The Buffer is the core metric in Surplus — it shows how many days your household could sustain its current lifestyle without any income. It is calculated from your account balances, committed obligations, and typical monthly spend. "47 days of cover" is more immediately legible than a balance sheet.
Open the app and follow the onboarding wizard. Enter your accounts and your top income and expense categories — the wizard takes around 5 minutes and your Buffer number is visible immediately. You can refine your plan and add more categories at any time.
Go to Accounts in the app. You can add liquid accounts (checking), credit accounts, savings, and investments. Each type is treated differently in the Buffer calculation.
You can add transactions manually, or use the photo capture feature to photograph a receipt or bank statement — the app extracts and categorises the transaction automatically.
The Typical Month is your baseline plan — your recurring income and expected expenses. Set it up once and each new month inherits it automatically. You only need to update what changed.
Go to Settings > Household to create or join a household. Both partners share the same Buffer view in real time. You can leave a household at any time from Settings.
Insights analyses your transaction history to surface five types of financial patterns: Locked Income (how much salary is committed before you make any active choice), Merchant Concentration (which merchants dominate your discretionary spend), Recurring Cost Drift (costs that are quietly increasing), Surplus Retention Rate, and Financial Drift Timeline. Insights are observational — they show what is happening, not what you should do.
Yes. Your financial data is stored securely in Firebase and is never sold or shared with third parties for marketing purposes. Bank screenshots uploaded for photo capture are processed in memory by an AI service and immediately discarded — they are never stored. See our Privacy Policy for full details.
Surplus offers a 7-day free trial followed by an auto-renewing subscription. On iOS, manage or cancel your subscription via App Store > Your Account > Subscriptions. On Android, go to Google Play > Subscriptions. Cancellations must be made at least 24 hours before the renewal date.
Go to Settings > Account > Delete Account. This permanently and irreversibly removes your account, all financial data, transactions, household associations, and personal information.
To erase your personal and financial data while keeping your account active, go to Settings > Privacy Controls > Delete Data. This permanently removes all stored transaction history, account data, and personal information without deleting your account. To delete your account and all associated data entirely, see question 10 above.
Surplus collects the financial information you enter (income, expenses, account balances, transactions), your account credentials (email and password), and usage analytics to improve the app. Bank screenshots are processed in memory and immediately discarded — they are never stored. We do not sell your data or use it for advertising. See our Privacy Policy for full details.
Two self-serve export options are available directly in the app under Settings:
Export Transaction History (CSV) — exports a CSV file containing your full transaction history: date, account, category, amount, merchant, notes, and status.
Export All Personal Data (JSON) — a full structured export of all your personal data under GDPR Article 20 (right to portability), including your profile, all accounts, your financial plan, and all transactions. The file is shared via your device's native share sheet.
If you are in the EU or UK, you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, and port your personal data, and to object to processing based on legitimate interests. Several of these rights are exercisable directly in the app:
For rights that require our involvement (correction, restriction, objection), contact privacy@ensoventures.com. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.
Still need help? Email us at support@ensoventures.org