How can we help?
Getting started
Do I need an account to use Cently?
No. The app works straight out of the store with everything kept on the phone. An account only comes into it if you turn on Pro sync.
How do I move to a new phone?
Make an encrypted backup on the old phone and restore it on the new one. With Pro sync, restore your vault on the new phone with your recovery phrase and everything comes across.
Which currencies and countries does it support?
Any. Cently picks yours from your region, and you can change it at any time. Festival suggestions follow the same setting.
Capture Android and iPhone
Does Cently need my bank password?
No, never. Cently doesn't ask for banking credentials and doesn't connect to your bank.
Can my iPhone add bank messages automatically?
Yes, after one setup. Apple allows no app to read your messages, so Cently can't do it by itself — but your iPhone's own Shortcuts app can forward them. In Cently, open Import from SMS and follow “Capture bank messages automatically”: it creates an automation that hands each bank message to Cently as it arrives, without asking you each time.
The messages wait in your Inbox to confirm the next time you open Cently, and nothing leaves the phone. Without the automation you can still paste or share a message, scan a receipt, or add a spend in two taps.
On Android none of this is needed: reading the bank messages you already receive is allowed, and Cently does it on the phone.
My Android isn't picking up a bank's messages
Check that message access is granted in the app's settings, and that the message came from a sender Cently recognises. For a format it doesn't know yet, you can send an anonymised example from the app (you choose what's removed first) so it can be added in an update.
Can Cently read my older messages?
Yes, on Android. Import from SMS looks at the last 90 days first; if there's nothing there, it offers to search all your older messages too.
Budgets
How is Safe-to-Spend worked out?
It takes your income and budgets for the month, subtracts what you've spent and the bills still to come, and spreads what's left over the days remaining.
Can I add a festival that isn't listed?
Yes. Add your own with a date and a budget, and it behaves like the suggested ones.
Pro and billing
How do I cancel Pro?
In the App Store or Google Play subscriptions screen, where the subscription is billed. Your data stays on the phone; the Pro features simply stop.
How do I redeem a code?
Open Cently, go to the Pro screen and tap “Have a code?”. The store takes it from there. Full steps for iPhone and Android.
Privacy and data
Does it work without internet?
Yes. Everything works offline except sync and Ask Cently, which need a connection by their nature.
What exactly leaves my phone?
Only what you switch on. The Privacy page lists each feature, what it sends, to whom, and whether it is end-to-end encrypted.
Troubleshooting
A spend was added twice
Cently keeps a fingerprint of each captured message to skip duplicates, but a pasted message and an automatic one can occasionally overlap. Delete either entry and the budget corrects itself.
A receipt scan read the wrong amount
Tap the entry and correct it. The photo stays attached, and nothing is sent anywhere to be re-checked.
I'm not getting reminders
In Cently, open Settings, then Notifications, and tap “Send a test notification”. If nothing appears, notifications are turned off for Cently in your phone's settings.
No answers match that
Try a shorter word, or write to us below.
Reporting a problem privately
Crash reports are off unless you turn them on, so we won't have seen the error. A short description of what you did is more useful to us than any log.