Loot

Loot is a bank account ledger for the Android OS. It supports simple budgeting, multiple accounts, repeating transactions, tag- and party-based searching, automatic transaction purging, account transfers, and sorting.

FAQ
Changelog

FAQ

I’d like to report a bug.
Thanks for helping to improve the quality of Loot. It is developed and tested only by me in my spare time — with only a G1 and an emulator — so there are bound to be bugs and crashes that I haven’t found yet, especially on newer devices.

First, please make sure you’re running the latest version before contacting me about it — it may have already been fixed. Second, please let me know exactly what you were doing to cause this bug to occur. If you tell me “Loot force closes”, that’s not really helpful, since there are many areas that could possibly cause that behavior. Its much better if you’d tell me something like “Loot force closes when I attempt to save a transaction. The amount field is 123.45 and the party field is “Wawa” and there is no repeat schedule or tags entered.

Another very helpful method for helping me to fix bugs, especially when there is a force close, is to download the Android Market app Log Collector. After Loot experiences the bug, run Log Collector and send the results to my email address.

How do I edit/delete an account/transaction?
Long click on the item and select edit or delete from the context menu that pops up.

Why is it showing £ instead of $ (or $ instead of £)?
Why can’t I input currency values in the text boxes?
Try setting your Locale through the Android settings. Loot uses the Android settings to detect your locale and display your currencies accordingly. Alternatively, you can override the detected currency by setting your preferred currency in the Loot application settings.

What are “budget” and “posted” used for?
I based this app on the design of an application called PCash for PalmOS, which is where I got these terms. I can’t really tell you how you should use them, but I can tell you how I use them.

“Budget” is used for keeping track of transactions that you plan on making in the future. If I get paid on Friday, but I don’t need to make my rent payment for another 10 days, I’ll mark that transaction as “budget” so I know that that amount of money is allocated for something and I shouldn’t spend it.

“Posted” is used for reconciling what I’ve recorded in Loot with what my bank has recorded. This makes it easier to tell whether I’ve forgotten to add a transaction, or if I’ve mis-typed an amount. So I look at my bank statements and when I see a transaction on it, I mark it as “posted” (by checking the box next to it).

What are tags used for?
Currently, tags are used for searching only. I tend to use it to keep track of certain spending habits, like gas, groceries, and lunches. When I can isolate these transactions, it makes it easier to see how I can save a bit of money.

In the future, I plan on incorporating graphing, so you can make graphs based on the tags you’ve used.

What is the use of purging transactions?
Purging transactions removes them from your sight, so you don’t have as much scrolling to do. It also marks them for deletion when you clear purged transactions. As a safety precaution, when you purge transactions, they do not get deleted, just in case you didn’t mean to do it. If you’d like to delete the purged transactions for good, make sure you clear the purged transactions.

Why does Loot need to access the internet?
It doesn’t, unless you want to donate some money to me. There is also a feature to check for updates upon start of the app, but that was implemented before the Android Market checked for updates for you. Those are the only times it will access the internet.

Why is it crashing when I try to back up the database?
I can’t be sure, but it seems like sometimes it crashes because its taking too long, making Android think it got stuck in an infinite loop. My suggesting is to try a faster micro SD card. Preferably a class 4 or above.

Why doesn’t Loot download my transactions from my banking website?
That would be a ton of work and take a lot of time to find out the protocols that every single banking website uses, and I’m not interested. If you’d like that sort of functionality, I hear Bank of America makes an app for that. But Loot does not — and will never — have that functionality.

I’d like to export my transactions entered.
I’d like to implement importing and exporting transactions. The problem is that there is no standard for how the files are stored. Quicken uses one format, GNU Cash uses another, the banks I use have two other formats. I can try to implement it and support it, but I’ll never please everybody, since no company has settled on one format.

But expect it in some form in the future.

Why should I use Loot instead of <insert competing bank ledger here>?
I developed this software in my spare time, mostly because I was unhappy with the existing apps for Android at the time. I released it for free and lots of people liked it. I’m not making a sale, and I’ve received very little in donations (and many thanks to those who have donated). So I’m not going to waste my time trying to convince you to use Loot when you can easily download it for free and remove it from your device if you don’t like it.

Changelog

1.4.5

1.4.4

1.4.3

1.4.1