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Logging income, expenses and transfers in seconds

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Every expense, income or transfer is a movement — the heart of the app. This guide covers the form, the fields worth switching on, the Professional mark that keeps two lives in one book, and the one thing a movement will not do: sit in the future.

Logging an expense

1. At the bottom of the dashboard, tap − for an expense, + for an income or ⇄ for a transfer. The form opens on that kind — the tabs at the top change it — and on the account selected on the dashboard, if one is; otherwise on the default account.
2. Type the amount, pick the account and the category — holding a category shows its full name. When the categories do not fit in two rows, the grid scrolls inside its box; from version 1.7.4 the top of the next row shows at the edge, so it is clear there are more.
3. Save — the button stays fixed at the bottom of the screen and rises with the keyboard.

A transfer moves money between two of your accounts; it has no category and no entity. One account goes down, the other goes up by the same, and the total does not move. A transfer between accounts in different currencies asks for both amounts — what left and what arrived — and keeps the implied rate on the movement.

From version 1.7.6 a transfer is on the side of the account the money leaves: between two personal accounts it is personal, between two of the business it is professional, and between the two sides it takes the side of the account it leaves. The Personal only and Business only modes still have the last word. Before, a transfer could keep the PRO mark of the default account the form opened on; with the update, in the Both mode, the transfers already recorded between two accounts of the same side take that side.

A transfer between an account of the business and one of your own is a different animal. The money has moved, but so has a debt: the business now owes you, or you owe it, and a balance alone will never say how much. When the two accounts are on opposite sides, the transfer form shows a box, Track on the entity statement (loan), unticked. Leave it and the movement is a plain transfer. Tick it and it also goes onto the statement of your business — the one set up in Settings › Premium › My business: money from you to the business adds to what it owes you, money from the business to you takes from it, and that statement keeps the running balance. It is a Premium feature — see lending money and keeping the real category.

The fields worth switching on

The form shows exactly what is needed. Three fields are switched on or off in Settings › Formats: the Note, the Entity (Disabled, Optional or Required) and Projects (Premium). The others appear on their own: the subcategory when the chosen category has subcategories — and then saving asks for one — and, on Premium, the document number once an entity is filled in. With the Entity field on, a movement recorded with an entity and a document number creates the document in that entity's current account (Premium): the invoice is registered and paid in one go.

The entity is who was paid, or who paid. The field has three settings: Disabled hides it; Optional shows it and lets it stay empty — the usual place to start; Required makes it mandatory on every expense and income.

The entity is typed or chosen: while typing, the field suggests the names it already knows; the arrow opens the full list, with search. An expense is never offered customers, and an income is never offered suppliers. A name that is not on the list yet does not stop the movement: saving offers to create it — as a supplier for an expense, as a client for an income.

The Professional mark

What most personal-finance apps do not do: ZeniCash tells professional movements from personal ones in the same book. Mark the expense as Professional and it enters the business reports without leaving your own accounts — no second app, no second bank account. On an account marked Professional the movement is born professional, and the categories offered are the business ones. If the app is used only for one side, the mark can be switched off entirely; see Keeping business and personal money apart.

Attaching a receipt

Up to two files per movement, photo or PDF, with Attach or Scan. Attaching is free on every plan; the automatic reading of the receipt — supplier, tax number, number, date and amount — is Premium and is covered in Scanning a receipt.

Reading the dashboard

With a few movements in, the dashboard tells the story. From version 1.7.5 it always opens on all accounts, with no card selected; until then it could open on the default account alone. Each account card filters the screen to that account. To see all accounts again: on Android, the Back button; on the iPhone, from version 1.7.3, the ‹ arrow at the left of the header, which shows while a card is selected. Touching a slice of the chart shows its total in the centre; tapping it lists its movements, with a + that starts a new one with the category and the account already chosen. Tapping Income switches the chart to what came in.

What the dashboard shows is set in Settings › Formats › What to show on the dashboard — a pie chart, horizontal bars, or Dues (Premium), what is still to receive and to pay — and Chart period sets what the chart and the Income and Expense figures above it cover: everything (the starting choice), the year, the quarter, the month or the week. From version 1.7.4, whenever it is not the month, a line above those figures names the period and its dates — Chart period: All · up to 16/10/2026 — so they are not read as the month's; Reports always shows the period chosen there.

Finding a movement again

Menu › Transactions holds the whole book, grouped by day. The filter button narrows it — by type, to what is professional, to several categories at once, personal and business, or to an entity, found even from part of its name. Every active filter shows at the top, and its cross removes it. The calendar icon changes the period, from a single day to everything, and the arrows move from month to month.

What each line shows is set in Settings › Transaction info: the account, the date, the category and the PRO tag always show; the subcategory, the entity, the note — and, where they are in use, the project and the document number — can be switched on. A swipe to the left deletes a movement, and the app asks first.

Why the date never goes past today

A movement is money that has already moved, which is why saving one changes the balance immediately. For what is still to come there are three places of their own: documents with a due date, recurring movements for what repeats, and planned events in the cash flow for what is known to be coming once. The one exception is paying an instalment from a recurring movement: there the date is the instalment's, and that is how the app knows which period has been paid.

Every form looks the same

The category grid, the subcategory chips, the Professional button and the entity list are the same in the movement, the document, the account, the category, the budget, the schedule and the project. Learn one, know them all.

Checked against ZeniCash 1.5.0 on 2026-09-10. Where a feature is Premium, it says so.