Balans — Privacy Policy

Balans is a personal money tracker built around a simple promise: your financial data stays on your device. This policy explains what data the app handles, what it never touches, and what permissions are used.

1. Data we collect

None. Balans does not collect, transmit, or upload any personal or financial information to any server. There is no Balans backend — we do not have a database of users or transactions. All your data lives in a local SQLite database on your device only.

• No account creation, login, or sign-up.
• No analytics, tracking pixels, or telemetry SDKs.
• No advertising identifiers or ad networks.
• No cloud backup managed by Balans.

2. Data stored on your device

The following is kept locally and never leaves your phone:

• Your manually entered transactions (amount, category, note, date).
• Currency preference, theme preference, salary cycle day, reminder time.
• Bank account labels you register (bank name + last 4 digits only — we never ask for and never store full account numbers).
• Parsed transaction notifications waiting for your review.

Uninstalling Balans deletes all of this data permanently. The app's Erase all data setting wipes it without uninstalling.

3. Permissions we request

• POST_NOTIFICATIONS — to show you the daily check-in reminder, if you enable it.
• BIND_NOTIFICATION_LISTENER_SERVICE — if you grant Notification access in Android settings, Balans reads notifications posted by payment apps (Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm, BHIM, Amazon Pay, CRED) and bank apps so it can suggest transaction entries for your review. Notification text is processed entirely on-device. Nothing about notifications is uploaded or shared.
• SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM, USE_EXACT_ALARM, RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED, WAKE_LOCK, VIBRATE — needed by Android to reliably fire the reminder notification at the time you set, even after a reboot.

4. Notification access — what we actually read

When Notification access is enabled, Balans only inspects notifications from a fixed allow-list of apps (Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm, BHIM, Amazon Pay, CRED, HDFC / SBI / ICICI / Axis bank apps, and your default Messages app for SMS-style notifications). Notifications from any other app are ignored and discarded immediately.

For each allowed notification, we extract the transaction amount, suspected merchant, and transaction type using on-device regex. The extracted entry is saved into your local pending-review queue. You confirm or reject every entry before it joins your ledger.

5. Third parties

Balans does not use any analytics or advertising SDKs. The app uses the following open-source libraries, all running locally with no external network calls in normal use: sqflite, flutter_local_notifications, pdf, printing, fl_chart, share_plus, provider. The PDF export feature, if used, opens Android's system share sheet so you can send the PDF via the app of your choice — Balans itself does not transmit the file.

6. Children

Balans is intended for users 18 and older. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly handle data from children.

7. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted at the same URL with an updated “Last updated” date. Material changes will also be announced in the app's release notes on Google Play.

8. Contact

Questions about privacy in Balans? Email mariselvan@rears.in.