Press kit
Everything you need to write about Pentos, including the parts it deliberately does not do. Anything unclear, email me and I will answer the same week.
In one line
Pentos is a pay once envelope budgeting app for iPhone that works entirely offline.
In a paragraph
Pentos is an envelope budgeting app for iPhone. You fund category envelopes from money you already have, spend against them, and what is left rolls forward. It is bought once rather than subscribed to, it requires no account, and it makes no network connections at all.
In full
Pentos brings the envelope method to the iPhone without bringing anything else along with it. Each month you assign the money you actually have to category envelopes, spend against them, and carry the remainder forward. When an envelope runs dry the shortfall is charged back against next month, so the numbers stay honest, or the category can carry it forward instead.
Under that sits a complete ledger: accounts with running and cleared balances, split transactions, mirrored transfers, statement reconciliation, rules that clean up imported payees, scheduled transactions that post themselves, goals with six kinds of target, five reports and a dashboard built from saved cards, and app wide undo.
What sets it apart is what is missing. There is no account to create, no cloud, no subscription, and no analytics. The app makes no network connections, and its App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected because there is nothing to collect. Statements come in by CSV, OFX, QFX or QIF import, and the whole budget goes out as a backup file or plain CSV whenever the owner wants it.
Pentos is made by one person and sold as a single purchase.
Fact sheet
- Name. Pentos: Envelope Budget
- Platform. iPhone, iOS 18 and later. iPhone only
- Category. Finance
- Price model. One time purchase. No subscription, no in app purchases
- Privacy label. Data Not Collected
- Network use. None
- Developer. Independent, one person
- Website. pentosbudget.com
- Support. pentosbudget.com/support
- Privacy policy. pentosbudget.com/privacy
What it does
- Monthly envelope budgeting with rollover, and a second lighter tracking mode
- A complete register: splits, mirrored transfers, reconciliation, search, filters, tags, bulk edit
- Rules that rename payees and set categories automatically on import, and can be applied back through history
- Scheduled transactions that post themselves or wait for approval, with no date drift across uneven months
- Envelope goals: fixed amounts, save by a date, a share of income, and more
- Five reports plus a dashboard you arrange from saved cards
- App wide undo, with a labeled history and shake to undo
- Statement import from CSV, OFX, QFX and QIF, with duplicate detection
- Backup and CSV export, restorable on any iPhone running Pentos
- Privacy mode that redacts every amount on screen
- Multiple budget files on one device
What it does not do
Listed plainly so nothing here can be got wrong by accident.
- No bank connection of any kind. Transactions arrive by import or by hand
- No sync between devices. One device holds one budget, and moving it means moving a backup file
- iPhone only. No iPad app and no Mac app
- One currency per budget file
- Dark interface only
Screenshots
Every screenshot shows generated demo data. No real financial information appears in any image.
- Budget
- Register
- Reports
- Goals
- Import preview
- Rules
- Schedules
- Calendar heat map
- Accounts
- Settings
- App mark
Contact
Email supportpentosbudget.com. Review codes are available on request, and I am happy to answer anything, including the awkward questions.
See also the overview of what Pentos does and the privacy policy.