Glossary

Account

A place your money lives. A card, cash in your pocket, savings.

Each account keeps its own balance and its own currency, so what you see matches the real world. Balances are always computed from your opening balance plus every record you’ve logged.

1. Go to Settings → Accounts (or tap Manage next to Accounts on Today).
2. Tap “Add account”, give it a name, an opening balance, and a currency.
3. Tap any account to edit it. The currency is fixed once the account is created.

Start with the one account you spend from most. You can add more later. The free plan includes up to 3 accounts. Accounts with records can’t be deleted, and you always keep at least one.

Account colors

A color you pick for each account, shown as a small dot next to records and balances.

When you have more than one account, the dot tells you at a glance where a record happened. Without reading anything.

1. Open Settings → Accounts and tap an account.
2. Pick one of the color swatches at the top of the sheet.
3. Save. The dot appears wherever that account’s records show up.

Give visually distinct colors to the accounts you use most often. Alongside the presets, the custom swatch lets you pick any hue.

Account deletion & restore

Deleting your Effable account starts a 30-day countdown; everything is erased when it ends. Unless you come back.

A grace period protects you from an irreversible mistake while still guaranteeing your data is truly gone if you mean it.

1. Go to Settings → Delete account.
2. Confirm with your password (or, for Google/Apple sign-ins, type your email address).
3. Tap “Delete my account”. You’ll see the exact erase date.
4. Changed your mind? Sign back in any time during those 30 days and choose “Restore my account”. Everything comes back.

If you subscribed through the App Store or Play Store, cancel the subscription there too. Deleting the account doesn’t stop store billing. Want your numbers first? Run an export before deleting.

Activity

Your full ledger. Every record, grouped by day.

Scanning, searching, and tidying your history in one place.

1. Open the Activity tab.
2. Use search or the All / Income / Expense chips to narrow things down.
3. Tap a record to see its details; tap Edit there to change it.
4. Press and hold a record to select several at once. Then delete them together.

Day totals appear once a day is fully loaded and uses a single currency. If you see no total, that’s Effable refusing to show a possibly-wrong number, not a bug.

App Lock

Locks Effable behind your phone’s Face ID / Touch ID / passcode.

Your money stays private even when someone else holds your unlocked phone. It also hides the screen content in the app switcher.

1. Go to Settings → Security.
2. Turn on App lock and pick how quickly it re-locks after you leave.
3. Next time you open Effable, unlock with the same Face ID / passcode you use for your phone.

Effable never invents its own PIN. It uses your device’s screen lock, so there’s no extra secret to forget.

Ask Effable

A chat assistant that answers questions using your actual data. Balances, spending, budgets, goals, debts.

Instead of digging through screens, ask in plain language: “Where can I cut back?”, “What do I pay every month?”, “Can I afford a new laptop?”

1. Open the Ask tab.
2. Type a question, or tap a suggestion chip. “Checking your data…” means Effable is reading your real numbers.
3. For purchases, try the “Can I afford…” chip. You’ll get a verdict card with the numbers behind it.
4. Past conversations live under Recent conversations; tap one to continue it.

Answers are AI-generated guidance, not professional financial advice. The free plan includes 10 chats a month; Premium removes the limit. The more you log, the better the answers.

Budgets

A spending cap for a period (for everything, one category, or one tag) that tracks itself.

Effable warns you before you cross the line, not after. Progress bars show what you’ve spent against the limit and how much is left.

1. Go to Settings → Budgets (or the BUDGETS section in Insights) and tap “New budget”.
2. Pick what to cap. Everything, a category, or a tag.
3. Pick a period (monthly, yearly, or a custom range) and set the limit.
4. Optionally choose which accounts it counts spending from.
5. Turn on “Roll over unspent budget” if you want leftovers (and overspending) to carry into the next period. Capped at one period’s limit either way.

Start with one budget for your most tempting category. You’ll get a notification when a budget gets close to (80%) or crosses its limit, and while you’re logging, the capture screen shows what’s left of the budget your record just landed in. The free plan includes one budget; Premium removes the limit.

Capture

The fastest way to log money: type it the way you’d say it (“40 coffee”) and Effable fills in the rest.

