A closer look · TidyExpenses

Know what's due, what's paid, and what you still owe.

Name: TidyExpenses
Brand: TidyCents
Price: 27 USD

Paid part of a bill? Waiting for an automatic payment to clear? TidyExpenses helps you keep track of the amount still owed. Take a look at its bill-tracking features and limits before you buy. This is our own studio's app, sold through Applings Studio.

By the TidyCents team, who also built the free Money Leak Score.

The $40 problem

You paid $40 toward a $100 electric bill last week. Today you're staring at a paper list, a banking app, and a sticky note, trying to work out what's actually still owed. A spreadsheet could tell you — if you trust the formula you wrote at 11pm three months ago and haven't touched since. A checkbox tracker can't tell you at all; it only knows paid or not paid, never "paid some of it."

That specific, small, irritating gap is where TidyExpenses starts.

One file, not a service

TidyExpenses is a single HTML file you open in your browser — no install, no account, no server on the other end deciding what you're allowed to do. That last part is also the honest limit: without a server, nothing syncs between your phone and your laptop by itself, and nothing gets pulled in from your bank automatically. You tell it about a bill once; it remembers from there.

Three ways to keep bills organized

Start with the everyday jobs: record a partial payment, set up a recurring bill, and confirm an automatic payment.

Feature 1 of 3

"Partial payments, actually tracked."

Partial payments: record what you paid and track the remaining balance. For example, a $40 payment toward a $100 bill leaves $60 to pay. Keep that balance with the bill instead of on a separate note.

Feature 2 of 3

"Give repeat bills a schedule."

Recurring bills: set a monthly, quarterly, or annual schedule for regular expenses. You can pause a series when you need a break, then review it when the expense returns. Update the amount or schedule whenever your bill changes.

Feature 3 of 3

"Confirm auto-pay instead of assuming."

Auto-pay confirmation: flag a bill for automatic payment, then confirm it after checking your bank or payment provider. The app tracks your confirmation; it does not connect to your bank or verify that the payment cleared.

The rest of the toolkit

Four more screens to help you organize the details.

Every category, totalled

Rent, utilities, insurance, groceries — each gets a card with a paid-vs-owed split and a running yearly total, so "where's it actually going" stops being something you work out by hand.

A month you can actually see

Bills sit on their due dates, colour-matched to category, instead of a list you have to read line by line to find what's coming.

The whole year, summed

Total due, paid, owed, and overdue for the year, plus your priciest month and biggest category — and a CSV export if you want to go further.

Currency, theme, and the honest bit

Eleven currencies and a light/dark switch, sure. This is also where the app tells you plainly what "stays on your device" really means — see below.

The comparison worth making before you buy anything

A spreadsheet is free, which is a genuine point in its favour — we're not pretending otherwise. But free isn't the same as costless. Here's where the actual cost tends to show up:

	Excel / Google Sheets	TidyExpenses
Getting started	A blank grid, or a template you'll spend an evening adapting to how you actually pay bills.	Add your first bill in under a minute — the tracker's already built.
Trusting the running total	One mis-dragged formula and "still owed" is wrong, possibly for months, before anyone notices.	There's no formula to drag. The balance is calculated fresh, every time.
The whole year	Twelve tabs, or one long one you scroll and re-sum by hand.	A yearly view by month and category, already built, exportable in one click.
Monthly upkeep	Time spent re-entering, re-checking, and fixing whatever quietly broke.	Time spent logging what happened. The totals take care of themselves.

The one limitation worth knowing before you buy

"Your data never leaves your device" is genuinely true — and it's also the thing most likely to catch you out if nobody says so plainly first:

Bills save automatically, but only inside the browser and device you're using right now.
Switch from Chrome on your laptop to Safari on your phone and you're looking at two separate, empty trackers — not two windows onto the same data.
Clearing your browser's site data, or opening the file in a private window, can wipe it.
The Save button is the actual backup — one click, one dated file. That file is the thing worth keeping safe, not the browser.
New laptop? Save a backup, copy the file over, hit Import. Everything — payment history included — comes back.

The app says all of this itself the first time you open it. We're repeating it here because "private" and "backed up" are two different promises, and only one of them happens automatically.

Is this the right one for you?

TidyExpenses is a bill tracker. On purpose. It doesn't track your income, your accounts, your savings goals, or your debt payoff — and it isn't trying to.

TidyExpenses"What's due, what's paid, and what do I still owe?" Start here — it's the lightest lift in the line.
TidyBudget"What's my whole financial picture?" Accounts, income, debt payoff, net worth, and bills, together.
Read our honest look at TidyBudget →
TidyEnvelopesThink in "what's left in Groceries," not account balances? That's the cash-envelope method, digitized.
Read our honest look at TidyEnvelopes →
Budget Plan AgentDon't want an ongoing app at all? Answer questions in a chat once, get a finished plan — no tracking required afterward.
Read our honest look at Budget Plan Agent →

Reach for this, or skip it

We'd rather you work this out here than after you've paid for it.

Reach for this if —

A partially-paid bill has ever thrown off your tracking.
You've re-typed the same rent line into a spreadsheet more times than you'd like to admit.
You want auto-pay double-checked, not blindly trusted.
Paying once beats paying monthly, as far as you're concerned.
Typing in a bill by hand doesn't bother you.

Skip this if —

You want your whole financial life — income, net worth, debt payoff — in one place (that's TidyBudget, above).
Automatic bank-transaction import is non-negotiable.
You need it to sync itself across your phone and laptop without you doing anything.
You want the app to actually send the payment, not just track it.
Free is a hard requirement.

Straight answers to the obvious questions

Do I need to sign up for anything?

No account, no email required to use the app itself — open the file and start.

Is $27 really a one-time thing?

Yes. Pay once at the Applings Studio store, keep it. No recurring charge, ever.

What happens without an internet connection?

Nothing changes. It's built to run fully offline, including the very first time you open it.

Will it ever ask for my bank login?

No — not now, not in some future update. It doesn't move money; it only records what you tell it.

I use it on my phone and my laptop — will it stay in sync?

No. See "the one limitation worth knowing" above — each device keeps its own copy unless you move a backup file yourself.

I bought an earlier version — am I stuck?

No. Opening the new version upgrades your data automatically: every expense becomes a bill, totals are checked to the cent, and your original file is kept as a downloadable snapshot just in case.

What if I buy it and it's wrong for me?

Check the refund terms on the store page before buying — we'd rather point you to the current policy than guess at it here.

In the file

What actually ships when you buy it.

The full TidyExpenses app — one file, yours to keep
Partial payments with running balances, tracked automatically
Recurring bills, pausable series, and auto-pay confirmation
Calendar, categories, and a full yearly overview
CSV export, printable reports, and one-click backup
Works offline · 11 currencies · light & dark
Full User Guide included

~~$49~~ $27 · one-time purchase

One payment. No TidyCents subscription. Purchase through Applings Studio.

See TidyExpenses on Applings Studio →

Still deciding? Fair enough.

Nothing here needs to be settled by reading a web page. If you'd rather test the whole approach — no bank login, one-time payment, everything staying on your device — before spending anything, the free tool is a smaller first step.

Get TidyExpenses →

Sold and fulfilled by Applings Studio, our own studio brand

Or start smaller: the free Money Leak Score takes two minutes →

Full disclosure: TidyExpenses is our own product, sold through Applings Studio. This page explains its features, costs, and limitations to help you decide whether it fits your household. Product previews are illustrations, not evidence of a customer result.