Testing guide

Your first budget

A new account opens on a short tour: why every dollar gets a job, the five tabs, and what a normal month looks like. Then a guided setup builds your first budget with you: who the budget is for, what comes in and when, any debts you're paying, which lines you want from a starter list, and what each one gets, with a goal on any fund you're saving up. Then it asks whether any of your funds already have money in them, so an emergency fund you started years ago opens with what's really in it. Continue moves you on even if you've left a step empty, and Finish later leaves the whole setup for another day. It asks first, and everything you've entered is kept. Nothing in it tells you how much to put anywhere. That's your call, and the app only keeps count.

If you skipped it, a Finish setting up your budget card sits on Budget until you do or say you're all set, and Walk through building your budget on Learn runs it again any time, without touching what you've already recorded.

The Budget screen

This is where you'll spend most of your time: one month at a time, every line in it, and the two numbers that tell you how the month is going.

The top of the screen

The month you're looking at sits at the top with arrows either side. You can go back to any month you've used and forward to the next one.

Underneath it, the app sometimes puts a card, for something worth doing now. A month you haven't closed shows up as "August is still open. Resolve the $58.40 over plan." with three answers: Close it takes you straight there, Not now hides the card until tomorrow, and Leave it open stops asking about that month. And when you've set money aside in the app but haven't moved it at your bank yet, a card lists what's outstanding, so you can tick it off once you have ("I moved it", or "I filled it" if you use envelopes), or "Later" if you're not at your bank. Put them all off and the card goes until tomorrow. If you told Settings your savings stay in your main account, there's nothing to confirm and no card.

Safe to spend

Resting for now (21 September 2026): the card isn't on Budget at the moment, while the coach and her testers settle whether it earns its place. The tick on each expense line still works, and everything below is how it behaves when it's showing.

It's the big number, the one to glance at in a shop. It answers "what can I spend right now without breaking the plan", counting only your everyday expense lines: groceries, restaurants, fuel and the like. Rent isn't in it, because that money is spoken for, and neither is your emergency fund, because that's savings.

It goes down as you record spending, and up if you plan more into an everyday expense line. Which ones count is your choice: open an expense line and tick Count this in Safe to Spend. Giving and debt payments aren't offered the tick at all, because that money already has a purpose.

If you've planned more than you expect to earn, an amber line appears under the number: the plan is past what comes in, so the figure may count money the month doesn't have. The number itself stays the same, and trimming the plan is what makes it trustworthy again.

Left to budget

This is money that has arrived or is expected and hasn't been given a job yet. At the start of a month that's your whole income, and the work of setting the month up is getting it to zero.

The card is also a button: tapping it switches the screen to the Planned view, which is the only view where you can type amounts in, so the number and the way to fix it are the same tap.

It can go below zero, and the app lets it. That means you've planned more than you expect to earn, which is worth knowing rather than being stopped from doing.

If you've taken money back out of a fund this month, the card says so, as "includes $200.00 from Vacation". That money isn't income, and the app never counts it as income anywhere.

The three views

The row of buttons across the middle changes what every line shows. It's the same list of lines each time, answering a different question.

• Planned is what you intend for the month, and it's the only view you can edit. Tap an amount and type. This is where you set the month up.
• Spent is what has gone out so far, so it shows expense lines only.
• Remaining is what's left of the plan. On an income line that means what hasn't arrived yet, which catches people out at first: $4,000 planned with $2,000 in reads as $2,000 remaining.

Groups and lines

Lines sit in groups, like Income, Giving, Savings, Housing, Food and Transportation. There's no separate Debt group any more: a debt payment lives in whichever group you keep it in, so a car loan can sit with Transportation. The heading shows the group's figure for the view you're in, and in the Planned view its share of your income too, so you can see that housing is taking 31% without doing any arithmetic. Add a line, at the foot of each group, adds one straight into it. A line with a schedule shows when it's next due, like due Sep 15, beside its name.

With a lot of lines the list gets long. Tap a group's heading to fold it: it shrinks to a single row with its own total and bar, so you can still see how the group is doing. Collapse all groups folds the lot, and this device remembers which ones you folded.

