Quick Start
Your first five minutes with ZeniCash
Seven small decisions, in the order the app asks them. None is hard to change later — but made now, the records start out the way they will be needed at month-end.
Not installed yet? Google Play · App Store. Free, no ads, no sign-up.
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Decide whether to sign in — nothing else is required
ZeniCash works entirely on the phone, offline, with no account. Signing in with Google or Apple is only for cloud sync (Premium): the same records on up to 4 devices, receipt files included. It is a decision, never a requirement — while sync is off, nothing leaves the phone.
Where it is
- Settings › Cloud Sync
The free plan keeps one device in sync; Premium keeps four. Sync is never switched on by itself.
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Check the currency and formats — they are already set
A new install opens in the currency, date order, decimal separator and symbol position of the phone's region (100 € in Portugal, $100 in the United States), with the theme following the phone. There is nothing to configure before the first movement; if the region guessed wrong, the fix is one tap.
Where it is
- Settings › Language & Currency › Default Currency
- Settings › Formats
Installed the app before version 1.5.0? Nothing changes — these defaults apply to new installs only.
Where the default currency and the formats live. (One clip shared across languages — interface in English.) -
Business and personal: keep both, or pick one side
Every movement, account, budget and document can be marked Professional, so one app holds both lives and the reports and the accountant package filter on it. Someone who uses the app only for themselves — or only for the business — does not need that mark at all.
- Both
- — each record chooses. The default.
- Personal only
- — the mark disappears from the app.
- Business only
- — everything recorded is born professional; the personal side goes out of view.
Where it is
- Settings › Formats › Professional
Switching a side off hides nothing already recorded. My business (Premium) keeps the company name, tax number and logo, and recognises the company's own documents.
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Name your accounts — short, and one per currency
The app is born with one wallet in the default currency. Add the bank accounts, cards and cash you actually use, each with its own currency, an opening balance and the date it refers to. Short names read better everywhere the account is listed — "Bank €", "Travel card", "Cash".
Where it is
- Menu › Accounts › +
Free: up to 3 accounts. Two accounts may share a name (the app warns and asks) — they stay separate, because an account is identified by its own code, never by its name.
Creating an account, and the Professional switch on it. (One clip shared across languages — interface in English.) -
Keep the default categories — add a project only if you bill by job
ZeniCash ships with categories for personal and professional spending, each with subcategories; renaming or adding is a tap, and the + asks first which kind is being created — personal or professional, expense or income. Projects (Premium) answer a question categories cannot: what did this job, this client, this site cost in total, across categories and months.
Where it is
- Menu › Categories
- Settings › Formats › Projects (Premium)
A category can also be created from inside the movement form, without leaving it.
The categories screen and creating a subcategory. (One clip shared across languages — interface in English.) -
Log the first expense by photographing the receipt
Tap +, choose Expense, and use Scan. On the free plan the photo is attached to the movement; on Premium the app reads the receipt while the camera is aimed at it — supplier, tax number, document number, date and amount — on the phone, before the photo is even taken. From the second receipt of the same supplier it knows where the fields are.
Where it is
- + › Expense › Scan (or Attach for a file already on the phone)
Up to two files per movement, photo or PDF. Attaching is free; the automatic reading is Premium.
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If someone owes you money, switch the Entity field on
Entities are customers, suppliers, the tax office — anyone money moves to or from. With the field on, a movement recorded with an entity and a document number creates the document in that entity's current account (Premium), so who owes what, and since when, is visible without a spreadsheet.
Where it is
- Settings › Formats › Entity Field — Disabled, Optional or Required
- Menu › Entities and Documents (Premium)
Required is the right setting for a business that invoices; Optional for someone who mostly tracks personal spending with an occasional client.
Path to the Entity Field setting and its three options. (One clip shared across languages — interface in English.)
After the first five minutes
The help guides take each of these further, by the problem it solves: who owes you, receipts for the accountant, a cash-flow forecast, several currencies, a new phone, one book shared with a team or a family.
One small thing worth knowing: a few screen titles — Settings, Accounts, Documents, Reports, Recurring, Calendar, and the Expense / Income / Transfer tabs — can be renamed with a long-press on the title itself, per language, with a way back to the original. Nothing else in the app is renamed that way.