Logging must take seconds, or you’ll stop doing it. Capture is the habit the whole app is built around.

1. On Today, tap the bar that says “Log anything” (on other tabs, tap the round + button).
2. Type naturally. Amounts, places, even several purchases in one line.
3. Check the chips Effable proposes. Tap any chip to correct it. A dashed chip like “Category?” is an invitation to fill it in.
4. Tap “Log it” (or “Log all” for several). You’ll see “Logged ✓” plus your month’s total for that category.
5. Got a paper receipt? Tap “Snap a receipt” and Effable reads the total off the photo.
6. Before you type anything, QUICK LOG offers one-tap chips built from things you log often.

Don’t aim for perfection in the bar. Logging something now beats logging it perfectly later. If parsing can’t read you, tap 123 for the classic form. Offline? Logging still works; records sync when you’re back.

Catch up

Been away a few days? Fill in every missing day on one screen.

A gap in your log quietly bends every number after it. Catch up closes the gap in about two minutes, instead of making you reopen the capture bar once per day.

1. When Effable notices missed days, a “Been away a few days?” card appears on Today. Tap “Catch up”.
2. Each missing day gets its own line. Type what you spent the way you always do.
3. Days with nothing to add stay empty. Tap “Done” and everything saves at once.

Lots to add after a trip? Import a statement instead. Catching up makes your numbers honest again, but it doesn’t revive a broken streak: the streak counts the days you logged on, not the days you logged about.

Categories

What a record was for. Groceries, transport, rent.

Categories power your breakdowns, budgets, and insights. Effable ships a sensible set (with sub-categories); you can add your own.

1. Go to Settings → Library → Categories.
2. Tap + to add one, or tap an existing custom category to rename it.
3. When logging, tap the category chip to pick or change it.

Fewer categories mean clearer insights. Built-in categories can’t be edited; deleting a custom one archives it. Records that use it keep it, it just leaves the pickers. The free plan includes 12 custom items across categories, methods, and tags combined.

Currencies & exchange rates

Every account has its own currency; Effable converts between them with daily exchange rates when it needs a combined number.

Spend in dollars, save in euros, get paid in drams. Each account stays true to itself, and totals get converted honestly.

1. Set an account’s currency when you create it (it’s fixed afterwards).
2. Set your display currency in Settings → Currency. Combined numbers and analytics render in it.
3. Log a foreign purchase by picking a different currency in the classic form. Effable converts it at that day’s rate and remembers both amounts.

If a combined number is missing, a rate isn’t available. Effable never guesses a conversion. Single-currency views need no rates at all.

Linked payments

Attach a payment to a debt as you log it, and the balance moves by itself.

A debt is only honest if its balance keeps up with what you actually pay. Linking does that for you, and turns your payments into progress you can watch.

1. Log the payment as an ordinary expense, then tap the “Debt?” chip and pick the debt it pays.
2. A line under the chips says exactly what will happen before you save: the balance now, and the balance after.
3. Open a debt from Settings → Debts to see everything linked to it, and how much of the original is gone.

Edit or delete a linked record and the debt gets its money back, exactly the amount that was applied. If your payments add up to more than the balance dropped, the difference is what interest really cost you, and Effable names it instead of hiding it.

Debts & payoff plans

Track cards and loans in one place (free) and let Premium compute your fastest way out.

Seeing your debts honestly is step one; the payoff plan turns them into a debt-free date and an order of attack.

1. Go to Settings → Debts and tap +: name, type, current balance, interest rate (APR %), and minimum monthly payment.
2. Open the Payoff plan panel, enter a monthly amount for debts, and compare Avalanche (highest interest first. Saves the most money) vs Snowball (smallest balance first. Quickest first win).
3. Update balances by hand whenever you like, or link a payment to a debt as you log it and the balance moves on its own.

If the plan says your budget is below your combined minimums, it runs at that floor and warns you. Raise the monthly amount if you can. Ask Effable also knows about your debts when you ask “can I afford this?”.

Email change & password

Change your sign-in email (with confirmation to the new address) or your password from one place.

Account security basics, without support tickets.

1. Go to Settings → Email (or Password).
2. For email: enter the new address plus your current password. It won’t change until you tap the link Effable sends to the new address. The pending panel lets you resend or cancel.
3. For password: current password, new one (at least 6 characters, one uppercase letter, one number), confirm.

