Real Expense

Summary

When my brother, a realtor, came up with a solution to a common industry problem I was able to turn this idea into a reality, and that reality has become Real Expense. Real Expense is a comprehensive expense tracking app developed to address the specific needs of professionals managing deductible expenses. Users can log in securely through Apple ID, create and manage profiles, and log out of their accounts when needed.

One of the core features of Real Expense is its robust expense tracking and management capabilities. Users can add new expenses by specifying details such as the amount, date, name, notes, category, and receipt images. The app supports image uploads for receipts, enhancing record-keeping accuracy. Additionally, users can edit existing expenses to update any details, ensuring flexibility and accuracy in maintaining records.

Category management is made easy with dynamic category sorting, which places the most recently used categories at the top of the list when adding new expenses. This feature enhances user convenience by allowing quick access to frequently used categories. Each expense category is also assigned a fixed color in the pie chart, providing visual consistency and making it easier for users to recognize categories at a glance.

Real Expense offers detailed expense visualization through a pie chart view, which provides a clear and concise overview of how expenses are distributed across different categories. In addition to the pie chart, users can view a list of categories with their respective totals, sorted in descending order of expense amount. This dual-view approach ensures users can quickly and easily understand their spending patterns.

To facilitate detailed analysis, the app includes a time range selector that allows users to filter expenses based on different time ranges, including all time, year-to-date, last year, and a specific year. For more detailed analysis, users can select a specific year using a picker, allowing them to drill down into their expenses for any given year. This time-based filtering is available in both the pie chart and list views, providing comprehensive insights into spending habits over time.

The app also offers robust export and print options. Users can generate a PDF of their expenses, which includes all relevant details and can be printed directly from the app. The PDF export supports different time ranges for customized reports. Additionally, users can export their expenses as a CSV file, making it easy to import the data into other applications for further analysis or record-keeping.

The user interface of Real Expense is designed for ease of use and intuitive navigation. Segmented pickers are used for selecting time ranges, providing a user-friendly interface. When selecting a specific year, a wheel picker is employed, offering a familiar and easy-to-use interface for year selection. The app utilizes a navigation view and forms to organize different sections, ensuring a clean and organized layout.

Overall, Real Expense is a powerful and comprehensive tool designed to streamline the process of tracking and managing expenses. With secure authentication, flexible expense addition and editing, dynamic category management, detailed visualization, and robust export options, it is an invaluable tool for personal or business finance management. Advanced features such as fixed category colors, recent category sorting, and detailed time-based filtering further enhance its usability, making it an essential app for anyone looking to efficiently manage their expenses.

Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 26, 2026

Real Expense helps you record financial activity, mileage, and business deals. This policy explains what information the app handles, why it is needed, where it is stored, and the choices available to you.

Information the app handles

Account and profile information

When you use Sign in with Apple, Apple and Firebase Authentication provide the identifiers and account information needed to sign you in. Depending on what you choose to share through Apple, this can include your name and email address. Real Expense stores your display name, account type, and last sign-in time with your account. If you add a profile photo, the photo is stored with your account.

Financial and user-provided content

The app stores the information you enter for expenses, income, and deals, including names, amounts, dates, categories, recurrence settings, notes, sources, sale prices, commission details, and related groupings. Receipt images that you attach are stored with the related financial record.

Trip, vehicle, and location information

Trip records can include dates and times, start and end locations, precise coordinates, formatted addresses, distance, purpose, classification, tolls, parking fees, notes, whether a trip was detected automatically, and vehicle details such as model, model year, and license plate.

When enabled, automatic trip tracking uses location and motion information to detect driving and create trip records. Activity reminders and frequently used places can also use location and time information. Quick-trip templates can contain saved addresses and coordinates.

Subscription information

Apple processes subscription purchases and billing through the App Store. Real Expense reads verified App Store transaction and entitlement status so it can provide subscription features. Real Expense does not receive your full payment-card information.

How information is used

Real Expense uses this information to:

• authenticate your account and protect access to your data;
• create, edit, categorize, summarize, print, and export your financial records;
• detect and record trips, suggest or resolve addresses using Apple Maps, calculate routes and mileage, and provide location-based reminders;
• synchronize your records across devices signed in to the same account;
• display your profile and verify subscription access; and
• use Firebase App Check and Apple app-attestation services to help identify legitimate app requests.

Real Expense does not sell your personal information. The app does not use your information for cross-app tracking or targeted advertising, and it does not send precise location coordinates or advertising identifiers to analytics services.

Where information is stored

Financial records, trips, deals, and supporting images are stored on your device. When you are signed in, account data and synchronized records are also stored in Google Firebase services, including Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore, and Cloud Storage. Firebase requests use authentication, per-user access rules, encryption in transit, and app-attestation signals where supported. Google may process this information as a service provider under its own privacy and security terms.

Firebase software may also process limited technical and diagnostic information needed to operate, secure, and improve the reliability of its services. Real Expense does not use that information for advertising or cross-app tracking and does not intentionally link it to the financial records you create.

Some preferences and supporting information remain on your device, including appearance settings, saved vehicles, quick-trip templates, recent location selections, activity-reminder locations, and frequent places. Local sensitive files use iOS data protection where supported. Information included in an iCloud or device backup is controlled by your Apple backup settings.

Address search, geocoding, directions, Sign in with Apple, App Store subscriptions, notifications, and device attestation use Apple services. Information sent to Apple is handled under Apple’s privacy policy.

Service providers that receive personal information are required to provide the same or equivalent protection described in this policy and required by applicable App Store rules and law.

Sharing and exports

Real Expense shares information with Google Firebase and Apple only as needed to provide the services described above. The app does not provide your records to other Real Expense users. If you create or share a PDF, CSV, or other report, the destination and recipients are selected by you and are outside Real Expense’s control after export.

Retention and deletion

On-device information remains until you delete it in the app, delete your account, or remove the app, subject to device backups that you control. Synchronized data remains in Firebase until you delete the related item or delete your account. A deletion may take additional time to complete when a device is offline or a service is temporarily unavailable. Service providers may retain limited backup copies or security records for a period required for reliability, fraud prevention, legal compliance, or enforcement of their terms.

The in-app Delete Account option requests deletion of your profile, expenses, income, trips, deals, profile image, Firebase Authentication account, and the app’s local copy. It also requests revocation of the Apple sign-in token when applicable. Deleting a Real Expense account does not automatically cancel an App Store subscription; subscriptions can be managed in your Apple ID subscription settings.

Your choices

• You can view, edit, or delete individual financial and trip records in the app.
• You can delete your Real Expense account and associated app data from Settings.
• You can disable location access in iOS Settings. Manual entry remains available, but automatic tracking, route calculation, address suggestions, or location reminders may be limited.
• You can disable notifications in iOS Settings.
• You choose whether to attach receipt or profile images and whether to export or share reports.

Security

Real Expense uses reasonable administrative and technical safeguards designed to protect personal information, including Sign in with Apple, Firebase Authentication, owner-scoped database and storage access, Firebase App Check signals, encrypted network connections, and iOS file protection. No storage or transmission system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Changes and contact

This policy may be updated when the app or its services change. The current version will show its latest revision date.

For privacy questions or requests, contact updates@realexpense.com.

• Google Firebase privacy and security information
• Apple Privacy Policy