Guide

How JayCK Flow works

Every screen and every button — what it's called, where it lives, and what it does. The app is a forecast, not a ledger: you tell it what's coming, and it shows you the balance you'll actually have on any future day.

One account Main screen Views Adding money What if? Widgets Menu Cards Savings Debts Settings Account & sync First run & starting over

One account, and what happens to everything else

JayCK Flow tracks a single balance: the money you can actually spend right now — your cash and debit as one pool. It never asks what's on your credit card or in your savings account, and there's nowhere to add them. That's deliberate: the forecast only works if there's one number to forecast.

Everything else is a direction money flows to, recorded on the day it leaves:

The short version: if it changes the money in your pocket, put it on the day it changes. If it doesn't, mark it so it can't move the forecast.

The main screen

Three bands, top to bottom: a toolbar, your balance card, and the calendar itself.

Toolbar

‹ 2026 top left
Zooms out. From the month view it opens the year; from a day it goes back to that day's month. In the year view it just shows the year.
Cloud with a line top centre
Appears only when sync is paused — your session ended or the subscription lapsed. Tap-free indicator; the banner underneath explains what to do.
What if? top right
Enters the sandbox. See What if? below.
☰ Menu far top right
Transactions, Finances, Analytics, Settings, and Account & sync all live here.

Balance card

Balance now
Your balance today: the anchor balance plus everything that has happened since.
Pencil icon
Opens Anchor — the starting balance and the date it applies from. The forecast is built forward from that point, so to include older transactions, set the anchor date earlier than them.
Reconcile icon
Opens Reconcile balance: type what's really in the account right now and the forecast restarts from today. Use it when real life has drifted from the plan. As you type it does the subtraction for you — "We expected 1,240. That's 340 less than we had." It states the gap and stops there: what the gap was is yours to know, not ours to guess.
Reserved · Available
Shows only when savings goals hold a reserve. Reserved money stays in your balance but is treated as spoken for, so Available is what you can actually spend.
Overdue
Past expenses you never marked done, with their total. Shows only when there are some.
Unconfirmed
Past income you never marked received. Kept separate from Overdue and never summed with it, because they are different news with different owners: one is yours to settle, the other is someone else's to pay — and a combined figure would hide both. Deliberately not called overdue; a payment that has not arrived is not late by anything you did.
Card colour
The card tints away from green while either of the two above is showing. Both mean the same thing about the balance printed on it: it may not be true yet.
Lowest point
The lowest your balance is projected to fall, and the date it happens. This is the number the whole app exists for — a green dot means it stays safe, red means you dip below your buffer.

The calendar grid

A day cell
The date, any transactions on it, and the projected balance after that day. Tap it to open that day.
Day colour
A red date means the projected balance is below zero (or below your buffer) that day. Black is fine.
2/4 badge
Ticked off vs. planned for that day, when only one direction is left to confirm. Amber for money going out, blue for money coming in.
+1 −3 badge
When both directions are still unconfirmed there is no room for fractions, so the badge shows what is left: +1 payment in and −3 out. It never shows a zero — a direction that is fully confirmed simply disappears.
Red badge
A past day with something you never marked. The colour replaces the direction here, because an unconfirmed past row means the balance above may not be true — and that is equally so whether a bill went out or a payment failed to arrive. The + and − still tell the two apart.
✓ badge
Everything on that day is marked — money in as well as money out.
Small number, left gutter
The ISO week number. It turns red when that week contains a risk day.
Today
Today's date is circled. The bottom-right Today pill jumps you back to it from anywhere.
+ bottom right
Adds a transaction on the selected day.

The three views

Month
The default. Scrolls continuously through months, so next month is one swipe away rather than a separate screen.
Day
Tap any date. Shows everything on that day, each with a done tick and an edit tap; also scrolls day by day.
Year
Tap ‹ from the month view. Twelve mini-months at a glance for spotting rough patches; tap a month to open it.

On iPad and Mac the app uses a two-column layout instead: the calendar on the right, and your balance, transactions and category totals in a permanent sidebar on the left.

