Set Ledgerly up.

Ledgerly is not on Google Play yet. Early access is by direct install: we send you the app as an APK file. Download it on your phone, open it from your Files app, and allow the install when Android asks about installing from this source. Google Play Protect may show a scan prompt for apps outside the Play Store, this is normal for a direct install.

The app installs as com.madmaxlabs.ledgerly. Updates arrive the same way until the Play listing is live, and installing a newer APK over the old one keeps all your data. Ledgerly runs on Android 8.0 (2017) or newer.

On first launch, Ledgerly asks for permission to read incoming SMS. Allow it and your ledger starts filling itself the next time your bank sends a transaction message.

Right after you allow SMS, Ledgerly offers to import the bank messages already sitting in your inbox, so you start with months of real history instead of an empty ledger. Pick a window (30, 60, or 90 days, or everything), scan, and review what it found, grouped by month. Nothing is saved until you confirm.

Skipped it at setup? Run it any time from Settings > Capture > Import SMS history. An import can also be removed afterwards from the same place, in one tap.

Indian banks send SMS from sender IDs like HDFCBK, JD-HDFCBK, or VK-HDFCBK depending on your operator. Ledgerly canonicalizes them all to the same bank, but the first time you run the app, take a moment to confirm the senders it detected look right.

If a transaction shows up with the wrong bank or no bank, you can correct the mapping. Future messages from that sender will use the correction.

Open the Cards section and add the cards you actually use. Two ways:

• From the bundled catalog: 67 cards across HDFC, ICICI, SBI, Axis, IndusInd, Standard Chartered, and more. Each carries its real reward rates, caps, and exclusions.
• Auto-detect: if your bank SMS has named a card, Ledgerly offers to add it for you.

Adding cards turns on the optimizer, the Cashback Bank, Card Karma, Welcome Bonus Radar, and the rest of the credit-card features. Without cards in your wallet, those screens stay quiet.

This step is optional. Skip it and the rest of the app still works fine.

If you turn it on, Ledgerly can read the item details inside the supported shopping apps, so a single Blinkit or Swiggy order becomes an itemized list in your ledger, with packaging fees and tip broken out. The same service powers the optional pre-swipe card nudge that suggests the best card on a checkout screen before you pay.

Depth varies by app: Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy, Instamart, Zomato, Amazon, and Uber Eats get full itemized capture, the rest capture order totals and merchant details, and Uber Eats orders are captured in dollars and converted to rupees at a rate you can adjust.

To enable: Settings > Accessibility > Ledgerly. Android will show its own warning about the powers an accessibility service has. That warning exists because the API can be misused; the way Ledgerly uses it is described below and in the privacy policy.

One phone-specific note: aggressive battery savers on Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and similar phones can freeze the capture helper after a few hours. Ledgerly runs a small keep-alive notification to prevent this and shows a Restart prompt if the helper does get frozen. If capture keeps stopping, allow Autostart for Ledgerly and set battery saver to No restrictions in your phone’s settings.

Also optional. Without a key, every non-AI feature works and your data stays on the device.

A key unlocks: the AI insight narrator (a plain-language story of your month), the Card Concierge chat (questions answered against your real wallet), Wallet Roast (the playful version), the loan-reminder drafter (ready-to-send nudges), the goal price estimator (a suggested target amount for a savings goal), and AI-assisted receipt and statement imports.

Two ways to get one. Bring your own OpenAI key, free forever, you pay OpenAI directly for usage. Or buy the Ledgerly AI subscription, one small monthly fee, no OpenAI account, chat features run on our hosted service (receipt OCR still needs your own key for now).

Where to set either one: Settings > Ledgerly AI. Pick My OpenAI key or Subscription, paste the key, save.

The four screens worth knowing about on day one:

• Dashboard. Balance, monthly spend against budget, the cash-flow forecast, the Cashback Bank tally, today’s card.
• History. Every transaction, ordered by day. Long-press a row to recategorize, mark it as a subscription or a loan, classify inflow (refund, gift, borrowed), or edit the amount.
• Insights. Monthly headline, trend lines, fee totals, top items, and a plain-English summary of the month.
• Settings. Permissions, AI key, accessibility opt-ins, backup, integrity check.

Once you have a few weeks of data in it (or months, if you ran the history import), visit Settings, Data and take your first backup. It is one file, and it is yours. There is also a full dark mode, in Settings, General.