I've been tracking my expenses for more than 15 years. What started as a necessity slowly became a habit.
Back then, there were no smartphones, so I started with an Excel sheet on my office computer. When I got my first smartphone, I naturally moved to expense tracking apps and tried many of them. But every app was missing something I wanted, so eventually I went back to what worked best for me: Google Sheets - and I've been using it for more than 8 years now. Google Sheets gave me the flexibility that other apps couldn't offer.
Years ago, when I was working as an iOS developer, I even built my own expense tracker and published it on the App Store. But life got busy, and I couldn't justify maintaining it - or paying the yearly Apple developer fee - so that project slowly faded away.
But the idea never did.
Recently, I decided to build it again - this time from scratch, with the help of AI. This time, I started with the problems I personally faced. I also conduced a small survey to understand what others needed in an expense tracker.
- First, this app should offer features that hundreds of other apps already have - be it categorization, multiple accounts, budgeting, or reporting. I cannot even imagine using an app that lacks these basic functionalities.
- Most expense apps focus only on mobile, but that never matched how I work. I prefer entering expenses on a laptop, where typing is faster and easier, and then reviewing everything later on my phone. I also don't log every transaction instantly – I usually sit down once a week, or sometimes at the end of the month, and enter everything in one go. So bulk entry became an essential feature.
- Another important requirement was history. After tracking expenses for 15 years, I didn't want to start over. I wanted users to be able to import their past data easily through CSV and continue their journey without losing anything.
- I also realized that everyone thinks about money differently. Some people care deeply about budgets, some want to compare this month with last month, and others just want to know their income, expenses, and current balance. That's why I wanted a dashboard that users can fully customize – not a fixed home screen decided by the app.
- And I wanted the app to feel smarter over time. Entering a transaction shouldn't mean tapping through five fields. The app should learn from usage, understand patterns, and help categorize expenses automatically.
- Finally, money is rarely personal – it's often shared. I manage expenses with my wife, so seamless sharing and collaboration had to be built in from day one.
What started as a side project has now become something much more personal. I'm not just building another expense tracker. I'm building THE expense tracker. I hope you find it as useful and empowering as I do. And I believe this is where your search for the perfect expense tracker ends.