Adding and editing money

Tap +, or tap any existing transaction. The same editor handles both.

Name
What it is — "Rent", "Spotify", "Salary".
Type
Expense, Income, or Transfer (money moving between your own accounts).
Amount · Date
How much, and the day it lands.
Repeat
Once, daily, weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly, yearly, or every N days. A repeating entry fills the calendar forward on its own — this is what turns one payday into a visible future.
End date
Optional. Stops a series on a date — a loan that finishes, a subscription you're cancelling. Set one by accident? The ✕ beside the field clears it, and the dates after it come back. The same ✕ clears the optional dates on debts and savings goals.
Category
Feeds the category totals and Analytics. You can add your own in Settings.
Notes
Optional free text.
Duplicate · Delete · Save
Duplicate copies the entry for quick variations. Save applies; Delete removes.

Marking things off

Done tick
In the day view. Marks the transaction as actually completed, which keeps "how many still pending" honest and drives the day badges. It matters just as much on income: a past payment the app has recorded is counted in your balance whether or not you confirmed it, so a paycheck that never arrived is money the forecast is promising you. Marking income received is what clears that.
Eye — hide
Takes the row off your balance for good: money that was never yours to spend. It stays in your history and in its category, and its name and amount are struck through with a solid line. Offered on every row.
↗ — on a card
Only on an expense. Asks which card, then takes the purchase off today’s balance and brings the money back on that card’s payment day. Struck through with a dashed line, because it is not gone — it is later. A row can be hidden or on a card, never both, and neither is offered while the row is marked completed.

Editing a repeating transaction

Change or delete one and the app asks what you meant — This event only, This and following, or All events in the series. Nothing is guessed for you.

What if?

The sandbox. Tap What if? and the app enters Safe mode: add, change or delete anything and watch every future day re-colour — nothing is written to your data and nothing syncs until you decide.

Apply
Keeps the changes for real.
Discard
Throws the whole experiment away and restores exactly what you had.
Outlook
A forward summary over 3 or 6 months: end-of-month balance, the lowest point, and a list of upcoming risk days.
Variable spending forecast in Outlook
Estimates your irregular day-to-day spending from your own history and places predicted expenses on future dates. It's an estimate, it sharpens as history builds, and it's dropped when you leave the sandbox.
Count transfers in Outlook
Includes recurring outgoing transfers (like credit-card repayments) as their own streams. Needs a few transfers sharing a name.

Widgets

Four Home Screen widgets, added the usual way: press and hold the Home Screen, tap Edit → Add Widget, and search for JayCK Flow. Each is its own widget with its own settings — long-press a placed widget and choose Edit Widget to reach them.

Day small
Today: the date, up to three items, and the balance the day ends on. Setting: Only unfinished hides what is already settled.
Balance medium
The app’s balance card on your Home Screen: the figure, reserved money, the lowest point ahead, anything overdue or unconfirmed. Each line can be switched off — the balance itself always shows. The card wears the app’s own colour: green when the balance is safe, amber when it may not be true yet, red when the projection goes below zero.
Day & Weeks medium
Today’s list beside last week, this week and next — a three-week strip with the app’s own day badges. Settings: Only unfinished, and day pills on or off.
Month large
The whole month as the app draws it: day badges and the projected balance under every date. Setting: day pills on or off.
Tapping
The Day widget — and the day half of Day & Weeks — opens the app on that day. The weeks strip and the Month widget open the month. Balance opens the app where you left it.
While "What if?" is on
Widgets do not move. The sandbox stays inside the app; your Home Screen keeps showing the real numbers until you tap Apply.
Card purchases
In a widget, a purchase charged to a card shows a green tick. On the Home Screen the question is does this still need me? — and a charged purchase does not. In the app the same row keeps its dashed strike, because there you can still open and change it.

Private like everything else: a widget reads a snapshot the app saves on your device and never goes online. Before the app has been opened at least once, widgets say there is nothing to show yet — they never invent numbers. One current limit: press-and-hold on the app icon offers only the small size; add the medium and large widgets from the widget gallery.