Lines & groups, at the foot of the list, is where you rename a group, add one, or drag lines and groups into the order you think about them.

Each line shows its amount, a bar, and a few words telling you where it stands, like "Nothing spent yet", "On track", or "Over. Cover it from another line?" Tapping a line opens its activity, where you can see every purchase against it and edit them.

When you add a line, the question that matters is what kind it is, and there are three answers. Expense line: spend it each month: groceries, fuel, pocket money; what's left doesn't carry into next month. Expense line: spend it, and let what's left roll over: what's left, or what you went over, rolls into next month. Fund: save it up: car repairs, Christmas, an emergency fund; it grows as you set money aside, and you can give it a goal. Whether a line is an expense line or a fund is fixed once chosen. An expense line can be switched between the first two later, and the sheet shows what will happen to the balance before you confirm.

A fund also asks Already have money set aside for this? Put in what's in the account for it today. It goes straight into the fund's balance and doesn't use any of this month's income. If you skipped it or got it wrong, change it any time from the fund's Edit sheet, under What it started with, even after you've closed months. The fund's balance moves by the same amount in every month. One limit: it can't be lowered so far that a closed month would end up below zero. If the fund sits in a savings account you've matched to a statement, the money isn't counted twice. It moves out of "growth" and into the fund. Money that arrives later, like a gift, isn't this. Record it as income and set it aside.

If a Fresh Start was told a fund's money was gone and it turns up later, the same field is where you put it back. It reads What it started October with, naming the month of the Fresh Start, because that's where the fund's balance starts from now.

Each line except income also asks This still has to be paid if the income stops. Rent and groceries, yes; takeout, no. The app adds up the ones you tick to work out how big an emergency fund should be, which is what the milestones on Plan measure against.

Recording money

Tap a line and it opens: what's gone through it this month, and a button to record against it. Tap an income line the same way when you're paid. There's no bank connection, so everything in the app is there because somebody typed it. You do a little more work, and in return nothing about your accounts leaves your control.

An expense asks for the amount, the shop, the date and which line. One purchase can be split across several lines, which is what a supermarket trip usually is. If money came back to you there's a switch for a refund, and it counts against what that line spent in the month the refund arrived.

Recording income does something extra, which is covered in Record my pay, and fill up my savings below.

The Plan screen

Budget is about this month. Plan is about the shape of things: whether the month holds together day by day, how the debts end, and where you are on the way to being secure. Three tabs at the top switch between them: Calendar, Debts and Milestones.

The paycheque calendar

This answers "will I make it to payday". It lays the month out day by day, showing what lands on each date and, in a shaded tile under each day, the Balance after. A small graph at the top draws the same thing. If the balance dips below zero before a pay arrives, a line at the top says so, names the pay that ends it, and tells you if it happens again later in the month.

Once the month is underway it counts what has already happened. Money you've recorded sits on the day it happened, marked "recorded", and only what's still to come is laid out from today. Something that was due and hasn't been recorded shows as "was due Sep 5". A missed bill lands on today, because that money is probably going now. A missed paycheque lands at the end of the month instead, so the calendar never counts on money that hasn't arrived.

Spending with no day still counts. Everyday expense lines like groceries are spread a slice a week, savings go on your next payday, and fixed bills are counted at the end of the month. Those rows are marked "estimated", and those lines are listed under Placed approximately. Give them a day, each saying whether it was spread by the week or put on payday: tap one to give it a real day.

There are two ways to give something a day. A standing rule is how often it happens, so every week, every two weeks, twice a month, or once a month. Set it and every month after knows. A one-off date is just for this month and beats the rule, for when your pay is normally the 15th but landed on the 13th this once.

Tapping any row on the calendar opens both questions together, so you never have to go and find the line to change how often something happens.

A card headed Worth checking appears when a schedule and a plan disagree. If groceries are $170 a week and September has five Tuesdays, that's $850, and if you've planned $680 the card tells you. One tap takes the schedule's figure, or "Not this month" puts it away until next month. It isn't an error, because sometimes you planned less on purpose.

