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Surplus is a personal finance app that gives you a complete picture of your money. Track your budget, bank accounts, investments, crypto, real estate, recurring bills, savings goals, and more — all in one place. Connect your accounts automatically or add them manually.

Tap "Sign in with Apple" on the welcome screen. Your Apple ID is used to create your Surplus account securely. We never see your Apple ID password.

Yes. Every new user gets a 7-day free trial with full access to all premium features. No credit card is required to start your trial. After the trial ends, you can subscribe monthly or yearly to continue using Surplus.

When your free trial expires, you'll see the subscription screen. Choose either:

• Monthly — billed every month

• Yearly — billed annually (saves ~33%)

Subscriptions are managed through your Apple ID. You can cancel anytime from your iPhone's Settings > Apple ID > Subscriptions.

Go to Settings > Subscription > Restore Purchases. This syncs your subscription status with the App Store. Use this if you reinstalled the app or switched devices.

Surplus subscriptions are managed through Apple. Go to iPhone Settings > [Your Name] > Subscriptions > Surplus and tap "Cancel Subscription." You'll retain access until the end of your current billing period.

• Go to the Accounts tab

• Tap the + button

• Choose Link Account

• Search for your bank or institution

• Sign in with your bank credentials through the secure Plaid connection

• Select the accounts you'd like to track

Your bank credentials are handled securely by Plaid and are never stored on our servers.

Surplus uses Plaid to connect to over 12,000 financial institutions in the United States, including all major banks (Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, Capital One, etc.), credit unions, and brokerage firms.

Yes. When linking through Plaid, select your brokerage (Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, Robinhood, etc.) and choose the investment accounts you'd like to track. Your holdings, cost basis, and performance will sync automatically.

Surplus supports Apple Wallet integration for Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Apple Savings accounts. Go to Accounts > + > Apple Wallet to connect. This requires granting Surplus permission to access your Apple financial data.

You can add any account manually. Go to Accounts > + > Add Manual Account, enter your account name, type, and current balance. You'll need to update the balance manually going forward.

Go to the Accounts tab, tap the account you want to remove, then tap Delete Account. This removes the account and its transaction history from Surplus. Your actual bank account is not affected.

Try pulling down to refresh on the Accounts tab. If the balance is still incorrect:

• Check when the account was last synced (shown on the account)

• Try unlinking and relinking the account

• If the issue persists, email the developer at surplus@surplus-budget.com

Yes. Bank connections are handled by Plaid, an industry-leading financial data provider used by thousands of apps. Your bank login credentials are encrypted and never stored on Surplus servers. We only receive read-only access to your account balances and transactions.

Surplus calculates your Free Cash — the money left over after all your budgeted expenses. Here's how it works:

• Total Income — all income from recurring items and transactions

• Fixed Expenses — bills and expenses that don't change (rent, subscriptions, loan payments, etc.)

• Variable Expenses — expenses that fluctuate but are expected (groceries, gas, utilities, etc.)

• Flexible Expenses — unaccounted-for, random spending that doesn't fit neatly into a category (impulse buys, one-off purchases, misc. spending)

• Free Cash = Income − Fixed − Variable − Flexible expenses

The Budget tab gives you a clear breakdown of each section so you always know exactly how much money you have left to spend freely.

The budget automatically populates from your recurring income and expenses. To fine-tune:

• Go to the Budget tab

• Tap any category to adjust its monthly budget amount

• Add "Extra" budget to categories where you spend beyond recurring amounts

• Exclude categories that aren't part of your monthly spending (like savings transfers)

Categories are grouped into logical sections (Housing, Transportation, Food, etc.). Each category has:

• An icon and color for easy identification

• A monthly budget amount

• Tracking against actual spending

Yes. On the Budget tab, tap the + button to create a new category. You can choose a name, icon, color, and assign it to an existing group or create a new group.

Excluded categories are not counted in your budget calculations. This is useful for savings transfers, investment contributions, or one-time purchases that would distort your monthly budget. You can exclude a category from its edit screen.

