Bluecoins

Bluecoins is an expense tracker built for people who want control over their finances without handing over bank credentials. The app started as a side project and has grown to 1 million downloads on Google Play, with an iOS counterpart launched in December 2022. Unlike most modern budgeting apps, Bluecoins does not sync to your bank. Instead, it watches for push notifications from your banking apps and SMS messages to automatically log transactions, or you enter them manually. All data stays on your device or backs up to your own Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive account. There is no web version and no desktop app, keeping the product lightweight and offline-capable on the two platforms it serves.

How transactions and bank connections work

Bluecoins never logs into your bank and never stores bank credentials. The app's main way to catch transactions automatically is by watching push notifications from your banking apps (configured through an allow list in settings) and text messages from your bank, then creating transaction records without your credentials ever leaving your device. This eliminates a major security surface but comes with limits: it will not catch transactions you make through web banking, and it only works for banks that send SMS or push notifications. Manual entry is always available as a backup, and the app includes a built-in calculator to speed up typing in multiple amounts on one transaction.

The app also captures transaction details from those notifications (amount, date, and sometimes the merchant) without manual typing. For people who use their phone to check balances but manage budgets separately, this is a genuine time-saver. The trade-off is that you cannot link your credit cards or checking accounts directly the way Plaid would, so the weekly sync of all your accounts is not possible. A person with five accounts across three banks would still be doing some manual work, especially if their bank does not send push notifications.

Bluecoins handles multiple currencies natively. You can set accounts in any world currency, apply per-transaction or per-account exchange rates, and toggle between raw face-value balances and normalized net-worth conversions through the EACR (Effective Average Conversion Rate) setting. The app updates exchange rates automatically, with fallback providers if one goes offline. Cryptocurrency accounts are supported alongside traditional currency, though the app treats them as foreign currencies rather than a separate asset class.

Budgeting, categories, and transaction management

Budgets are per-category and support weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or custom date ranges. More unusually, Bluecoins lets you carry over unspent budget room from one period into the next, rather than losing it when the period resets. The app tracks budget-versus-actual spending and shows the carried-over amount in future periods. Many other apps reset budgets hard at the period boundary, so carry-over is a feature some people rely on.

Transaction tracking splits income, expenses, and transfers into separate types so money moving between your own accounts does not show up as spending. The app also handles recurring transactions with daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or custom intervals, with options to end them on a specific date or after a certain number of occurrences, and weekend-handling rules for paychecks or rent. Recurring transactions are logged automatically on their scheduled date.

The balance sheet view shows your accounts grouped by type (cash, bank accounts, credit cards, assets, and liabilities) with your net worth calculated on one screen. Credit cards get full support: you can track statement cycles with cutoff and due dates, outstanding balance, available credit, unbilled installments, and reminders for upcoming payments. The app also tracks debts and loans as account types, so a mortgage or personal loan appears on the liabilities side of your balance sheet.

Reporting and widgets

Bluecoins generates multiple report types. Date-grouped transaction lists with running balances let you scroll through your spending chronologically. Calendar reports show income and expenses by day. Cash-flow reports track income versus expenses over time with drill-down into specific categories and the ability to see how much money flowed in and out by period. All reports export to PDF, Excel, HTML, or print. The home screen includes configurable dashboard cards: you can choose which accounts, budgets, cash flow, net worth, or credit card widgets to display, plus five Android home-screen widgets (account balance, add-transaction shortcut, mini calendar, reminders list, and spend summary). On iOS, the app supports multiple home-screen widgets and lock-screen widgets. An Apple Watch complication is also available for quick balance checks.

The dashboard itself is highly customizable. You can reorder cards, switch between light, dark, or true-black AMOLED themes, and adjust what appears on your home screen. The app also supports 40 languages, so you can use it in languages beyond English.

Pricing and what you get

Bluecoins is free with ads. The app shows banner and medium-rectangle ads (AdMob) unless you purchase Premium. The free tier includes everything above: transaction tracking, budgets, reports, recurring transactions, credit card tracking, multi-currency, sync to your cloud storage, and notification parsing. All features are available in the free version.

Premium is a one-time purchase (never a subscription) that removes all ads. All functionality is already in the free app. The pricing page does not state the amount of the one-time purchase. The developer also accepts donations through the app (Settings, then About, then Donate) to support continued development.

Privacy and security

Your data lives on your device by default. Backups to Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive are optional and go to your own account, not to Bluecoins' servers. The app works completely offline. You can enter transactions and manage budgets without an internet connection. When you sync, it only pushes changes to your chosen cloud storage. Bluecoins offers PIN lock with fingerprint or biometric authentication, and encrypted backups. Access permissions are adjustable at any time, and you can reset the app to delete all data on the device.

There is no web app to log into, and Bluecoins does not operate its own servers for your data. The developer, who maintains the app alone, states that your finances are private and stays that way.

Who this suits and who it does not

Bluecoins is best for people with Android phones (the primary platform, with over 1 million downloads) who want offline budgeting without bank connections, or those in countries where their banks do not support Plaid or direct API connections. It is also a good fit for people uncomfortable giving apps access to their banking credentials, and for those who like detailed budget carry-over, multi-currency tracking, or loan and liability accounting. The app received Google Play Editor's Choice in 2018 and has maintained steady updates since.

It is not for someone who wants to link all their accounts automatically and see a unified balance across multiple banks with no manual work. It is not for people who need web or desktop access to their budget. It is not for couples or families who need to share access to the same budget. Bluecoins is a single-user app. iOS users got support only in 2022, so the iOS version is newer and less mature than the Android original.