Debts

Add what you owe and the app works out the order to clear it in and roughly when you'll be done. The date at the top is an estimate based on what you're paying now.

There are two orders to choose from. Smallest first clears the smallest balance to give you a win early, and Highest rate first costs you least in interest. When the two work out about the same the app says so and tells you to pick either, because the difference isn't worth agonising over.

Each debt shows its balance, rate and minimum payment. Match a statement is how the balance changes: you enter what the statement says, and the app trusts that over its own arithmetic. The balance you type when you add a debt counts as its first statement, so a debt you've just added from your latest statement is exact. Once a month or so has gone by without a new match it's marked "estimated", so you always know which figures are real. What if you added more each month? tries a bigger payment and shows you the new date.

When you add a debt you're asked what kind it is. A mortgage or a line of credit against your house is Secured on your home. Those sit under their own heading, "Your home", with their own balance and their own date, and they're left out of the debt-free date at the top, because paying off a card and paying off a house are different things.

You're also asked Where should the payment live? Every debt gets a debt payment, and this is the group it goes in: one you already have, or a new one the app makes when you save. A car loan can sit in Transportation beside fuel and insurance, so the group shows what the car really costs. If you leave it alone, payments go in a group called Debt payments.

Milestones

Milestones are a path of steps to work through in order: get started, get out of debt, build a safety net of one, two and then three months of essential expenses, and on from there. Each step shows how far along you are, worked out from your own budget, and the one to work on now is marked Next right move. Reaching a step is celebrated, once.

The safety-net steps need to know which fund is your emergency fund. A card at the top of the path names it; tap Change to pick a different one. One step, investing, isn't something the app can see, so you tell it yourself with We're doing this, and take it back with "Not yet, actually".

When a savings fund reaches its target, its page suggests where that monthly amount could go next and takes you straight to that step.

Insights

Insights opens with Your progress: streaks, wins and best runs, worked out from what you've recorded. Below it are your reports. Each one is worked out from the same records, and each can be read as a chart or as a table: pick Chart or Table at the top, and the app remembers which you like. Once you have more than one year, arrows at the top move between them. Beside the toggle, Excel and PDF save the report you're looking at, and Download all my data at the foot of the screen gives you everything you've recorded in one workbook.

Spending by group is the year as a pie, one slice per group, with every line and its share in the table. Month by month lays out every line across the year, with what you planned as a dashed line over the chart and a Planned row under the table; a month a line went over its plan is shown in amber, which is where a line that runs high every month shows up. Income is what actually arrived each month, and names your highest and lowest months once they're over. Income vs. spending puts each month's income beside what went out.

Year vs. year splits everything that went out each year between expenses, debt, savings and giving, as percentages, and when a share has moved the right way since your last year of budgeting, it says so. Money you spend from a savings fund is counted once, when you put it in, and not again when you spend it.

What you decided, below the reports once you've finished a Money Check-in, lists the one thing each check-in ended with, newest first.

The last one is your net worth: what you own less what you owe, with a bar chart of how it has changed month by month. The arrows page back through earlier years.

What you own and What you owe are yours to fill in, a house, a car, a pension, with a value as of today that you update when it changes. A TFSA, RRSP or savings account that your funds sit inside is added as a savings account instead: name it, choose which funds live in it, and match it to a statement now and then; until you do, it reads "estimated". Debts you track on Plan and your savings funds appear on their own, so nothing has to be entered twice.

Learn

Learn holds short guides to the method and a word of encouragement now and then, in the style you chose when you signed up: faith-based, which includes scripture, or secular, which never does. It doesn't show everything at once. Each day you open it there's a small shelf: two short reads, two tips, the links, and a verse if you chose faith-based. Come back tomorrow and there's a new one. Everything you've seen before is under From earlier days; tap a title to read it again. You can change that in Settings. The same encouragement turns up as a card on Budget from time to time, one at a time, and you can dismiss any of them or turn them off. What's in there now is a first proposed library that Amanda hasn't been through yet: verses from the World English Bible, old sayings about money, and tips of our own. Tell us about anything that reads wrong, or anything you'd miss if it went.