Transactions
Every entry in one list, with search, a period filter (this month / 3 months / this year), status filters (all / done / planned) and a by-category grouping.
Finances
Cards, Savings, Debts, and an in-app "How it works" explainer.
Analytics
Income vs. expense and spending by category, over 1, 3, 6 or 12 months. Two buttons above the chart choose what "spending" means: Left the account counts money that actually left, so card purchases appear only when you pay the card; What you spent on counts card purchases in their categories on the day you made them and sets the repayment transfer aside. Two honest views of the same money — neither ever counts it twice.
Settings
Preferences, categories, notifications, backup. See below.
Account & sync
Sign-in, subscription and encrypted sync. See below.

Credit cards

A card is a delay, not a second account. You still have one balance; a card just moves when the money leaves it.

Add cards in Finances → Cards. A card needs a name and its closing date — pick the date, and the day of the month becomes the recurring one. A card that closes on the 31st is paid on the 30th in April and the 28th in February, the way a bank does it, never skipping a month.

Then, for a purchase you put on that card:

A repeating expense on a card. Marking a subscription to a card asks how far you mean it: this event only, or this and following — from that month on, every occurrence goes to the card by itself. Taking it off the card asks the same question. There is no “all events” here, because a card charge cannot reach into months that are already settled — and un-marking the only charged occurrence never asks at all: one tap, as before.

The list is yours to arrange. In Finances → Cards, drag cards into your own order (the handle appears under My order), or sort by name or closing day — sorting is a view, your order is kept. A card you no longer use can be hidden instead of deleted: it disappears from every picker, while its history and statements stay exactly as they were and the calendar does not change by a cent. If the card still owes something, the app names the amount and asks first. Hidden cards wait in their own section at the bottom of the list — one switch brings a card back.

Moving the remainder yourself. The carry happens on its own once the closing date passes, and that is deliberate: an unpaid figure hanging there until its day is the consequence of not acting, and hiding it would be doing you a favour you did not ask for. But you do not have to wait. Beside Carries to the next period there is an arrow that moves it now, and beside From the previous period a second one that puts it back — because you are allowed to change your mind. Both ask before they act. The one that puts it back appears only while the cycle it came from is still open: on the closing day it is the last chance, and the day after it is gone.

A statement on every closing date. Even one with nothing on it. The date is the card's rhythm, and an empty statement tells you where a purchase will land before you make it — and that the app is not simply silent about that month.

Paying early. You do not have to wait for that row. Create an ordinary transfer, pick the card in it, and it counts against whichever cycle its date falls in. A transfer in JayCK Flow means paying off a card — money you hand to someone else is an expense, so it lands in a category where you can see it.

When there is nothing left to pay, the row stays as a statement: zero to pay, with the report intact. “Paid” and “never happened” are different facts, and a row that vanished could not tell them apart. Overpay and the statement says so: the carry shows as a credit, and it comes off the next cycle. The row itself never adds money to your balance — being ahead on a card is not cash in your hand.

A card that already owes something. Cards start at zero, because the app only knows what you tell it. If yours has a balance the day you add it, record that balance as one expense on the card — name it something like “opening balance”, date it, and mark it to the card with ↗. From then on the statement is the real figure, not just what you have entered since.

Cashback and refunds. Money coming back onto the card is a transfer to it. Enter the cashback as income — from the bank, on the day it arrived — and a transfer of the same amount to the card. The card owes that much less, and your balance is unchanged, which is what actually happened. A refund works the same way, though if it is recent you may find it simpler to correct the purchase itself.

Verified, not suggested: an opening balance of $800 plus a $100 purchase shows $900 owed on the closing date; a $65 cashback entered this way brings it to $835.

What the app will not do. It does not hold a card balance, a credit limit, a minimum payment or interest. It has no way to know any of them, and guessing would put a number on your screen that nothing can check. What it forecasts is what it can see: the purchases you marked and the payments you made.

