The problem
Three things budgeting apps get wrong
The math happens too late.
Most budgeting apps are a good ledger. You spend, then later you sort what you spent into categories. By the time the app shows you the number, the money is already gone and all you can do is feel something about it.
Your bank balance isn’t the answer.
That number includes rent you haven’t paid and a car insurance bill due in nine days. Standing in a store holding a thing you want, you are doing that subtraction in your head, badly.
Two people, one account, no signal.
Your partner bought groceries an hour ago. Nothing in your app knows that until the charge clears, which is usually Thursday.
How it works
Three steps, then it runs
Step 1
Fill the envelopes.
Name your categories, decide what goes in each one and how often. Schedules keep them topped up so you don’t have to remember.
Step 2
Pre-log at the register.
Pick the envelope, type the amount, pay. The money is out of the envelope before the card clears.
Step 3
Let the bank catch up.
The charge posts, we match it to your pre-log and settle the difference. Anything we can’t match with confidence waits in the Inbox, and clearing it takes a couple of taps.
Bank sync
The bank catches up to you
Connect a card through Plaid. When a charge posts, the app looks for the pre-log you already made — within two dollars or 25% of the amount, whichever is bigger, and within five days either direction — and settles the difference on its own. Anything with two plausible matches, or none, goes to the Inbox for a person to decide.
Trader Joe's
Sep 19 · Checking ••4412
One clear candidate matches automatically. Two candidates go to the Inbox. The app does not guess with your money.
Pre-logged $50 and the charge posts at $56? The extra $6 comes out of the same envelope the moment it posts.
Card payments, transfers between your own accounts and paychecks are ignored by default, with the reason shown. Restore any of them in one tap.
Bills
Every bill says covered or not
A bill is an envelope with a due date and an expected amount. The card reads Covered, Almost or Not covered at a glance, and goes red when it’s overdue. When the real charge shows up, it pays that month’s occurrence.
Weekly, every two weeks, twice a month or monthly, including the 31st in a February.
Covered means the envelope holds 100% of what’s expected. Almost means 75%.
The app learns the merchant on the first confirmed match, so from the second month on the bill usually matches itself.
Internet
Bill $89.00 · Due Oct 4
Car insurance
Bill $212.00 · Due Oct 12
Electric
Bill $140.00 · Due Oct 9
What it does
Envelopes that hold real money
The core move
Pre-log it before you pay
Open the app in the checkout line, pick the envelope, type the amount you expect to pay. The money leaves the envelope right then, before the card goes through. Two taps, at most, from opening the app to the keypad.
Groceries
$412.68Dining out
$86.40Pets
-$18.40Envelopes
The balance is the answer
Every envelope holds an actual balance, not a percentage of a plan you wrote in January. Green above zero, red below. There is no pile of unassigned money on the home screen to talk yourself into.
+$100.00 every Friday
Groceries · next Sep 26
Funding
Sep 5
Funding
Sep 12
Funding
Sep 19
Funding
Envelopes fill themselves
Put “+$100 every Friday” on an envelope and it happens without you. If the app sat quiet for three weeks, catch-up funds every date you missed — exactly once, never twice.
Kids · clothes & activities
$120.00 available
Groceries
$412.68 available
Dining out
$86.40 available
Splits
One receipt, up to ten envelopes
A Target run is not one category. Split a pre-log across up to ten envelopes before you pay, or split a charge from the Inbox after it lands. When the real amount comes in different, the largest line absorbs it first.
Target
Sep 20 · Checking ••4412
Shell
Sep 20 · Checking ••4412
Costco
Sep 19 · Checking ••4412
Inbox
Anything unsure waits for you
Two plausible matches, or none at all, and the charge goes to the Inbox with the likeliest envelope already at the top. Nothing is quietly filed into a category you find in March.
Under the hood
One household, one ledger
Spending
Groceries
$412.68Dining out
$86.40Gas
$54.00Household
Both of you, the same envelopes
Invite your partner with an eight-character code. You share the same envelopes, the same balances and the same Inbox. When one of you pre-logs at the grocery store, the other’s screen updates.
Alex
OwnerSam
MemberK7QM-3XR2
Permissions
Owners set up, everyone spends
Owners create budgets and bills and manage bank connections. Everyone can spend, split, move money and clear the Inbox. Invite codes are single-use, expire after seven days, and always join as a member.
Funding
Sep 5
Nomad Coffee
Pre-log · Sep 14
Settled to the bank amount
Sep 14
Chipotle
Pre-log · Sep 19
The ledger
Every cent traces back
Balances are not typed in. They are the sum of an append-only ledger, so every number on the screen came from something that actually happened.
Groceries
$412.68Dining out
$86.40Pets
-$18.40Dark mode
It follows your phone
Light or dark, set by the system, with the money colours retuned so a negative balance still reads as negative.
Security
We can read the charges. We cannot move the money.
Bank connections go through Plaid, the same service your other financial apps use. You type your bank credentials on Plaid’s screen, never ours.
Read-only by construction
The connection asks Plaid for one product: transactions. Not auth, not transfer, not payment initiation. There is no code path in this app that moves money, because we never asked for the ability.
The token never touches your phone
Plaid hands back an access token. It goes straight into an encrypted vault on the server, and exactly one server function is allowed to read it. Signed-in clients have no privilege on it.
Your household, and no one else
Every table is row-level-secured to the team you belong to, and the policy is the enforcement, not the interface. A valid login from outside your household reads zero rows.
Nothing is sold
No ads, and no transaction data sold to anyone. That one is a promise about how this is run, not a line of code you can audit.
Questions
Questions worth asking
Is my bank data safe?
We connect through Plaid, the same service your other financial apps use. You type your bank credentials on Plaid’s screen, not ours, and we never see them. The access token Plaid hands back is stored encrypted in a vault on our server and never goes near your phone. We can read transactions and balances. We cannot move your money.
What if I forget to pre-log?
Nothing breaks. The charge turns up in your Inbox with a suggested envelope already at the top of the list, and you assign it in a couple of taps. If that pushes the envelope below zero, it goes below zero and shows red. That’s information, not a punishment.
Does it work offline?
No. Pre-logging needs a connection, and when you don’t have one the button is disabled and says so. Moving money between envelopes has to reach the server to check the envelope actually has it, and we would rather tell you that than queue a pre-log that quietly bounces later.
Who can see my money?
Everyone in your household. Same team, same envelopes, same transactions, same Inbox. Bank connections belong to the household rather than whoever added them, and only owners can connect, repair or remove one. Members see the connection’s status and nothing more.
What banks work?
Whatever Plaid supports, which is most US banks and cards. US dollars only for now — a charge in another currency goes to the Inbox rather than getting converted behind your back.
What does it cost?
Nothing yet, because you can’t buy it yet. When there is a price it will be a subscription you pay for, not ads and not your transaction history sold to anyone.
iPhone or Android?
Both, as real native apps. There’s no web app, and there won’t be one soon. Pre-logging happens standing at a register, and that’s a phone.
How is this different from YNAB, EveryDollar or Qube?
YNAB and EveryDollar are good ledgers. You assign money to categories, then sort transactions after they clear, so the real work happens after you’ve already spent. Qube is the closest to what we do — envelopes with real balances, and money moved before you swipe — and the pre-log idea comes straight from there. Two things are different here. A pre-log never expires, so nothing silently reverses after a week. And everything the app isn’t sure about goes to one Inbox instead of being quietly filed into a category you’ll find in March.