Two cards sit at the top, Take the tour and Walk through building your budget, and below them the sections: Short reads, Worth knowing, Elsewhere and Encouragement.

Settings

Settings has four parts: You, Budget, Account and Help. The setting worth understanding is Money you set aside, in the Budget part of Settings, which changes how the app talks to you about savings.

If you keep it in a separate savings account, the app reminds you to make the transfer at your bank and asks you to tick it off. Cash envelopes works the same way, worded for cash, and both is there for people who use a savings account for some funds and cash for others. It stays in my main account means nothing is moved, so the app stops asking. That one is marked "not recommended", because money that never leaves your everyday account is easy to spend by accident, but it's your call, and choosing it never loses anything you've already ticked.

The You part holds your encouragement style, the tips switch, whether we may email you reminders and encouragement, and the day you'd like a Money Check-in reminder. With the email switch on, the reminder comes by email on the morning of the day you chose, unless you've already sat down that week, and now and then a short piece from Learn; never more than one email a week, and every one has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. The Budget part has who the budget is for, the setting above, and Start fresh. Account has Billing, which says when your plan renews (or when it ends, if you've cancelled), and where Manage billing opens Stripe's page for your plan: switch between monthly and yearly, update your card, see receipts, or cancel. Then Profile & sign-in, where you change your name, your sign-in address and your password, then passkeys if you'd rather sign in with a fingerprint or face than a password, Sign out, and last, Close my account, which stops your plan and deletes everything for good once you enter your password. Help starts with Install, which puts the app on your home screen so it opens like an app instead of a tab, or the steps to do that on an iPhone, then Get help, which writes to us, and the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. A new sign-in address doesn't take over straight away: we send a link to it, and your current address keeps working until you open that link and press the button on the page it shows, so a typo can't lock you out. Closing your account yourself isn't there yet; ask us and we'll do it. The first names on your lines can be changed under Budget, in Who the budget is for.

How do I…

The everyday things, roughly in the order you'll hit them.

Set the month up

On Budget, switch to Planned. Put your expected income on the income lines, then work down the lines typing what each one gets, until Left to budget reads $0.00. Tapping the Left to budget card takes you to the Planned view if you're not already there.

Tell the app what my savings already hold

Tap the fund, then Edit, and fill in What it started with. That's money you'd saved before the fund existed here, so it goes into the balance and leaves this month's income alone. You can do this any time, closed months or not. Guided setup asks the same thing for all your funds at once.

Put my lines in my own order

Lines & groups on Budget. Drag a line to a new place, or into another group, and drag groups to reorder them. Income stays at the top.

Record something I bought

Tap the line it came out of, then Record an expense. Amount, shop and date; the line is the one you tapped. If you gave the line a schedule ("$100 every Friday"), the amount and the date are already filled in and you only change what's different. The app remembers shops you've used, so the second time is quicker. Put something in the wrong line? Remove it there and record it again in the right one.

Split one shop across lines

For a supermarket trip that was partly groceries and partly household, record the full amount, tap Split across another line, and give each line its share. Anything you don't give to a line is saved without one, and the app stops you if the shares add up to more than the total.

Record a refund

Open the line, tap Record an expense and turn on the refund switch. It counts against what that line spent in the month the money came back, so a return in October leaves September alone.

Record my pay, and fill up my savings

Tap your income line, then Record income. Once it's in, the app offers a walk through the funds that are still short of their monthly target, each one pre-filled in turn with what would complete it, until the pay runs out. Accept it, type a smaller amount, or skip it. At the end it asks once whether you've moved the money at your bank.

If you'd rather fill your funds in a particular order when money is short, drag them into that order and tap Fill in order.

Fix a line that has gone over

The line says "Over. Cover it from another line?" An expense line that rolls over says it comes off next month instead, and a fund asks you to set money aside. Tap the amber line and choose where the money comes from. This is Adjust the plan, so it changes what each line is planning rather than any balance in your bank, and it'll only offer you money that hasn't already been spent or set aside. If there's income you haven't given a job to yet, it offers that first.