Savings

A savings goal is an earmark, not a second account. The money stays in your balance, but reserving it lowers your Available figure so you don't spend it twice. Each goal has a rule that decides what the app suggests setting aside:

Fixed amount
The same amount every month.
% of income
A share of what you actually earn. Prompts you right after you record income.
Target by date
Name a sum and a deadline; the app works out the monthly share needed to get there.
Emergency fund
Target = N months of your average expenses, built up by a monthly contribution.
Round-up
Rounds each completed expense up to your chosen base and reserves the change — automatically, as you tick things done.
52-week
The classic challenge: week 1 saves one unit, week 2 saves two, and so on.
Save the raise
Reserves only what you earn above a baseline income, so a good month builds the goal instead of the lifestyle.

Reserve sets money aside (you can type your own amount), Withdraw releases it when you actually use the goal, and Skip dismisses a suggestion until the next period. Reserving never creates a transaction — no money "leaves", your safe-to-spend simply drops.

Debts

Each debt is a balance, an APR, and a minimum monthly payment. From those the app builds a payoff plan.

Strategy: Avalanche
Highest interest rate first — mathematically cheapest.
Strategy: Snowball
Smallest balance first — quick wins, better momentum.
Extra / month
Anything you can put in above the minimums. Use surplus fills in a figure your forecast can actually support.
Debt-free in · Total interest · Payoff order
The plan's output: when you finish, what it costs you, and which debt to attack first.
Show payments in calendar
Overlays the planned monthly payments onto the forecast, so the lowest point reflects what debt repayment really does to your cash flow. These are projections, not real transactions.
Record payment
When you actually pay: lowers the debt balance and writes a real completed expense on today. The plan recalculates from there.

Settings

Preferences

Anchor & categories

Anchor is the same starting-balance editor the pencil on the balance card opens. Categories lets you add your own, rename them, and hide built-in ones you don't use; deleting a category moves its transactions to "Other".

Notifications

Upcoming transactions, the reconcile reminder and the savings nudge, each switchable. You can set the lead time (morning of, 1 day, 3 days), the time of day, which transactions count (all, expenses only, unpaid only), and a minimum amount so small stuff stays quiet. Reminders are scheduled on your device and fire offline.

Data & backup

Export to file (.json)
Writes a readable copy of everything to your device. No subscription needed — it's your data.
Import from file
Restores a backup. It replaces the current data on this device (and, if sync is on, propagates).
Reset & start over
Deletes all your data and restarts the setup flow. If sync is on, the wipe reaches your synced storage too — the confirmation says so and suggests exporting first.

Account & sync

The app works completely without an account. An account exists only to keep several devices in step.

Sign in / create account
By email, or with Apple or Google.
Passphrase
Your data is encrypted on the device with this passphrase before it ever leaves, so the server only holds an unreadable blob. Use the same passphrase on every device. It is never sent to us and cannot be recovered — a wrong one shows a clear error and never overwrites anything.
Sync now
Forces a round. Sync otherwise runs by itself after edits and when the app reopens.
Status line
Synced · Offline (changes are saved locally and go up when you're back) · Download-only (the subscription ended: your data still downloads, uploading resumes when you renew) · Sync failed with the reason.
Restore purchases
Re-applies a subscription bought with the same Apple ID.
Delete account
Asks you to type your email, then permanently removes the account and the encrypted vault from the servers. Data already on your device stays.

Editing always works offline. Sync is a convenience layer on top of an offline-first app, never a requirement for using it.

First run & starting over

On a fresh install the app walks you through building your own calendar: your balance today, your last income and whether it repeats, one regular bill — and then it shows you your own month with your own numbers. There is no sample data anywhere; everything you see is yours. You can take the quick path instead ("Skip for now"), answer the single balance question, and start from an empty calendar.

Want to run through it again? Settings → Reset & start over clears your data and restarts the flow. Export a backup first if there's any chance you'll want the old data back.

Still stuck? The app has a short "How it works" explainer under Finances, and a real person answers support@jayck.dev — see the support page for common questions.