Keep Above
What each budgeting app asks you to keep doing
Every budgeting app asks something of you after setup, and the apps differ far more on what that is than on anything a feature list shows. This page lists the recurring steps each app's own documentation describes: reconnecting a bank, approving imported transactions, categorising, reconciling, or entering each purchase. Keep Above asks for one thing, a balance update now and then, and the page says what that costs as well as what it saves.
Written and maintained by Manandai Ltd, the company that makes Keep Above. This is our comparison, not an independent review. No app here is scored, rated or ranked. How we compare.
Every competitor cell is taken from that app's own help pages, quoted where a quote exists. This page states no timing figure for any app, ours included: it lists the steps each vendor documents and stops there.
Spotted something out of date? Email support@keepabove.com and we correct or remove it within five business days.
Not affiliated with or endorsed by any app or organisation named here. Product names are trademarks of their owners.
Last verified 22 September 2026What does a budgeting app ask you to keep doing?
The first kind comes with a bank connection: the connection expires on a clock set by regulation in some countries, breaks on events in others, and has to be re-established when it does. The second kind comes with a transaction record: whatever the app captures or you enter has to be approved, categorised or reconciled for the record to stay true.
An app can have one, both or neither. The table shows which, from each vendor's own pages, and links to the re-consent clock by country for the first kind.
| Connection upkeep | Transaction upkeep | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Actual Budget | If you use bank sync, credentials you supplied yourself. | Categorise; reconcile at a cadence you choose; approve each schedule, or set it to add itself. | docs |
| Emma | Renew bank access every 90 days. | Review categories; pending transactions are recreated on settlement. | help centre |
| EveryDollar | Reconnect when a connection is interrupted, on the paid tier. | Drag each import to a budget item; on the free version, enter each transaction. | help centre |
| Frollo | Renew consent, at most every 12 months; personalisation is deleted when it lapses. | Categorise. | help centre |
| Goodbudget | Relink when the bank requires it, on the paid tier. | Confirm an envelope for each import; otherwise enter each transaction. | help centre |
| Keep Above | None; there is no connection. | A balance update, now and then. Nothing is imported, approved or categorised. | support |
| Monarch | Re-verify when the institution requires it, "every few months, or more frequently". | Review and refine categories over time. | help centre |
| Monefy | None; no connection is offered. | Enter each expense. | site |
| PocketSmith | Re-authorise when credentials change. | Confirming imported transactions is optional but recommended; categorise. | learn centre |
| Snoop | Reconnect every 90 days. | Re-categorise where needed. | help centre |
| WeMoney | Renew consent; manually assigned categorisations are lost when it expires. | Categorise. | help centre |
| YNAB | Re-authorise when the bank requires it; "Some banks require this more frequently than others". | Approve imports; approve each scheduled transaction unless an import matches it; reconcile. | help centre |
What does Keep Above ask you to keep doing?
A balance update is the whole of it, and it is worth being exact about what that means. The app never sees your account, so the balance is a number you type, and everything it projects rests on that number being current. Let it go stale and the safe line is stale with it. There is no import to catch the drift, because nothing is imported.
In exchange there is no connection to renew, no queue of transactions waiting for a category, and no reconciliation, because there is no record to reconcile. Whether that is the lighter or the heavier deal depends entirely on whether you wanted the record. If you did, every other app on this page keeps one and Keep Above does not.
Our comparison, not a review. Every competitor fact here is taken from that app's own pages on the date shown. Projections described here are conditional on the figures a person enters and on nothing changing. This page takes no account of your circumstances. Nothing here is financial advice.
Keep Above
Enter each bill and your income once, and keep your balance current now and then. Keep Above works out the balance you would need to cover everything coming, and projects your balance and your sinking funds — which it calls reserved funds — forward. No bank connection.
Common questions
What does a bank-connected budgeting app ask me to keep doing?
Two things, per the vendors' own help pages: re-establish the connection when it expires or breaks, which happens on a 90-day clock in the UK, a 180-day one in the EU and within 12 months in Australia, and keep the imported transactions approved and categorised so the record stays true.
What does a manual budgeting app ask me to keep doing?
It depends which kind. Transaction-logging apps such as Monefy ask for each purchase, because the record is what they are for. Keep Above asks for a balance update now and then, because it keeps no record.
Why does this page not say how long each app takes?
Because a timing figure for our own app would need a published method, and a figure for another app would need us to hold its bank connection, which we cannot. The page lists the documented steps and stops there.
What does Keep Above give up by asking so little?
The record. It keeps no spending history, does not capture transactions, and does not know your real balance unless you enter it. Every other app on this page keeps a record of some kind.