Handle money I didn't expect

Say it's a garage sale, a gift, or a refund from somewhere that was never budgeted. Money coming in has to land on an income line, and you probably only have your regular ones, so add one to the Income group first with Add an income line at the foot of it, and call it something like "Other money in". Then record the income against it and it'll show up in Left to budget, waiting for you to give it a job.

Spend money from a savings fund

Say the car needed $200 of work and that's what the emergency fund is for. Record the expense against the emergency fund like any other purchase, and its balance drops by $200, which is right, because the money really has gone.

You can also take money back out of a fund into the month, for a month a paycheque is missed or for the thing you saved for. Open the fund, choose Put in or take out, then Take out. It lands under Left to budget as money to give a job. Tick that you've moved it out of your savings account, or the reminder card will ask. When you close the month, whatever you didn't spend is offered back to the fund.

Tell the app when things happen

Open a line, edit it, and use the When section: how often, and which day. Then Plan shows the month laid out. If something moves just this once, tap its row on the calendar and give it a day for that month only.

Finish the month

When a month is over, Budget puts a card at the top of the next one. It walks you through what happened, anything that went over, and where leftovers should go. You can stop partway and come back, and nothing is applied until you finish. Afterwards you can still reopen it if you got something wrong.

Sit down with the money together

Money Check-in, at the foot of Budget. About fifteen minutes, together or on your own: what went well since last time, where each everyday expense line stands, anything either of you flagged to talk about, and one thing you'll do this week. Flag an expense when you record it, or from a line's activity, and it waits there for the next check-in. The first time you finish one, it asks whether you'd like a weekly reminder and which day; change it later in Settings. With emails switched on, the reminder comes by email that morning too.

Start again

Start fresh, in the Budget part of Settings or from Lines & groups. Three ways: keep everything and clear the slate, keep your lines and rebuild the plan, or start completely over with the guided setup. Whichever you choose, every month before this one stays to look back on, and nothing you recorded goes anywhere. Before it happens the app says exactly what will change and offers you a download of everything first.

What isn't built yet

These are known, so there's no need to report them, and most are already scheduled.

• The milestone path's last step, a Financial Freedom Number, isn't there yet.
• Signing up is built but closed for the beta. The Create account screen checks everything the real one will, and pressing the button tells you signup isn't open yet. Beta accounts are made for you instead, each with a practice subscription in Stripe's test mode, so no real money moves.
• Closing your account yourself from Settings. Ask us for now.
• Reminder emails on a beta account. Beta accounts use made-up addresses, so the emails can't reach you. Change your sign-in address in Settings to one you read if you'd like to see them.

If anything is hard to read or hard to reach, that's exactly the kind of thing worth telling us.

Releases

Newest first, so you can see what's arrived since you last looked. Checkpoints are the big blocks of the build; a release usually finishes one and starts the next.

24 September 2026 Paying, and your account in your hands

Paying is built. Settings has a Billing section, and every beta account now comes with a practice subscription in Stripe's test mode, so Manage billing opens a real billing page. Try switching to yearly, or updating the card: use 4242 4242 4242 4242 with any future date. No real money moves. Cancelling works too: your plan runs to the end of the month you've paid for, then the account goes read-only, the way a family who stopped paying would see it.

Billing also says where your plan stands: the date it renews, the date it ends once you've cancelled, or when a trial ends. If a payment doesn't go through, the note points you to Manage billing, where you can update your card, or approve the payment if your bank asks you to.

When someone subscribes, they get an email with their own copy of the agreement: their plan and price, when it renews, how to cancel, and a link to the exact version of the terms they accepted. The terms no longer quote the price. It's on the pricing page, and shown again before you pay.

You can close your account yourself, from the bottom of Settings → Account. It stops your plan that day and deletes everything, so download your data first if you want a copy. On a beta login it really does delete that login's budget, until the next reset brings it back.

Changing your name or sign-in address now updates Stripe too, so receipts go where you'd expect.

23 September 2026 Lines and funds, fireworks, and your plan beside your spending

Buckets have new names. Money you're saving up is a fund, money you spend is an expense line, pay is an income line, and whatever pays a debt is a debt payment. Line is the word for any of them. They all work exactly as before. Adding a line asks which kind it is: Expense line: spend it each month, Expense line: spend it, and let what's left roll over, or Fund: save it up. A goal is now something a fund has: tick Give this fund a goal.

