Why choose a budget app with no bank sync
Bank sync sounds effortless. In practice it means giving an app ongoing read access to your accounts, usually through an aggregator — a separate company that sits between the app and your bank and fetches your statements. The connection has to be renewed from time to time, it breaks when a bank changes its login, and the imported lines still arrive with cryptic merchant names that you end up sorting by hand.
Without a bank link, that whole layer disappears:
- No bank password. You never type your online-banking login into HonestExpenses — there is nowhere to type it.
- No third party in the middle. No aggregator keeps a copy of your statements, so there is one company fewer holding your financial history.
- Nothing to reconnect. The app works the same whether your bank redesigned its login page or not.
- Every kind of money counts. Cash, a card from another country, a shared holiday kitty — all recorded the same way, because nothing depends on a bank feed.
The honest trade-off: you log it yourself
Without a feed, nothing appears by magic. If you forget a coffee, it isn't there. Reviews of budgeting apps often rate apps without a bank link as less convenient for exactly this reason, and that's a fair point.
So the effort in HonestExpenses goes into making manual logging take seconds instead of minutes. There's an upside, too: writing a purchase down makes you notice it. Plenty of people start a budget precisely because automatic statements are so easy to scroll past without a second thought.
How logging stays fast without a bank
- Voice. Say “coffee 4.50, groceries 32, taxi 12 yesterday” and get three drafts in their categories. Check them, tap save. Logging expenses by voice.
- Receipt photo. Snap a receipt and get its lines — optionally split by category, so the shampoo doesn't end up under groceries. Scanning receipts.
- Telegram. In the bot @honestexp_bot, send just “4.50”, tap a category, done. It's the same account as the web app. The Telegram bot.
- Recurring operations. Rent, salary, subscriptions: set them up once and each appears on its day by itself.
- Apple Pay on iPhone. An iOS Shortcut automation sends the amount and the place of each Apple Pay payment to your account as you pay. It reads the payment from the iPhone's Wallet — not from your bank. Tracking Apple Pay purchases.
- Google Wallet and banks on Android. The Android app reads the payment notification from Google Wallet or your bank app and records the expense by itself — in shops and online, since your bank notifies you either way. Any bank works, and so does any other app that tells you about spending. Still no bank login. The Android app is coming soon to Google Play. Automatic tracking on Android.
Voice and receipt photos use AI, and AI only prepares drafts: nothing is saved until you've checked it.
What the app keeps — and what it doesn't
- Kept: what you enter — accounts, transactions (amount, date, category, note), categories — and settings such as language, time zone and currency sign.
- Never kept: bank logins and card numbers. Payments for a plan go through Stripe; the app doesn't see your card.
- Not stored: voice recordings and receipt photos. They're processed for one request and discarded.
- Never sold: your transactions and income — not to banks, lenders or data brokers.
Your records are stored in the EU, and the database itself makes sure each person can read only their own rows.
Export your data or leave any time
No lock-in. With Lifetime (and during the free trial) you can export your transactions to CSV whenever you like and open them in any spreadsheet. Coming from another app works the other way round: CSV exports from ten popular apps are recognised and imported for free.
If you decide the app isn't for you, Settings → Delete account removes your account, records and categories immediately and for good.
Getting started without a bank connection
- Create an account — no card needed.
- Add your accounts (current account, cash, savings) with today's balances. That's your starting point; no past statements needed.
- Log purchases as they happen: say them, snap them, send them to the bot, or let Apple Pay do it.
- Once a week, compare each balance with the real one. If they differ, a balance adjustment closes the gap in one step.
A new account gets 7 days of Pro with 20 AI actions — enough to see whether logging by hand works for you. After that, keep going on Free, or take Lifetime for one payment. Everything else is on the home page.
Questions
Will HonestExpenses connect to my bank later?
No. There is no bank connection and none is planned — logging yourself is the design, not a missing feature.
Isn't Apple Pay or Google Wallet tracking a bank connection?
No. On the iPhone it's a Shortcut automation that sends the amount and the place of a Wallet payment with a personal key; on Android the app reads payment notifications on your own phone, only from the apps you tick. No bank login is involved either way, and you can turn both off in Settings at any time. They're part of Lifetime and the AI plan, and of the free trial.
What if I forget to log something?
Add it later with the right date, or compare the account with your real balance and enter a balance adjustment for the difference.
Does it work for cash and other currencies?
Cash is simply another account. You pick one currency sign for the app — any currency — and amounts are shown with it; there is no currency conversion.
Can I take my data with me?
Yes. Lifetime and the trial export all transactions to CSV, and deleting your account removes your records for good.