Comparison

Expense Tool vs BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Expense Tool

Track personal and shared expenses with detailed logging, receipt attachments, and location mapping. Generate summaries and balances for group spending, and export your data in various formats.

Highlights
  • Define custom expense sets
  • Attach receipts, photos, and locations
  • Fast data capture with autocompletion
  • Expense summaries and balances
  • Export data (HTML, Text, CSV)
  • Map integration
  • Passcode lock
Features
Read full description

Organize your own and shared expenses. Do you and your partner want to log how much you're spending for your household and merge the expenses entered on your individual devices? Are you on holidays with friends and want to know how much you are spending? If you are sharing your expenses, do you need a tool to document your balances and debts to one another? Are you sharing a holiday or a household with others and would you like everyone to log their own expenses into one common list, each on their own device? Do you want to know how much you're spending for your hobby, on your business trip, or any other expenses? Use Expense Tool, create an expense set and start entering your data. Your expenses can be listed, shown on a map, exported (by email or to a file) and printed. Expense Sets can be synced across your own devices via iCloud, shared with other people, or transferred directly from device to device. If more than one person is part of an expense set, you get a summary showing the total of all individual expenses and the balance of the shared expenses. Features: • Define Expense Sets with custom settings • Add expenses and optionally attach receipts, photos and locations • Fast data capture: Select with autocompletion what you've already entered • List your expenses: all, by month, by week or within a custom timeframe • Expense list sections: by person, by expense caption • Summary and Balance of shared expenses • Overview of all expense sets • iCloud Synchronization — enable per Expense Set • iCloud Sharing — share an Expense Set with others • Export your data: email, PDF, or save to a file (CSV with receipts and photos, bundled as a .zip) • Receipts: Document Scanner (iOS only) • Printing • Data Exchange between iPhone, iPad and Mac • Geocoding and map integration • Backup and Import • Passcode Lock (iOS only) • iPhone, iPad, Mac • Languages: English, German, Italian, French, Spanish Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Terms and Conditions: https://www.jo-tools.ch/expense-tool/terms_and_conditions.html Privacy Policy: https://www.jo-tools.ch/expense-tool/privacy_policy.html Support / FAQ: https://www.jo-tools.ch/expense-tool/

About

BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger

Read full description

Your checkbook register, kept the way you have always kept it. Write down what you spend. Tick off what the bank has cleared. Balance to the penny at the end of the month. That is the whole job of a checkbook register, and it is all this app does. THREE PROMISES No ads. Not on the free version, not after you pay, not ever, on any screen. No subscription. One payment and it is yours. Nothing renews. No account and no bank login. There is nothing to sign into, so there is nothing to be signed out of. YOUR REGISTER STAYS ON YOUR PHONE Everything you enter is stored on your own iPhone. It works with no internet connection at all, on a plane or out of signal. Your register is never sent to us and never sold to anyone. A copy leaves your phone only in ways you control. If iCloud Backup is switched on, your register is included in it, so it comes back when you set up a new phone. That copy sits in your own Apple account, not ours, and you turn it on or off in Settings. The app never shows you a permission prompt. It does not ask for your contacts, your location, your photos or your camera. WHAT IT DOES - Multiple accounts: checking, savings, credit, cash, each with its own running balance - Fast entry: date, payee, amount, check number, category, memo. Repeat entries take seconds, and check numbers advance on their own. - A proper register list with a running balance on every single line - Reconcile mode: enter the statement date and ending balance, tick off what cleared, and watch the difference count down to 0.00 - Scheduled and recurring entries: weekly, every two or four weeks, monthly, twice a year or yearly, or on a set weekday, like the second Wednesday of the month. They show up as scheduled and only affect your projected balance until you post them. Nothing is ever posted behind your back. - Transfers between your own accounts, entered once and mirrored on both sides - Search by payee, memo, amount or check number, with filters for what is outstanding, what cleared, and what is scheduled - Categories, both the presets and your own - Totals by category for a month, three months or a year, with the exact figures printed beside the chart. Scheduled bills are not counted until you post them. - Bring your history in from a CSV file, with a column mapper for spreadsheet users - Print or save a PDF of your register or of those category totals, or export a CSV of any account BACKUPS, BECAUSE THAT IS THE PART THAT MATTERS The app backs itself up on its own, every day you open it, and gives you a Restore screen to go back to any copy it has kept. You can also send a copy out of the app, so deleting the app does not reach it. Pick a folder and every copy after that goes there too. If you are signed in to iCloud with iCloud Drive turned on, the app also keeps a BalanceWright folder there by itself, and you can open it in the Files app. If you are not signed in, the Backup screen says so rather than claiming a copy it did not make. Your data is never held hostage. Export and backup keep working whether you have paid or not. TRY THE WHOLE THING FIRST Everything works from the moment you install it. Nothing is crippled, grayed out or hidden to push you into paying. The app asks for payment only after you have closed your first statement, so you decide once you have watched it do the exact thing you came for. If you never reconcile, a generous entry limit applies instead. BIG, PLAIN TYPE Built to be read. Large numbers, strong contrast, plain words, no jargon. WHAT IT WILL NEVER DO No bank connection. No budgets, no spending advice, no AI. No ads, no subscription. If a feature would need your register sent to us, it is not going in. ANSWERED BY A REAL PERSON Every review here is read and answered. The support address on this page reaches someone who can actually fix things. Written for anyone who keeps a check register or a checkbook ledger by hand, and wants the same habit on a phone.

Screenshots

Expense Tool4 screens
BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is device support: Expense Tool at 4 against BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger's 1. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Expense Tool sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per 3 months and BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Expense Tool ships an update every 3 weeks, BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Expense Tool versus BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterExpense ToolBalanceWright Checkbook Ledger
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.5 (2 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews66.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.0 — better16.4
Further details — not scored
Size32 MB60 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJuerg OtterFarrukh Ameen

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Expense Tool

Subscriptions4
  • Plus Quarterly$0.993 Months
  • Pro Quarterly14 Days trial$1.993 Months
  • Plus Yearly$2.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Pro Yearly14 Days trial$4.991 Year
One-time1
  • Pro (Lifetime)$19.99
1 purchases

BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger

One-time1
  • Own Your Register$9.99

Questions

Is Expense Tool free?
Expense Tool is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger free?
BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Expense Tool or BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger have ads?
Neither Expense Tool nor BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Expense Tool or BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger?
Expense Tool ships an update every 3 weeks, and BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger fortnightly. Most recently, Expense Tool was updated on October 21, 2026 and BalanceWright Checkbook Ledger on October 11, 2026.

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