The first time you land on Budget after finishing setup, there are fireworks. They only play once. Paying off a debt gets a smaller show of its own.

The August is still open card has three answers now: Close it, Not now, which hides it until tomorrow, and Leave it open, which stops asking about that month. The card for transfers still to make goes away completely once you've put every one of them off with Later, and comes back tomorrow.

Recording from a fund no longer fills in the shop for you, since what comes out of savings is rarely the same thing twice.

Every email from BetterCents now says who it's from: the business behind it, a mailing address and how to reach us.

If you've said yes to emails, the Money Check-in reminder now comes by email on the morning of the day you picked, unless you've already sat down that week. Now and then there's also a short piece from Learn. Never more than one email a week, and always in your morning. Each one has an Unsubscribe link at the bottom: tap it, press the button on the page it opens, and that's it. Notes about your account and your subscription still come. Beta accounts use made-up addresses, so these emails won't reach you. To see them, change your sign-in address under Settings to one you read, then turn the emails on.

If a line has a schedule, like $100 every Friday, recording from it now fills in the amount and the date it last came round, so you only change what's different. It also shows when it's next due, like due Sep 15, beside its name. A day you moved by hand on the calendar wins.

Month by month on Insights now shows what you planned: a dashed line over the chart and a Planned row under the table. A month a line went over its plan is amber and underlined. Money you plan into savings isn't counted as planned spending. What you decided, also on Insights, lists the one thing each Money Check-in ended with, newest first.

A fund's goal shows 99% until it's actually reached, so it never says 100% and almost there at once. Once a goal is reached, leaving the fund alone no longer counts as missing a month of putting money toward it, unless you raise the goal or spend from it.

Setting up with encouragement that leaves out faith content no longer ticks Tithes for you. It's still there to choose. Spreadsheets you download keep what you typed: a line's name or a note that starts with an equals sign stays words, and a real $0.00 shows as 0.00 instead of an empty cell. Asking for a password reset and using the link now have separate limits, so asking twice doesn't stop you setting the new password.

The Privacy Policy is now version 1.1. It says that a new password is checked against a public list of leaked passwords, what a passkey stores, and how Remember me works. Nothing about what we collect has changed.

If your subscription ends, everything you budgeted is kept for twelve months. You can still sign in, look back and download it all. We'll write at ten months and again thirty days before it's deleted, with a way to download everything or start again. And choosing Quebec at signup now sends a note to check it's really you before we write when BetterCents arrives there.

Warnings look the same everywhere now, and icons come in three everyday sizes.

21 September 2026 One field for what a savings bucket started with

What it started with on a savings bucket's Edit sheet now works in two places it didn't. If a Fresh Start was told a bucket's money was gone, the field edits that figure and names the month, so money that turns up later goes back in without touching a month's income. And when you correct the figure, Insights follows for the closed months it affects, so a month never reads as over on one screen and fine on another. It works for a bucket inside a matched savings account too. The money isn't counted twice, and what showed as growth becomes the bucket's own money.

Net worth on Insights now has the same Excel and PDF downloads as the other reports. The files hold your whole history, not only the twelve months on screen.

Download all my data now holds everything that's yours, not only the figures. It adds each move between buckets, how you closed each month and what you wrote when you did, your wins, what you told each Fresh Start, your Money Check-ins, which bucket sat in which savings account, and a sheet about your account: your details, what you agreed to and when, and how your subscription has stood. Where it says whether your emergency fund held a month of expenses, it also says which bucket that was and what a month of essentials came to.

Months budgeted, on Insights and in the welcome back card, now counts a month once you've planned something in it or closed it. It used to count a month as soon as you opened it, so a brand-new budget said one month before anything was planned.

The Record income and Record an expense buttons at the top of Budget have gone. You record by tapping the bucket, or the income line, that the money belongs to, and the sheet no longer asks which bucket, since you've just said. A short tip sits where the buttons were until you've recorded a few things, then a second one points you to Planned for changing amounts. You can dismiss either, and they come back after a Fresh Start.