Signed in with Google or Apple? Your email is managed by that provider and can’t be changed here.

Export

Your records as a CSV spreadsheet file. Take your full history with you.

Backups, spreadsheets, accountants, or just leaving with your data. Your records are yours.

1. Go to Settings → Export data.
2. Pick a range (all time, this year, or custom) and optionally one account.
3. Tap “Export CSV”, then save it, send it, or open it in a spreadsheet app.

Very large ranges may need splitting. If asked, narrow the range and export in parts. Export is part of Premium.

Frozen accounts

If Premium ends, accounts beyond the free limit become read-only. Never deleted.

Downgrading should never destroy data. Frozen accounts stay in your balances and history; they just can’t take new records while frozen.

1. A “Locked” badge marks frozen accounts in Settings → Accounts.
2. Your main account always stays active. Open any frozen account and tap “Make this the main account” to swap which ones stay usable.
3. Re-subscribe and everything unfreezes instantly.

The same idea applies to recurring rules over the free limit. They show “Paused” and stop generating (no backlog dump when you return).

Goals

Something you’re saving toward. A target amount, a date, and your pace.

Effable tells you if you’re on track or behind, and what monthly pace gets you there.

1. Go to Settings → Goals (or the GOALS section in Insights) and tap “New goal”.
2. Name it, set the target amount and target date.
3. Choose how to track progress: “Net savings” (everything you keep, across accounts, from today on) or “Account balance” (one account’s balance. Great for a dedicated savings account).
4. When you reach a goal, Effable celebrates it and offers to archive it. Archived goals stay in your history and free up their slot.

Pick “Account balance” when the goal has its own account; money you transfer in counts automatically. The free plan includes one goal; Premium removes the limit. Ask Effable weighs your goals when judging what you can afford.

Health score

One number, 0–100, for how your finances are doing. Free for everyone.

A single honest pulse: Healthy, Coping, or Vulnerable, with the change vs last month. Premium breaks it into four pillars (Spend, Save, Borrow, Plan) and tells you the highest-impact moves.

1. Find your score at the top of Insights; tap it for the full picture.
2. New here? The score shows a “building” checklist first. Log income, spending, and a full month, and it unlocks once Effable has enough to be honest.
3. Tap “Share your score” to share a privacy-safe card (score and band only. No amounts).

Don’t chase the number daily. It moves with months, not mornings. The recommendations tell you which pillar is worth your energy.

Import

Bring a bank statement into Effable (CSV, OFX, or CAMT.053) with duplicate protection.

Backfilling history or catching up after a lazy month, without double-logging what you already have.

1. Go to Settings → Import statements and choose a statement file.
2. Bank formats (OFX, CAMT) read themselves; for CSV, map the columns once. YNAB, Mint, and Monarch exports are recognized and map themselves, categories included.
3. Pick the destination account (statement currency must match) and default category/method for unmatched rows.
4. Review the preview. Tap a row to include or exclude it; hold a row to change its category.
5. Tap Import.

Effable flags likely duplicates (same day, amount, and description) instead of importing blindly. Trust the preview. Import is part of Premium.

Insights & The Story

Your money, told as a story. Sentences first, charts second.

“You kept 89% of your income this period” says more than a pie chart. Insights leads with the story, then shows the evidence.

1. Open the Insights tab and pick a period.
2. Read The story (one sentence that sums the period) then The evidence: what came in, where it went, what was planned, how the trend moves.
3. Generate personalized AI advice for the period, or jump to Ask Effable to dig deeper.
4. Premium adds Spending rhythm (when you spend. Weekdays, paydays, spikes), behavior breakdowns, and longer periods.

Log at least a few records before expecting patterns. Multiple currencies? Pick one account to see combined numbers.

Language

Effable speaks 7 languages: English, Ukrainian, Spanish, German, French, Armenian, Russian.

The whole app (including AI answers) follows your language.

1. Go to Settings → Language.
2. Pick a language, or “System default” to follow your phone.

Category names you created yourself stay as you typed them; built-in ones translate automatically.

Log reminders

An optional nudge to log. Automatically skipped once you’ve already logged that day.

