Keep Above
Budgeting apps in New Zealand
New Zealand sets no maximum period for a bank authorisation. The Customer and Product Data Act 2025 provides for one to be fixed by regulations, and the regulations made under it fix none. What the rules require instead, since 1 December 2025, is a written notice about each live authorisation at least once a year. The nine tools below are described from their own pages, and four of the nine turn out not to be a phone app you can install and use.
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 pages on 22 September 2026, quoted where a quote exists. The law is quoted from the legislation itself rather than from a summary. Store availability is from Apple's storefront-scoped lookup and from Google Play served with a New Zealand region. Several vendors name their bank-connection provider inside the sentences quoted here; those are reported generically, because this site does not name banks or connection vendors.
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Last verified 22 September 2026How long does a bank connection last in New Zealand?
Most of this hub's country pages state an interval. New Zealand's answer is that there is not one, and it is the only market here where the absence can be demonstrated rather than merely reported.
Section 38 of the Customer and Product Data Act 2025 says an authorisation ends on the earliest of several things, the first of which is "the expiry of the maximum period for an authorisation specified by the regulations (if any)". So the statute names the slot and leaves it to regulations. The General Requirements Regulations made under it do not fill it: the word "maximum" does not appear in them at all.
What the regulations do require is regulation 12, headed "Accredited requestors must periodically notify customer about authorisations": a written notice about the scope of the authorisation "within 12 months after the time at which the authorisation was given" and then "at least once every 12 months since the last notice was given", including "information about how C … may end the authorisation". That is a reminder with instructions, not an expiry. It came into force on 1 December 2025.
Two things this does not mean. It does not mean a New Zealand connection never ends — the same section lets you set an end time yourself and lets the app set one too. And it is a statement about the published rules, not a promise about any particular service.
What makes a New Zealand bank feed stop working?
New Zealand's bank-connected budgeting apps run through one of two services, and the pages that describe them document two quite different maintenance models.
The first is an open-banking authorisation. Its own privacy notice frames retention as a condition rather than a period — it holds your data until your consent expires or is revoked. Nothing on its pages sets a duration, which is consistent with regulations that set none.
The second is a credential-based feed, and the duty it documents sits with you rather than with a clock. The New Zealand pages that describe it ask you to keep the stored login in step with the one you actually use, and to complete a multi-factor prompt "in good time" when a refresh needs it. Across those pages the words consent, expire, renew and reconnect do not appear at all.
That is worth stating plainly because the rest of this hub is built on the idea that a permission expires. In New Zealand it does not. Something else goes stale instead: a stored credential, quietly, when you change a password.
Which budgeting apps can you actually install in New Zealand?
This is the column that turns out to matter most here, and it is the one a feature list never carries.
- The government's free budget planner is a web tool. (Sorted publishes a separate savings app on both stores, so "Sorted is web only" would be wrong — its budget planner is.)
- One of the two free tools has no app of its own at all. A New Zealand App Store search for its name returns nothing; it is reached through its publisher's web portal, and its own FAQ says the mobile app redirects there.
- The newest New Zealand entrant is in neither store. Its own site says native apps "are in build and not in the stores yet", and every plan button reads join waitlist. (There are several unrelated apps called Steady on the New Zealand store, one of them a budgeting app, so a reader who searches the name finds something.)
- The long-established New Zealand forecasting product is on both stores, but the listing is PocketSmith Sidekick, a companion whose own description says "You need a PocketSmith web account to use the mobile app."
| Bank connection | What it asks you to keep doing | Forward projection, and how far ahead | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BudgetBuddie | Read-only, through an open-banking service, on the paid tiers only. The free tier has none. | Nothing documented while the feed runs; it syncs and categorises. | It names a forecasted cashflow per month. No horizon in months or years appears on its own pages. | site |
| Goodbudget | Optional, on the paid tier, and its sync covers United States banks only — so in New Zealand there is no bank connection on any tier. | Every transaction, into an envelope. Scheduled fills post themselves. | In the vendor's own words: "Goodbudget currently doesn't support future forecasting–it's best for helping you budget for the current month or budget period." | plans |
| Keep Above | None. Nothing to connect and nothing to reconnect. | Enter each bill and your income once, and keep the balance current now and then. No spending history is kept. | 30 years, on the free tier and the paid one alike, with the money set aside for later bills projected alongside the balance. | support |
| mybudgetpal | Required for the automatic feed; a manual route exists. The service behind it stores your login so it can sync every 24 hours. | Nothing, while the feed works. On a manual account, its FAQ says you "need to regularly upload your transaction data to keep your budget up to date", plus keeping the stored login matching your real one. | Its pages state nothing about a forward balance. The words forecast, project and cash flow do not appear on either page. | FAQ |
| NEKO | None. "NEKO never asks for your bank credentials." A statement can be imported instead. | A starting balance, then bills and income once; spending logged as you go. | "Projected daily balance as far ahead as your bills and income go", in the free tier. | site |
| PocketSmith | Optional. Manual accounts are documented, including ones whose balance comes from calendar budget events rather than transactions. | Nothing with feeds. Confirming imported transactions is "entirely optional, but we recommend it". | By tier: 6 months, 10 years, 30 years and 60 years. Repeating budgets "automatically project your future earnings and spending". | plans |
| Sorted budget planner | None. The page carries no bank-connection words at all. | Your own income and expense figures: "Fill out each category below with each item you spend money on." | Not offered. It is a three-step snapshot ending in a surplus or deficit; the words forecast and project appear nowhere on it. | planner |
| SortMe | Required on all plans, through an open-banking service; CSV for anything else. | Nothing routine — it detects and categorises. One-off future costs are typed in. | "See your cashflow 6 to 12 months out, add one-off future costs, and get a Health Score plus a plain-language summary that flags tight months before they arrive." | pricing |
| Steady | Onboarding starts with one; the free tier's bullet is "Connect 1 bank". No sentence on its site says a connection is mandatory. | Little — bills are detected. One documented typed input is your council and what your place is valued at. | "12-month cash-flow forecast", on the paid tier. (Its marketing also carries a 90-day illustration and its free tier carries "90 days history", which is past data; the two are not the same thing.) | site |
Which budgeting apps handle fortnightly pay in New Zealand?
