worked example

You buy 100 shares at 50 each and later sell some of them.

If the remaining shares were later valued at 2,000 instead, profit would be 2,700 + 2,000 − 5,037 = −337, an ROI of −6.69%. Gains are shown in green and losses in red.

ROI here is a simple total return on everything you put in. It does not account for how long the money was invested, so compare it with care between a one-month and a five-year holding.

Loans

Track money you lent to someone and money you borrowed.

1. Open Loans and tap Add loan.
2. Choose lent or borrowed, enter the person or lender, the amount, the date and an optional due date.
3. Each time money is paid back, add a repayment to the loan.

The loan shows how much has been paid and what is still outstanding. A loan past its due date with money outstanding is flagged as overdue.

If you link the loan to an account, lending takes money out of it and borrowing puts money in. Repayments move money the other way. Money owed to you counts toward your net worth, and money you owe is subtracted from it.

Savings goals

A goal is a target amount you want to save, optionally by a date, such as an emergency fund or a new laptop.

1. Open Goals, tap Add goal, and enter a name, target amount and optional target date.
2. Add a contribution each time you set money aside. To record taking money out, add a negative contribution.

The goal shows the total saved and progress as a percentage of the target.

Recurring items

For things that repeat, such as salary, rent, subscriptions or loan instalments, create a recurring item instead of typing them every time.

1. Open Recurring and tap Add.
2. Fill in the entry as usual (type, amount, account, category).
3. Choose how often: daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, with an interval (for example every 2 weeks), a start date and an optional end date.

When an item is due, the app creates the entry for you. Because the app runs only on your phone, this happens when you open it. If you haven't opened it for a while, it catches up and creates every missed entry with its correct date.

Monthly items keep their day of the month. An item that starts on the 31st runs on 31 January, 28 February (29 in a leap year) and 31 March, instead of drifting to the 28th for the rest of the year.

Check the created entries now and then. If the real amount was different, such as a utility bill, edit that one entry.

Dashboard and reports

The dashboard gives a summary of the current month: net worth, income, expenses, savings rate, spending by category, a cash-flow trend, budget progress, top investments, loans, goals and upcoming recurring items.

Net worth is the total of your account balances, plus the current value of your investments, plus money owed to you, minus money you owe.

Savings rate is the share of the month's income you didn't spend.

Reports let you pick any date range and filter by account or category to see totals, a month-by-month breakdown and spending by category.

Backup and restore

Back up regularly. Once a week is a good habit, and always before updating your phone, resetting it or uninstalling the app.

Create a backup

1. Open Settings and tap Backup.
2. Choose where to save the file. Android will let you save it to your phone's storage or send it to another app.
3. Copy the file somewhere off the phone, such as your computer or a storage service you trust.

The backup is a single JSON file containing everything: accounts, categories, transactions, budgets, investments, loans, goals, recurring items and settings.

Restore a backup

1. Open Settings and tap Restore.
2. Select your backup file.
3. Confirm. The app replaces the data on the phone with the data from the file.

Restoring overwrites what is currently in the app. If you have entries on the phone that aren't in the backup, make a fresh backup first.

CSV export and import

Export CSV in Settings saves your transactions as a spreadsheet file you can open in Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice. Import CSV adds transactions from a file in the same format, which is handy for bringing in records from another app. A CSV contains transactions only, so use the JSON backup to save everything.

Moving to a new phone

1. On the old phone, open Settings → Backup and save the file.
2. Move the file to the new phone, for example over USB, Nearby Share or a storage service you trust.
3. Install Money Manager on the new phone.
4. Open Settings → Restore and choose the file.
5. Check that your balances match, then delete the copy of the backup from any place you used only for the transfer.

Android's own device-to-device transfer or Google backup may also move app data, depending on your phone and settings. Don't rely on it alone: a backup file you made yourself is the dependable option.

App lock

You can turn on an app lock in Settings. When enabled, the app asks for a 4 to 6 digit PIN each time it opens. Fingerprint and face unlock are not supported.

Choose a PIN you will remember. There is no account to reset it through.

Installing the APK

Until the app is on Google Play, you can install it directly from this website.

1. On your Android phone, tap Download APK.
2. Open the downloaded file. If Android says installing unknown apps is blocked, tap Settings, allow your browser to install apps, then go back.
3. Tap Install, then Open.

Updates: download the newer APK and install it over the old one. Your data stays, because every release is signed with the same key. Make a backup first anyway.

Checking the file: each release lists the APK's SHA-256 checksum. Only download the app from this website or Google Play.

iPhone and the web app

The iPhone version in the App Store is coming. Until then you can use the web app, the same app running in Safari. It works offline and keeps your data on your iPhone.

1. Open shohansk.github.io/money-manager-site/app in Safari.
2. Tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen, then Add.
3. Open Money from your home screen. It runs full screen, like an app.

The web app also works in any modern browser on a computer or Android phone. Data stays in that browser on that device and is not synced anywhere.

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