The habit is the hard part. A reminder that respects what you’ve already done nudges without nagging.

1. Go to Settings → Notifications and find the log-reminder card.
2. Pick Daily, Weekdays, or Weekly (plus a weekday), and a time, or choose Smart to be reminded around the hour you usually log.
3. Turn it off any time. Off means off, no leftover pings.

Set it for the moment your day winds down. Logging takes 30 seconds when it’s fresh.

Main account

The account quick logging uses by default, marked “Main account” in your accounts list.

Capture shouldn’t ask questions. Records land in your main account unless you say otherwise. It’s also the account that always stays active on the free plan.

1. Go to Settings → Accounts and open an account.
2. Turn on the “Main account” toggle.

Make your everyday spending account the main one. If accounts get frozen after Premium ends, switching main is how you choose which account stays writable.

Manual entry

The classic form. A numpad, chips for every detail, and the power features: batches, recurring, transfers.

When you want precision (foreign currency, tags, a note, an exact date) or something the quick bar doesn’t do.

1. In Capture, tap 123 (or long-press the + button).
2. Toggle Expense / Income, enter the amount, and set details via the chips.
3. “Add another” queues several records to save together.
4. The “Repeat” toggle turns the record into a recurring rule; the Transfer mode moves money between accounts.

Foreign amount? Pick the currency and Effable shows what it converts to at that day’s rate before you save.

Members (shared accounts)

Share one account with a partner. You both see and log everything in it.

Household money is shared money. One shared account beats screenshots and “what did you spend?” texts.

1. Open the account in Settings → Accounts and find Members.
2. Invite by email. They must already have an Effable account. Inviting is the Premium act; accepting and participating is free.
3. They accept from their Accounts screen and the account appears in their app.
4. Records show who logged them. Members can leave; owners can remove members.

Up to 5 people per account, invites included. Budgets and goals scoped to a shared account are visible to the household too. If the owner’s Premium lapses, members keep seeing everything but the account goes read-only for them.

Methods

How you paid. Cash, card, transfer.

The same money moves through different pockets; methods let you see spending by how it left.

1. When logging, tap the method chip and pick one.
2. Manage your own in Settings → Library → Methods.

If you only ever use one card, don’t overthink methods. Category matters more.

Notifications

Budget warnings, goal milestones, your weekly recap, and shared-account events. In the bell on Today and optionally as push.

The right nudge at the right moment: “before”, not “after”.

1. Tap the bell on Today. A dot means something’s unread; opening the inbox marks it read.
2. Tune groups in Settings → Notifications: budget warnings, goal progress, weekly summary, recurring detection, shared accounts.
3. Turning a group off silences both push and in-app notifications for it.

Keep budget warnings on. They’re the “before” in “warned before you cross it”. The weekly summary lands Sunday evening, your time.

Working offline

Log without a connection. Everything syncs the moment you’re back.

Planes, basements, roaming you don’t want to pay for. Logging has to work in the moment, or the habit breaks.

1. Log as usual. You’ll see “Will sync when you’re back online” instead of the normal confirmation.
2. Screens you’ve already opened keep showing their last-known numbers, marked “Offline. Showing saved data”.
3. Records waiting to go up sit under “Waiting to sync” on Activity, and send themselves once you have signal.

Anything that needs the server (AI answers, receipt scanning, import) waits for a connection and says so. If the server ever rejects a waiting record, Effable tells you and lets you discard it. Nothing is retried silently forever.

Onboarding

The three-step start: name your account, log your first record, done.

Effable teaches by doing. Your first capture IS the tutorial. “That’s the whole habit.”

1. Where do you keep money? Name your first account and set its currency.
2. Log the last thing you spent. Type it the way you’d say it.
3. Show me Today. You’re in. Skip any step; you can do it all later.

Don’t skip step two. Feeling the five-second log is the whole point.

Debts between people

Money you lent to someone, or borrowed from them. Tracked apart from your cards and loans.

The money you lent a friend is real, and it’s the kind that quietly disappears. Effable keeps it visible, with a payback date and a gentle reminder if you want one.

