Finding your way around
Start here
Balanced has three levels: your journals, a journal's overview, and the pages you open from it. Here's where everything is.
Everything you do in Balanced starts from the journal overview. From there you go one step deeper to see an account, a list of transactions or the budget, and one step back to switch journals.
The journals list
Section titled “The journals list”This is where Balanced starts when no journal is open. It lists all your journals.
- ⚙︎ Settings at the top: turn iCloud Sync on or off and see its Status.
- ＋ New Journal at the bottom: create a journal.
- Touch and hold a journal and tap Share to share it with other people.
The journal overview
Section titled “The journal overview”Tap a journal to open its overview. It has three sections and a bar at the bottom.
- Budget: this month at a glance. Adjust opens the budget editor. Ready to assign shows money that has no category yet.
- Transactions: All Transactions, the Repeated ones, and the Uncleared ones that haven’t reached your bank yet.
- Accounts: your accounts by type. Open a type and tap an account to see its transactions. Edit opens the account editor.
- Charts: your spending, cash flow and net worth over time.
- New Transaction: record a transaction. Next to it, Scan Receipt fills one in from a photo.
The Budget section appears once the current month has a transaction.
The page you open
Section titled “The page you open”Whatever you tap in the overview opens on its own page: an account’s transactions, All Transactions, or the budget editor. Tap a transaction there to edit it.
iPhone and iPad
Section titled “iPhone and iPad”On iPhone, you see one page at a time. Tap to go deeper; tap the back button or swipe from the left edge to go back. Balanced reopens the journal you used last.
On iPad, the pages sit side by side in columns. With a journal open, the overview is on the left and the page you open is on the right, starting with All Transactions. The sidebar button brings in the journals list as a third column.
Foldable iPhone
Section titled “Foldable iPhone”On a foldable iPhone with iOS 27.1 or later, Balanced uses both halves of the screen. Unfolded, the overview sits on one half and the page you open on the other, with the fold between them.
In the budget editor you can change months by folding: hold the phone half-folded, touch and hold the month at the top, then fold further or open it up. Opening moves forward in time, folding moves back. Lift your finger to stay on that month.
Keyboard shortcuts
Section titled “Keyboard shortcuts”With a keyboard attached to your iPad or iPhone:
| Shortcut | Does |
|---|---|
| ⌘N | New Transaction |
| ⇧⌘N | New Journal |
| ⌥⌘N | Scan Receipt |
| ⌘↩︎ | Save what you’re editing (same as ✓) |
| Esc | Close without saving |
More in Keyboard, iPad and foldable iPhone.
Swipe actions
Section titled “Swipe actions”In any list of transactions:
- Swipe right on a transaction to Clear it once it’s on your bank statement, or to Unclear it again.
- Swipe left to Delete it. For a repeating transaction, Balanced asks which occurrences to delete.
In the journals list, swipe left on a journal to delete it, or to leave a journal someone shared with you.