The pattern to watch for
An app is free. You move your business into it. Years pass. One morning a screen says that adding an entry now requires a subscription. Your old entries are visible; your business is not, because you cannot write today's sales. The only way out is to pay, or to retype everything somewhere else. It has happened to hundreds of thousands of small businesses, and the reviews always use the same word: trust.
None of that is illegal. It is simply what a company can do when nothing stops it. So before trusting an app, find out what stops it.
Six questions
1. Is “free” a term of service or a marketing line?
Read the terms, not the home page. If the promise that recording stays free is in the contract, the company has bound itself. If it is only on a banner, it can vanish with the next update.
2. Can I export everything, in a format I can open?
PDF and a real spreadsheet, for any book, any range, at any time. If export is limited, delayed or in a proprietary format, your data is not yours.
3. What happens to my entries if I stop paying?
The honest answer is “you can still read and export them”. If the answer is vague, assume they become a locked screen.
4. Does it work without their servers?
An app that works offline keeps working through an outage, a company sale or a shutdown long enough for you to export. An app that needs their server for every screen does not.
5. Who else sees my records?
The privacy policy should say plainly whether your data is sold or shared with advertisers. “We may share with partners” is a yes.
6. Can I delete my account myself?
From inside the app, taking the data with it, without a phone call. If leaving is hard, that is a design decision.
What a good answer looks like
Recording and reading your own entries free, written into the terms. Export any time as PDF and Excel. Works offline. Data not sold. Delete from within the app. Any app can claim these; look for the ones that put them in the contract.
Our answers, in writing: recording and reading your entries is free forever in Terms section 4, export any time, works offline, data never sold, delete from the app. That is the whole reason MoneyBook exists. Why we built it.
Try it on your own books
One book, about a minute. Free to record, forever.