1. Go to Settings → Debts and use “I lent” or “I borrowed” in the people section.
2. Say who it’s with and how much, and set a payback date if there is one. If they use Effable, they’ll see the debt too.
3. Log part-payments as they happen; paying the rest settles it. “Settle” closes the whole thing in one tap when you’re square.

The free plan tracks 3 open debts at a time, and settling one frees its slot. Settling never creates a record and never touches your analytics. A shared trip or a group pot is a different question. See Split & Owe.

Receipt photos

Snap a receipt and Effable reads the total, the date, and what it was.

Some purchases are faster to photograph than to describe, and a paper receipt in your hand is the moment you’re most likely to log at all.

1. Open the capture bar and tap “Snap a receipt”.
2. Take a photo, or pick one from your library.
3. Check the chips Effable proposes, correct anything that’s off, and tap “Log it”.

A flat, well-lit shot of the total reads best. The photo is read and thrown away: it is never stored, and the copy sent for reading has its location data stripped first. Nothing is ever logged from a photo without showing you what was read.

Premium

The paid tier: everything the free plan does, plus deeper analysis and planning tools. Free covers unlimited everyday tracking forever.

Free: unlimited records, 3 accounts, 2 recurring rules, 12 custom library items, 1 budget, 1 goal, 3 open debts between people, 3 AI advice runs and 10 chats a month, this-and-last-month analytics, debt tracking, receipt scanning, and the health score. Premium adds: advanced analytics, unlimited budgets and goals, budget rollover, the debt payoff plan, health score detail, import & export, shared accounts, and unlimited AI.

1. Open Settings → Get Pro (or any “Go Premium” prompt).
2. Pick a plan. Billing runs through the App Store / Play Store.
3. “Restore purchases” brings an existing subscription to a new device.

You can earn Premium days free. See Rewards & streak and Promo codes. If Premium ends, nothing is deleted. See Frozen accounts.

Promo codes

A code (like AB3D-EF7H) that adds days of Premium to your account.

Gifts, giveaways, and make-goods. Premium time without a subscription.

1. Open the paywall (Settings → Get Pro) and find “Have a promo code?”.
2. Enter the code and tap Redeem.

Each code works once per person; days stack on top of any Premium time you already have. Codes can expire or run out. A dead code says so.

Recap (weekly)

“Your week, made clear”. A Sunday-evening story of what you kept, what to watch, and what next week looks like.

A week is the honest unit of habit. One number and three beats (Won / Watch / Next week) beat a dashboard.

1. From Sunday evening until Tuesday, Today shows the YOUR WEEK card. Tap “The full story →”.
2. Read the beats; “The numbers” at the bottom holds the raw figures.

This recap never leaves your account. It’s yours alone.

Records

One thing that happened with your money: a coffee, a salary, a refund.

Records are the raw material for everything. Balances, insights, budgets, the health score. Every record has a direction, an amount, an account, a category, and a method; optionally tags, a note, and a custom date.

1. Log one in seconds with Capture, or precisely with Manual entry.
2. Tap any record to see it; Edit, “Log this again” (duplicate it for today), or Delete from there.
3. Records from a recurring rule ask how far an edit applies: this event only, this and future events, or all events.

Log the amount and move on. You can fix the category later. Deleting is forever.

Recurring & detected subscriptions

Bills that repeat log themselves, and Effable spots charges that look like subscriptions you haven’t set up yet.

Rent, Netflix, the gym: set the schedule once and the records appear on their due dates. The “Looks recurring” section catches the ones you forgot you pay.

1. Create one from Manual entry (the “Repeat” toggle) or manage them in Settings → Recurring rules.
2. Each rule shows its next date; Upcoming lets you skip one occurrence or adjust its amount and note.
3. In “Looks recurring”, Track turns a detected pattern into a rule with one tap; Dismiss hides it forever.

The schedule itself can’t be edited. Delete the series and recreate it to change cadence. Records appear on the due date, never early. The free plan includes 2 rules.

Rewards & streak

Log something 7 days in a row 🔥 and earn 3 days of Premium, free.

The streak makes the habit visible; the reward says thanks. Everything in Effable gets better when you log daily.