Adding a bucket is two short screens now instead of one long one: first what it's for, where it belongs and what kind it is, then only the settings that kind needs.

Adding a bucket asks one question with three answers, Spend it each month, Spend it, but let it roll over or Save it up, instead of two in a row. A savings bucket like Christmas used to be reachable only through the second.

A savings bucket now has Record an expense beside Put in or take out, so what you bought from the Christmas money is recorded against Christmas and comes off its balance. Adjust the plan has moved up beside Edit on every bucket.

A little confetti when something good happens: a savings goal reached, a debt paid off, a month closed, a milestone. Each looks a bit different. Nothing to tap, and it's gone in a moment. If your phone is set to reduce motion, it stays away.

Some simplifying, from the coach's first calls with testers. Recording pay asks for an optional Note, under the date, instead of where it came from. Adding a bucket asks how much you plan for it this month, so you don't have to go and find it afterwards. The Earned view is gone, since Remaining already showed the same; Planned, Spent and Remaining stay. Safe to Spend is resting for now. Every bucket in the starter set has an icon. And Giving sits first under Income to begin with; move it wherever you like.

A debt's payment bucket now reads as a payment. It says Paid where it said Spent, and Record a payment where it said Record an expense. It doesn't ask where you bought it or offer a refund, and paying more than you planned shows as extra, not as a bucket that's gone over. Payments recorded there come off the debt, as they always did.

Profile & sign-in is in Settings, under Account. Change your name, your password, or the address you sign in with. A new address waits until you open the link we send to it and press the button there. Your old address gets a note when the change is asked for and another when it happens. For three days that second note has a Put my address back button, in case it wasn't you. It asks for the password you had before the change, then signs every device out and has you set a new password. Changing your password signs out your other devices, remembered ones too, emails you to say it happened, and cancels an address change that's still waiting.

The browser tab now says Sign in whenever the sign-in form is what you're looking at. It used to keep the name of the page you'd asked for, or say "Not found" for an address like /sign-in, which now takes you to the sign-in page.

In guided setup, Pick your buckets now arrives with the usual buckets already ticked for everyone. If you'd added a debt first, it used to show up with nothing ticked.

20 September 2026 From a walk through guided setup

When you add a debt, one list now asks where its payment should live. The group the app suggests, Debt payments, is in that list and already chosen. So are the usual groups you don't have yet, such as Transportation for a car loan, each marked as a new group. Pick one and the app makes it when you save, and the buckets you choose later for that group join it.

In setup, Skip for now is now Finish later. It asks before it leaves, because it leaves the whole setup and not one step. A bucket that builds up over time now says you can give it a total to aim for on the next step.

Savings you already have can now go in. After you give every dollar a job, setup asks whether any of your savings buckets already have money in them, and a new savings bucket asks the same when you make it. The amount goes straight into the bucket's balance without touching the month's income, and you can correct it any time from the bucket's Edit sheet.

18 September 2026 Checkpoint 4 begins

The groundwork for signing up. Create account still says signup opens when payment does, but behind it the app can now record what a new family agrees to: the terms and privacy policy with their version, the age of majority, and whether we may send optional email. That last one is also a switch in Settings. Choosing Quebec now offers to email you when BetterCents is available there, and the terms and privacy pages show the date they took effect.

17 September 2026 Checkpoint 3 finished

A new family is shown around first, then builds their first budget with the guided setup, a step at a time and stoppable anywhere. Learn has its first guides and encouragement, in the style you chose, and a card on Budget says one gentle thing now and then, which you can dismiss or switch off. Insights now shows your streaks, wins and personal bests, worked out from what you already recorded.

Savings accounts arrived: a TFSA or savings account that several buckets sit inside, with a value you match from a statement. Start fresh gives you three named ways to begin again without losing a thing, and a family who has been away a while is welcomed back with what they've done so far. The weekly Money Check-in is on Budget, and an expense can be flagged to talk about at the next one. Settings is in four parts instead of one long scroll.

On the step that gives every dollar a job, a savings bucket can now take a total to save up to, and the button at the foot of each group on Budget says Add an item.