New Zealand pay is overwhelmingly fortnightly, and the apps divide along their country of origin rather than their price or their connection model.
The three New Zealand-built products all name a fortnightly budget period on their own pages: PocketSmith's "Day, week, fortnight, month, quarter and more", SortMe's "Budgets built around how you're paid: weekly, fortnightly or monthly", and BudgetBuddie's "Set weekly, fortnightly, monthly, or custom budgets." Steady is the exception among them — its pages use payday as a point in time, not as a budget cycle.
The two United States-built manual apps on our storefronts do not. The budget periods Goodbudget's current pages name are Monthly, Semi-Monthly and Weekly, and semi-monthly is twice a month, which is 24 times a year rather than 26 — on a fortnightly pay cycle the two drift apart by two pay periods a year. NEKO's biweekly is a recurrence rule on an item; its category limits reset monthly.
Sorted's planner sits in between: each amount can be entered as weekly, fortnightly, 4 weekly, monthly or yearly, and those are the options on the planner itself rather than a budget period.
Keep Above runs the whole cycle on your pay — weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly, twice a month or monthly — laid out payday to payday.
Does a savings goal track money you have not moved yet?
Two of the New Zealand apps describe a savings goal in a way worth separating from the goals elsewhere on this hub, and both describe it approvingly in their own words.
SortMe's are "Savings goals tied to real bank accounts, so progress is measured in dollars that exist, not intentions." Steady's "moves the bar for you as money lands. No spreadsheet, no manual updates."
Both are goals fed by a connection, so they track money that has already moved. A sinking fund in a ledger is the other kind: a number that rises on a schedule whether or not anything has been transferred anywhere. Neither is a better idea than the other and this page does not rank them, but a table that ticked both without saying which is which would mislead in both directions.
Our comparison, not a review. Every competitor fact here is taken from that app's own pages, and every legal statement from the legislation itself, 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
How often do you have to reconnect your bank in a New Zealand budgeting app?
No maximum is set. The Customer and Product Data Act 2025 provides for a maximum authorisation period to be fixed by regulations, and the regulations made under it fix none — the word maximum does not appear in them. Since 1 December 2025 an accredited requestor must give you a written notice about the scope of each live authorisation within twelve months and at least once every twelve months after that, telling you how to end it. That is a reminder, not an expiry. It does not mean a connection never ends: you may set an end time yourself, and so may the app.
Which budgeting apps are actually available in New Zealand?
On the New Zealand storefronts: BudgetBuddie, Goodbudget, Keep Above, NEKO, SortMe, and PocketSmith as a companion app called Sidekick that needs a PocketSmith web account. Not on either store: Steady, whose own site says its apps are in build, and mybudgetpal, which has no app and is reached through a web portal. Sorted's budget planner is a web tool, though Sorted does publish a separate savings app.
Is there a New Zealand budgeting app that works without a bank connection?
Keep Above and NEKO both state that they have none, and Sorted's budget planner has none either. Goodbudget's sync covers United States banks only, so in New Zealand it is manual on every tier. PocketSmith documents manual accounts alongside its feeds. The New Zealand-built connected apps — BudgetBuddie, SortMe and Steady — all start from a connection, though BudgetBuddie's free tier has none.
Which budgeting apps handle fortnightly pay in New Zealand?
PocketSmith names fortnight among its budget periods, SortMe says budgets are built around weekly, fortnightly or monthly pay, and BudgetBuddie offers weekly, fortnightly, monthly or custom. Keep Above lays the whole cycle out payday to payday on weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly, twice-monthly or monthly pay. Goodbudget's named periods are Monthly, Semi-Monthly and Weekly, and semi-monthly is 24 times a year rather than 26. NEKO's biweekly is a repeat rule on an item; its category limits are monthly.