This Privacy Policy explains how BudgetCrew ("the app," "we," "us") handles information. BudgetCrew is developed and published by LogicGateGames LLC ("LogicGateGames LLC," "we," "us"), a Michigan, USA limited liability company.
The short version: BudgetCrew has no user accounts and no server that stores your financial data. Everything you enter — transactions, budgets, goals, receipts — stays on your device unless you deliberately choose to sync it directly with another device, export or back it up yourself, or move it to a new phone with Android’s phone-to-phone transfer.
What stays on your device
Your financial data never leaves your phone, except to the phones you choose to sync with and the backups you choose to save. The following is stored only in the app's private storage on your device, and is never sent to us or to any server we operate:
Transactions, categories, budgets, savings goals, debts, recurring payments, shopping lists, and warranty records you create
Photos of receipts you choose to attach to a transaction
App preferences and settings, such as your chosen theme, currency, and reminder times
If you turn on the app lock, your PIN, stored only as a hash. Fingerprint unlock is checked by Android itself; BudgetCrew never receives your biometric data
We do not operate a cloud database of user financial data. There is nothing on a LogicGateGames server for us to access, because nothing is sent there in the first place.
Device-to-device sync
BudgetCrew includes an optional feature that lets you share a budget space directly between your own devices, or with another person's device, over Bluetooth or a local Wi-Fi connection. This feature:
Is off unless you turn it on and actively pair with another device
Transfers data directly between the paired devices, including receipt photos attached to shared records — it is not uploaded to or relayed through a LogicGateGames server
Lets you choose which budget spaces, if any, a given paired device can see
Uses Google Play Services' Nearby Connections capability, which runs on your device, to help two nearby devices discover and connect to each other
Backups and exports
You can create a backup file or export your transactions (as CSV, Excel, or PDF) at any time, and import transactions from a CSV file. A backup can be protected with a passphrase you choose, and you can turn on automatic encrypted backups to a folder you pick; a backup shared straight from the app is not encrypted. These files are saved to your device or shared through your device's normal share options — for example, to your own cloud storage, email, or messaging apps of your choosing. What happens to a file after you export and share it is governed by wherever you choose to send it, not by this app.
Third-party services
BudgetCrew uses a small number of well-known third-party services to operate. Each is provided by Google and governed by Google's own privacy policy:
Google AdMob — displays ads to free-tier users (banner, full-screen and app-open ads, plus an optional rewarded ad you can choose to watch to unlock a free export). AdMob may collect an advertising identifier and interaction data to select and measure ads, as described in Google's advertising privacy policy. Ads are not shown to users who have bought premium.
Google Play Billing — processes the optional one-time Premium purchase (there are no subscriptions). Payment details are handled by Google Play; BudgetCrew never sees or stores your payment information.
Google ML Kit — powers the optional receipt scanner. The photo is taken with the document scanner provided by Google Play services (or picked from your gallery), so BudgetCrew itself never asks for camera access. Text recognition runs on your device; a scanned receipt image is not uploaded to Google or to us for this purpose.
Google Play Services (Nearby Connections) — the on-device component that enables the device-to-device sync feature described above.
Firebase Crashlytics — if the app crashes, Crashlytics sends a crash report so we can fix the problem. A report contains the error's technical details (stack trace), device model, Android version, app version, and a random Crashlytics installation ID. It never includes your content, such as your expenses, and it contains no name, email or advertising ID. Reports are processed by Google and kept for up to 90 days. We do not sell or share them.
We do not use any analytics or advertising service beyond AdMob, we use Firebase Crashlytics only for crash reports, and we do not sell your information to anyone.
If you are in the European Economic Area, the UK, or Switzerland, BudgetCrew shows Google’s consent form the first time you open it, using Google’s User Messaging Platform. Your answer determines whether ads may be requested at all and whether they are personalised. You can reopen that form and change your answer at any time from Settings, under “Ad Preferences”; withdrawing consent takes effect immediately, without restarting the app.
Permissions the app requests
Android requires apps to declare why they need certain capabilities. Here's what each permission BudgetCrew may request is actually for:
Internet / network state — needed to show ads and the ad consent form, to let Google Play services download the document scanner the first time it's used, and to send a crash report if the app crashes.
Notifications — needed to show reminders and budget alerts you've enabled.
Biometrics — only if you turn on the app lock and choose fingerprint unlock.
Run at startup — so recurring payments, reminders and scheduled backups keep working after your phone restarts.
Nearby devices / Bluetooth / Wi-Fi state — needed only for the optional device-to-device sync feature described above, to find and connect to another device. These permissions are explicitly flagged to Android as not used to determine your location, and BudgetCrew does not use them for that purpose.
Location (older Android versions only) — on Android 12 and earlier, the operating system requires this permission to be present for Bluetooth device discovery to function at all. BudgetCrew does not read or store your location; this permission exists solely because of that OS-level requirement, and is not requested at all on newer Android versions.
Children's privacy
BudgetCrew is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Since BudgetCrew does not have accounts or a server-side data store, there is no cloud repository of user data for a child's information to end up in.
Your choices and control
You can delete any transaction, category, or other record at any time within the app.
You can turn device-to-device sync off, or revoke a paired device's access to a specific budget space, at any time.
Uninstalling the app removes its locally stored data from your device. BudgetCrew opts out of Android’s cloud backup, so none of its data is uploaded to Google that way. On Android 12 and later, if you set up a new phone with Android’s phone-to-phone transfer (cable or Wi-Fi), Android may copy all of BudgetCrew’s data directly to the new phone. Backup and export files you saved stay wherever you saved them.
You can request removal of your Google Play purchase history through Google's own account tools, since that data is held by Google, not by us.
International users
Because your financial data is stored on your own device rather than on a central server, it does not routinely cross borders as part of using the app. Data you deliberately export and share yourself is subject to the destination you choose.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time, for example as we add new features. We'll update the "Last updated" date above when we do. Continued use of the app after a change means you accept the updated policy.
Contact us
Questions about this policy or how BudgetCrew handles information can be sent to logicgategames@gmail.com.