Offline-first · private by design

A calmer way to see where the money goes.

A fast, private expense tracker for your desktop. Your months, loans, and investments on one screen, with no accounts, no cloud, and no noise.

Download Take the tour
Encrypted, on your machine Activate with a licence key Windows 10 & 11
L Ledger · Personal
Your data
100% local
Encrypted on your disk
Money
Loans & EMIs
Amortisation, prepayment
Books
Personal + Business
One licence, kept separate
Access
Licence key
Read-only until you activate
What's inside

Everything a month holds, without the spreadsheet.

Ledger organises your money the way you actually think about it: planned bills, loans, the miscellaneous, and what you put away.

Loans & EMIs

Every loan, with a payoff you can model.

Home, auto, and personal loans, each with a full reducing-balance amortisation schedule and a prepayment simulator that shows the interest you'd save.

  • Prepayment simulator: see exactly how much interest a lump sum saves.
  • Mark EMIs paid as they clear, with a running paid/due schedule.
  • Reduce-tenure or reduce-EMI strategies, side by side.
Investments

Track how your money is split.

A holdings list with an allocation donut that shows how your money is spread. Update current values when you like, with no live-price noise and no broker logins.

  • Allocation at a glance, straight from an allocation donut.
  • Manual current values, updated on your schedule.
  • Fixed & recurring deposits, with a paid/due schedule.
Your data, portable

Clean CSV, in and out, no lock-in.

Export your whole ledger to a documented set of CSVs and re-import it without losing a single row. The schema is yours to keep.

  • Round-trip clean: export today, re-import tomorrow, zero drift.
  • Encrypted backup and restore (.ledgerbackup), with one-click undo.
  • Viewing and exporting stay available even in read-only mode.
# ledger-export-2026-06.zip › transactions.csv
id,date,type,amount,category,account,notes
txn_8f2…,2026-06-07,income,4875.00,Salary,Checking ••4421,June
txn_8f3…,2026-06-07,expense,28.45,Groceries,Checking ••4421,…
txn_8f4…,2026-06-05,investment_out,250.00,Index fund,Checking ••4421,…
txn_8f5…,2026-06-05,expense,385.00,Loan EMI,Checking ••4421,…
# 1,247 rows · re-imports as a no-op
Multiple books

Personal and business, never tangled.

Keep separate books on a single licence. Switch in one click, and every screen, total, and report follows the book you're in.

  • One licence, many books, with no paying twice.
  • Separate categories, accounts, and loans per book.
  • Quick-add from anywhere with a keyboard shortcut.
Private by design

Your money is nobody's business but yours.

Ledger has no account to create and no server to phone home to. The only thing that leaves your machine is a software-update check.

Local-first storage

Every transaction lives in an encrypted SQLite database on your own disk. Not our cloud, yours.

No accounts, no tracking

No email to sign up, no analytics watching what you do. A crash report is opt-out and never carries your amounts.

Works fully offline

Board a flight, lose your wifi: Ledger doesn't care. Everything works without a connection, forever.

A closer look

Built to be read at a glance.

Data-dense where it counts, calm everywhere else. Scroll through a few of the screens you'll live in.

L Overview
01Overviewthe whole month, one screen
L Monthly
02Monthlydaily flow with a running balance
L Settings · Licence
03Licenceone key, multiple devices
L Overview · Calm
04Calm layoutthe same data, more air
Get started

Download, then request a key.

Ledger activates with a licence key. Request one at ledger@whyitcosts.com. Until you activate, the app stays read-only: you can view and export, but not add or edit.

Ledger · Personal
Windows 10 & 11, 64-bit. Activate with a licence key.
Download
  • Every feature: loans, investments, deposits, multi-book
  • One key activates multiple devices
  • Read-only until you activate, then full access
  • Encrypted at rest, with backup and restore

Need a licence key? Request one at ledger@whyitcosts.com

Questions

Good to know.

Is my financial data sent anywhere?
No. Ledger stores everything in an encrypted database on your own machine. There's no account and no cloud sync in version 0.1.12: the only network call is an occasional check for software updates and licence validation, neither of which carries your transactions.
How do I get access?
Ledger activates with a licence key. Request one at ledger@whyitcosts.com. Until you activate, the app stays read-only: you can view and export, but not add or edit. Nothing is deleted, and your CSV export stays available regardless.
What does a licence key unlock?
Activating with a key unlocks every feature and lets you add and edit, not just view. A future cloud-sync tier (if it ships) would be separate and optional. Your desktop licence keeps working regardless.
Can I use it on more than one computer?
One key activates multiple devices, each bound to the machine it runs on. You can deactivate a machine any time to free a slot, which is useful when you replace a laptop. Until cloud sync arrives, move data between machines with a CSV export or an encrypted backup.
Which platforms does it run on?
Today Ledger runs on Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit only. A Mac version is coming soon. The installer isn't code-signed yet, so on first launch Windows may show a SmartScreen prompt: click "More info" then "Run anyway" to continue.
When are Android and iOS coming?
Mobile is Phase 2, planned once the desktop app finds its footing. It'll share the same core, so your data and licence carry over. Watch the changelog for progress.

See where this month went.

Download Ledger for Windows, then request a licence key at ledger@whyitcosts.com. View and export right away; activate to add and edit.

Download Copy ledger@whyitcosts.com