Transactions that haven't been assigned to a category appear under "Uncategorized." We recommend categorizing these regularly to keep your budget accurate. You can tap any uncategorized transaction to assign it.

Transactions come from your connected bank accounts (via Plaid) and are synced automatically. You can also add transactions manually from the Transactions tab.

Tap any transaction to open it, then tap the category field to choose a category. Surplus learns from your choices over time and will suggest categories for similar transactions in the future.

Yes. When editing a transaction, tap Split Transaction to divide the amount across multiple categories. For example, a Walmart purchase could be split between Groceries and Household items.

On the Transactions tab, use the search bar at the top to search by name, amount, category, or tag. You can also use the filter button to narrow results by account, date range, type (income/expense/transfer), and more.

Yes. On the Transactions tab, tap Select to enter multi-select mode. Choose the transactions you want to edit, then use the toolbar to bulk categorize, tag, link to recurring items, or delete.

Tags are flexible labels you can add to transactions for extra organization beyond categories. For example, you might tag transactions as "Tax Deductible," "Business," or "Vacation." You can filter transactions by tag.

Recurring items are income or expenses that happen on a regular schedule — things like your salary, rent, subscriptions, loan payments, and utility bills.

Go to the Recurring tab and tap +. Enter the name, amount, frequency (weekly, monthly, yearly, etc.), category, and next expected date.

Surplus automatically matches incoming transactions to your recurring items based on the name, amount, and timing. When a match is found, the recurring item is marked as "Paid" for that period. You can also manually mark items as paid.

• Weekly

• Biweekly (every 2 weeks)

• Monthly

• Bimonthly (1st and 15th)

• Quarterly

• Semi-Annual

• Annual

• Custom (every X days, weeks, months, or years)

Yes. If you no longer have a recurring expense but want to keep the history, tap the item and choose Archive. Archived items are hidden from the main view but preserved for your records.

Surplus tracks your investment portfolio in real time. When you connect a brokerage account through Plaid, your holdings (stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, bonds, crypto) are imported automatically with cost basis, quantity, and current market value.

Live prices update automatically every 5 minutes while you're viewing the Investments tab. You can also pull down to manually refresh.

For each holding, Surplus shows:

• Current value

• Cost basis (what you paid)

• Gain/loss in dollars and percentage

• Performance over time (1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, all time)

Yes. You can add investment accounts manually and track holdings by entering the symbol, quantity, and cost basis.

Go to Accounts > + > Crypto and add your crypto holdings. Enter the cryptocurrency symbol (BTC, ETH, etc.), quantity, and optionally your wallet address. Surplus will track the live market value.

Surplus supports all major cryptocurrencies through our CoinStats integration, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and thousands of other tokens.

Yes. Crypto prices update in real time when you're viewing your accounts or investments.

Go to Accounts > + > Real Estate. You can either:

• Paste a Zillow URL to automatically import your property's Zestimate and details

• Enter details manually (address, property type, estimated value)

If you connected via Zillow, the property value (Zestimate) updates periodically. You can also manually update the value at any time.

When you add a real estate property and link a mortgage account to it, Surplus automatically calculates your home equity (Property Value - Mortgage Balance). The Home Equity view shows your equity amount, percentage, and trend over time.

Go to the Goals tab and tap +. Create a Savings Goal, then enter your target amount and target date. You can use goals for things like an emergency fund, vacation, or a down payment.

You can also add an interest rate if you want Surplus to show growth projections for that goal.

You can link a goal to an account (the account balance counts toward the goal), link a percentage of an account, or link individual transactions as contributions. Progress updates automatically.

The Projections page gives you a forward-looking forecast of your checking balance. It starts with the balance from your visible, open checking accounts today, then projects your balance day by day using future recurring income and recurring expenses tied to those checking accounts.

In plain terms, it answers: what will my balance look like over the next week or month, and when might I run low?

The forecast includes your current visible checking-account balances as today's baseline plus future recurring income and recurring expenses assigned to those checking accounts.

It does not try to guess discretionary spending, and it does not replay past posted transactions because those should already be reflected in your current balance.

You can switch between 1W, 2W, 1M, and 2M.