The text is bigger everywhere, one step up across the whole app, and it now follows your phone's own text-size setting where the phone allows it. In guided setup, your debts come before your buckets, so each debt's payment bucket is already in place when you pick the rest.

Learn has real words in it now: about a hundred verses from the World English Bible, old sayings about money from Franklin, Thoreau and others, and tips of our own. Amanda hasn't been through them yet. Learn shows a few of them a day rather than all at once, and keeps what you've already seen under From earlier days. The encouragement card on Budget avoids repeating something you met in Learn that week.

For anyone using a keyboard or a screen reader: every sheet and prompt now takes focus when it opens, keeps the page behind out of reach while it's open, and puts focus back where it was when it closes. And a round of tidying from a full review of every screen: one word for the same thing everywhere, every figure in the same typeface, a question before typed text is thrown away, and an undo on recording or changing an expense.

14 September 2026 Checkpoint 3 begins

Your reports now leave the screen. Every report except net worth saves as a spreadsheet or as a PDF, from the report itself, so the file is the year you were looking at. A year's four reports arrive as one workbook with a sheet each, and as one PDF with a page each; year against year is its own file, because it isn't about a single year. The PDF carries the chart as well as the table, so it's the copy worth printing or sending on.

Download all my data sits on Insights: everything you've recorded, in one workbook, whenever you want it and without asking anyone. Months, buckets, the plan for each bucket in each month, every purchase, money set aside, moves between buckets, debts, statement matches, savings accounts and their statements, net worth and milestones. It also has how you closed each month and what you wrote, your wins, your Fresh Starts and Money Check-ins, and your account: your details and settings, what you agreed to and when, how your subscription stands, and your passkeys by name. The only things left out are the app's own housekeeping, like which reminders you've dismissed, and payment receipts, which Stripe keeps and sends you itself. It's yours, and it stays available for a year even if you stop paying.

11 September 2026 Checkpoint 2 finished

The milestone path arrived on Plan, measured from your own budget, with an emergency fund you choose and a safety net counted in months of the expenses you've marked essential. Insights became your reports: spending by group, month by month, income, income against spending, year against year, and your net worth, each one a chart and a table. Debts now say what kind they are, and anything secured on your home sits apart with its own date. The Debt group is gone: payment buckets live wherever you keep them.

On Budget, groups fold, buckets and groups can be dragged into order, and you can take money back out of a fund. The paycheque calendar now counts what has already happened, places spending that has no day, and tells you when a paycheque was missed. Safe to Spend says when the plan is past your income, and giving never counts toward it. Covering an overspend no longer raises next month's plan, and a month's close can't offer to sweep money the month never had.

A few things got easier to find. Every group's card ends with its own Add a bucket (now Add an item), so you add straight into the group you're looking at. Switching a bucket to carry its balance over now tells you what it will read afterwards, before you save, because that figure can jump in a way nobody expects. The button into a savings bucket says Put in or take out once there's something to take, rather than naming only half of what it does. And money you've set aside, or taken back out, can be corrected or removed by tapping its row, the way a mistyped purchase always could.

Settings gained another answer for where you keep money you set aside, for people who use a savings account for some buckets and cash envelopes for others. On a phone, the Worth checking card on Plan no longer runs its sentence behind its own buttons.

8 September 2026 Mostly Checkpoint 2

This one was about payday and timing. Recording income now walks you through the savings buckets that are short, and you can set the order they fill in. Buckets can have a schedule, and Plan gained a paycheque calendar that lays the month out day by day and warns you when the plan runs short before a pay arrives. "Move money" became "Adjust the plan", which changes what you're planning rather than any balance at your bank. Settings gained a choice about where you actually keep money you set aside.

2 September 2026 Checkpoint 1, and the start of Checkpoint 2

The first release brought the budgeting core: buckets, planning a month, recording what you spend and what you earn, Safe to Spend, and balances carrying across months. It also delivered the first part of Checkpoint 2 early, with the guided month-close and the debt screens, where recording a payment brings the debt down and a statement match keeps the balance honest. Refunds and a few rounds of polish landed the same day.