1. Log at least one record a day. Today shows your streak from day 2.
2. At 7 consecutive days, the reward lands automatically. No claiming needed.
3. Keep going and you bank shields, one for every 7 logged days, up to 2. A shield spends itself to cover a missed day, so one bad day doesn’t erase a long run.
4. Longer milestones at 30 and 100 days each add more free Premium days, once.
5. Earned days stack with any Premium you already have.

The streak counts days you actually log (imports don’t count. Nice try). A log reminder is the easy way to keep it alive. The home-screen widget shows the streak without opening the app.

Safe to Spend

Today’s headline number: an estimate of what you can still spend this month without falling behind.

“Am I okay?” deserves a one-number answer. Effable takes your usual monthly income, subtracts your committed bills and what you’ve already spent this month, and caps it at what you actually have.

1. Open Today. It’s the big number under “Safe to spend”.
2. New account? It needs a few months of history to be honest. The subline tells you where it stands.

It’s an estimate, not permission. The subline tells you which flavor. Multiple currencies? Pick one account in Insights for combined numbers. If you have an overall budget for the period, this number never proposes more than the budget leaves you.

Sign-in options

Email + password, Google, or Apple (iOS). Same account, your choice of door.

Fewer passwords if you want, a classic account if you prefer.

1. Create an account with email (you’ll get an activation link. Tap it, then sign in), or use “Continue with Google” / “Sign in with Apple”.
2. Forgot the password? “Forgot password?” sends reset instructions if the account exists.
3. If you signed up by email first and later use Google/Apple with the same address, they link to the same account.

Google/Apple accounts manage their email at the provider. If you deleted your account recently, signing in offers to restore it.

Split & Owe

In a group: who paid what, who owes whom, and one tap to even out.

When a group spends from one pot (a trip, roommates, dinners), the question at the end is always “how do we settle?”. Effable computes it: per-person paid totals, everyone's balance, and the fewest transfers to get square.

1. Create a Group account and add your people. Friends not on Effable can be added by name; they get a claim code that makes their history theirs if they join later.
2. Log expenses as usual. Each one has a “Paid by” chip (defaults to you) and a “Split” chip (equal among everyone; tick who is in).
3. Open “Split: who paid what” on the group and tap “Settle” when money changes hands in real life.

Settling never creates a record and never touches analytics; it only updates the split. You can undo a settlement you recorded yourself. Amounts stay in the group's currency, so multi-currency trips just work.

Tags

Free-form labels for anything categories don’t capture. A trip, a project, a person.

One record can carry several tags, so “Vacation 2026” can cut across groceries, taxis, and hotels.

1. In Manual entry, tap the tags chip and pick any number.
2. Manage them in Settings → Library → Tags.

Tags shine for temporary things (a trip, a renovation); categories for permanent structure.

Theme

Dark, light, or follow the system. Effable is designed dark-first.

1. Go to Settings → Appearance and pick Light, Dark, or System.

Try dark. It’s the native habitat. Your choice is remembered on this device.

Transfers

Money moving between your own accounts. It’s neither income nor spending.

Moving $200 to savings isn’t “spending $200”. Transfers keep both balances right without polluting your analytics.

1. In Manual entry, switch to Transfer (“Move money”).
2. Pick the From and To accounts and the amount.
3. Different currencies? Enter what actually arrived. Effable prefills today’s rate, and you can correct it to what your bank really gave you.
4. Tap “Move it”. Editing or deleting a transfer always affects both sides together.

Transfers into a goal-linked savings account move your goal forward automatically.

Voice capture

Say it instead of typing it. The mic in Capture turns speech into a draft record.

1. In Capture, tap the mic and talk: “forty on groceries yesterday”.
2. Your words land in the bar and parse like typed text; correct chips as usual and log it.

The mic appears where speech recognition is available on your device; it’s an accelerator, never a requirement.

Home-screen widget

Your streak on your home screen, one tap from logging.

The hard part of logging isn’t typing, it’s remembering. The widget puts the streak where you already look.

1. Long-press your home screen, add a widget, and choose Effable.
2. It shows your streak, the last seven days as dots, and whether today is done.
3. Tap it to land straight in the capture bar.

The widget draws from a small snapshot the app leaves for it, so it works with no connection and never touches your account. It refreshes after you log, and again at midnight.

Messages you might see

The most common notices, what they mean, and what to do.