The summary card shows:

• Today's checking balance

• Projected ending balance for the selected range

• The lowest projected balance in that range

• The date that lowest balance happens

Available Elsewhere is context only. It is not part of the forecast math.

It shows money or equity you have outside checking, including:

• Savings & Cash

• Investments

• Real Estate Equity

The main chart is a step-style checking balance line that moves day by day as recurring deposits and debits hit. A zero line makes it easy to see if the forecast drops below zero.

Colored dots show activity on each day:

• Green means income hits that day

• Red means expenses only hit that day

• If both happen on the same day, the dot stays green

Below the chart, Surplus groups upcoming recurring items by day and shows the starting balance, projected end-of-day balance, each recurring item, whether it is money in or money out, and which account it belongs to.

If a recurring item is overdue, Surplus shows a warning instead of quietly projecting it forward. If a recurring item does not have an account assigned yet, it is excluded from the forecast and flagged so you can fix it.

Go to Settings and toggle on Biometric Authentication. The app will require Face ID or Touch ID each time you open it.

Go to Settings > Notifications and toggle off any notification types you don't want:

• Transaction alerts

• Large expense alerts

• Income arrival alerts

• Recurring payment confirmations

• Weekly budget summaries

Go to Settings > Change Password. This option is only available if you signed up with email. Apple Sign-In users manage their credentials through Apple.

Go to Settings > Delete Account. This permanently removes your account and all associated data. This action cannot be undone.

Demo Mode fills the app with sample data so you can explore all features without using your real financial information. It's also useful for showing the app to friends or family without revealing your personal data. Enable it from Settings > Demo Mode.

Try these steps:

• Go to Settings > Subscription > Restore Purchases

• If that doesn't work, tap Refresh Subscription Status

• Make sure your Apple ID subscription is active (iPhone Settings > [Your Name] > Subscriptions)

• If the issue persists, email the developer at surplus@surplus-budget.com

• Pull down on the Transactions tab to manually sync

• Check your internet connection

• Go to Accounts and verify the linked account shows as connected

• If the account shows an error, try unlinking and relinking it

• Some banks may have temporary outages — try again in a few hours

Surplus automatically detects and filters duplicate transactions during sync. If you're seeing duplicates:

• Check if one is a manual entry and the other is from a linked account

• Delete the duplicate manually

• Contact support if duplicates keep appearing

• Make sure you're running the latest version of Surplus from the App Store

• Make sure your iPhone is running iOS 18 or later

• Try force-quitting the app (swipe up from the app switcher) and reopening

• If the problem persists, try deleting and reinstalling the app. Your data syncs via iCloud and will be restored when you sign back in.

Investment prices update every 5 minutes while viewing the Investments tab. If prices seem stale:

• Pull down to refresh

• Check your internet connection

• Note that prices may be delayed during market hours depending on the data source

Go to the Accounts tab, find the account, tap it to open the detail view, and tap Delete Account. This only removes it from Surplus — your actual bank account is not affected.

Surplus collects the following data for app functionality:

• Account information (email, name) for your Surplus account

• Financial data (balances, transactions) from connected accounts

• App usage data for improving the experience

We do not sell your data to third parties. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Yes. All data transmitted between your device and our servers is encrypted using HTTPS. Bank connections through Plaid use bank-level encryption. Your data is stored securely on your device and synced via Apple's iCloud (CloudKit) with end-to-end encryption.

No. Bank connections are handled by Plaid, a trusted third-party provider. Your bank credentials are encrypted by Plaid and never shared with Surplus. We only receive read-only access to your account information.

Absolutely. You can use Surplus entirely with manual accounts. Add accounts, enter balances, and create transactions manually. The app works fully without any bank connections.

Email the developer directly at surplus@surplus-budget.com. Include any relevant details or screenshots so we can help as quickly as possible.

Email the developer directly at surplus@surplus-budget.com to describe the issue. Include what you were doing when the bug occurred, any error messages you saw, and screenshots if you have them.

We love hearing your ideas. Email the developer directly at surplus@surplus-budget.com with your feature request. We read every message and prioritize improvements based on user demand.