How to use Expense Ex

On the sign-up screen, enter your name, email and a password (at least 6 characters), agree to the terms, and tap Sign up. You can also sign up with Google in one tap using the “Continue with Google” button.

A short 4-step setup wizard walks you through: adding your name and photo, choosing your currency, adding your first account (e.g. Cash or Mobile Money), and setting a monthly income goal. Expense Ex also seeds 9 starter categories for you — Food & Dining, Transport, Housing, Shopping, Bills & Utilities, Entertainment and Health for expenses, plus Salary and Other Income — so you can start logging right away.

Along the bottom of the app:

• Home — your balance, this month's income/expenses, a spending breakdown, savings goals and recent transactions.
• Transactions — every expense and income entry, searchable and filterable.
• Budgets — monthly limits per category and how you're pacing against them.
• Reports — charts, trends and your Financial Health score.
• Profile — your accounts, categories, savings goals, bills, and all app settings.

A green + button (which you can drag anywhere on screen) is always available on Home and Transactions for quickly adding an expense, income, bill, or savings goal.

Tap the + button, choose Add Expense or Add Income, then type the amount on the built-in keypad. Pick a category, pick which account it's coming from or going to, and optionally add a note. Tap Save.

Yes. On the Add/Edit Transaction screen, take a photo or choose one from your gallery. You can preview or remove it before saving. On the transaction's detail screen, tap the photo to zoom in.

Swipe a transaction row left or right in the Transactions list (or on Home) to reveal Edit and Delete. You can also tap a transaction to open its detail screen, which has Edit and Delete buttons and a Share button for sending a text summary.

Use the search icon on Home, or the search bar at the top of Transactions, to search by note or category name. You can also filter the list by type (All/Expense/Income) and by category chips. The search screen additionally searches across categories, accounts, and bills at once.

Go to the Budgets tab and tap Add Budget. Pick an expense category that doesn't have a budget yet, then set a monthly limit. Budgets are per category and reset every month.

Each budget card compares how much of your limit you've used against how far the month has progressed. If you've used more of your budget than the month is over, you'll see “Spending too fast.” If you're using it slower than the month is passing, you'll see “Under pace.” Otherwise, “On track.” A warning icon appears once you go over the limit.

Yes, tap a budget card to edit its limit, or remove it entirely. The top of the Budgets tab also shows an overall ring of your total spending against your combined budget limits.

Yes, if you've allowed notifications, Expense Ex can alert you when a category is nearing or has gone over its budget. Check that notifications are enabled from the banner on the Notifications screen if you don't see these.

Choose a period — Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly — at the top. You'll see an income & expense summary, a cash-flow trend chart, a spending-by-category pie chart with your biggest category called out, and a ranked list of categories by spend.

A 0–100 score based half on how well you're staying under budget and half on your savings rate, shown as “Great shape,” “On track,” or “Needs attention.” It's a quick pulse-check, not a financial guarantee.

From the Reports tab, tap the share/export icon to generate a CSV of the current month's transactions, which you can send to yourself by email, save to files, or open in a spreadsheet app. This currently covers the current month only.

Tap the calendar icon from the Reports tab to open a month view. Days with activity show small income/expense dots; tap any day to see that day's transactions and totals.

Tap the + button and choose New Savings Goal, or go to Profile → Savings goals → Add. Give it a name, a target amount, and pick an icon and color. You can have as many goals as you like.

Open the goal and tap “Add money,” then enter the amount you want to contribute. Your progress bar and percentage update immediately, and you'll see a celebration once you reach 100%.

Home shows a horizontal carousel of your goals with progress bars. Profile → Savings goals shows a hero card with your total saved across all goals against your combined targets.

Tap the + button and choose Add Bill (or go to Profile → Bills & recurring → Add). Give it a name, amount, choose whether it's an expense or income, pick a category, and set how often it repeats: Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, or a Custom interval like every 10 days.

Yes. On the due date, Expense Ex automatically records the transaction for you, and sends you reminder notifications 3 days and 1 day before it's due, so nothing catches you by surprise.

Yes. From the Bills & Recurring list, each item has options to Pause/Resume, Skip the next occurrence, or Delete it entirely.

Accounts represent where your money actually lives — Cash, Mobile Money, or Bank. Add as many as you need from Profile → Accounts → Add. Each transaction is tied to an account, and its balance updates automatically as you log expenses and income against it.

Yes, but if it has transactions on it, you'll be asked to move them to another account first — you always need at least one account with your transaction history attached.

Yes. Go to Profile → Categories → Add. Give it a name, mark it as expense or income, then pick an icon and color from the built-in sets. You can edit or delete any category, including the starter ones.

Go to Profile → App lock and turn it on. You'll be asked to set a 4-digit PIN. Once enabled, you'll need that PIN to open the app.

If your device supports it, you can turn on biometric unlock (fingerprint, or Face/Touch ID) inside App lock after setting your PIN. The lock screen will try biometrics automatically, with your PIN as the fallback. Biometrics aren't available on the iOS web app — PIN only there.

Tap “Forgot PIN?” on the lock screen. This signs you out and turns off app lock; sign back in with your email/password or Google account and your data will be exactly as you left it.

All under Profile → Account & Security. Deleting your account is permanent — you'll need to type “DELETE” and confirm your password, and all your data is removed.

Go to Profile → Theme and choose Light, Dark, or System (which follows your phone's own setting).

Yes, go to Profile → Currency & region and pick from 11 supported currencies (GHS, USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CAD, AUD, CHF, CNY, INR, NGN). Expense Ex works with one currency at a time across the whole app, it doesn't convert between currencies.

Profile → Monthly income goal. This is used for the “Saved” progress shown on your Home dashboard.

Tap the bell icon on Home to open Notifications. If push notifications aren't enabled yet, a banner there lets you turn them on from your phone's system settings. Once enabled you'll get budget alerts, bill reminders, and savings milestones. You can mark items as read, swipe to delete one, or clear all.

Profile → Help & Support has an in-app FAQ and a direct link to email support. Profile → About shows your current app version and links to the Privacy Policy and Terms. Log out is at the very bottom of the Profile screen.