Overview

Thrive in Life Kit is a secure modern personal financial manager app that provides the tools to master your finances and gain insight on next steps for your financial growth. Thrive in Life Kit works seamlessly across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac. Thrive in Life Kit uses modern strong encryption algorithms (AES-256) and stores your financial data on your devices. Thrive in Life Kit can easily manage dozens of accounts and thousands of transactions with a silky-smooth user interface.

Thrive in Life Kit Tiers

Base Tier (free)

Using Thrive in Life Kit app at the Base tier is for those users who want to enter and track accounts and transactions manually. The visualization and insight from using the charts included with the Pro-Upgrade tier will make sense after a few months of financial data have been entered.

Pro-Upgrade Tier (purchase)

Using Thrive in Life Kit app at the Pro-Upgrade tier brings a significant set of additional features to manage and analyze your financial progress. This tier makes sense if you wish to import your financial data from another personal finance manager app, would like to export your financial data as a CSV file to use with a spreadsheet, sync your financial data across all your devices, or gain insight into your financial data visually with charts. Purchase of the Pro-Upgrade tier enables the option to subscribe at Auto-Fintech Tier.

Auto Fintech Tier (subscription)

Using Thrive in Life Kit app at the Auto Fintech tier brings secure automation to tracking your finances. After setting up automated data aggregation with your financial accounts, any daily updates will be automatically downloaded during app launch to keep you up to date. The option to subscribe at the Auto Fintech tier is only available after an in-app purchase of the Pro-Upgrade tier.

Base Tier Usage (free)

Accounts View

Accounts are listed alphabetically on the Accounts pane (left pane for iPad) and can be displayed grouped by institution or by account type.

Display accounts grouped by institution or by account type.

Create/Edit Accounts

An account can be created by tapping on the plus button located at the top of the left pane. There are four required fields for an account: account name, institution name, account type, and starting balance. These are fields listed above the gray separator line. An account can be assigned one of the following account types: Checking, Credit Card, Line of Credit, Investment, Loan, Mortgage, or Savings. Optional fields are dependent on the selected account type and listed under the gray separator line. Every account includes an optional notes field.

Create an account.

When an account is selected, the edit button brings up this account’s edit view.

Transactions View

Transactions for each account are listed in chronological order in the transactions view (right pane on iPad). At the top of the balance column in the transactions table header is a button that switches between Total Balance (includes both Posted and Pending transactions) and Posted Balance. The display width for Transaction views on the iPad can vary significantly depending on its orientation and whether Thrive in Life Kit is one of the apps in split screen. As such, there are two buttons at the top of the transaction view to help with displaying transactions cleanly, transaction pane width and transaction row width.

Toggles between full width and left/right pane width for transactions.

Selects wide, medium, or narrow display modes for transaction rows on iPads.

Shows selection of optional columns to display and customization options for highlighting transactions (e.g., green bar for credit transactions)

Shows the Edit Payee/Payer view for transactions in this account.

Places transactions list into search mode. Text entered into search field filters which transactions to show.

Show selection of columns to include during the search for transactions containing the search text.

Create/Edit Transactions

A new transaction can be created by tapping on the plus button located at the top of the transactions view. There are several fields for a transaction: Amount, selection of posted or pending transaction status, selection of debit or credit transaction type, payee/payer, category and date. Transactions are preset to posted, debit, and current date. Every transaction includes an optional notes field. If transaction pre-fill has been selected in the Configuration under Settings, then selecting a payee/payer prefills the other fields with entries from the last transaction with the same payee/payer. This reduces the number of manual entries for a new transaction to amount and payee/payer. If sub-categories have been selected in the Configuration under Settings, then a sub-categories field is included with the transaction view.

Create transaction.

When a transaction is selected, the edit button brings up this transaction’s edit view.

Edit Payees/Payers

Payees and payers are associated with an account and are extracted from the account’s transactions. The number of transactions for each payee or payer is included in this view. Payees or payers can be renamed or merged.

Rename a selected payee/payer.

Merge a payee/payer with another payee/payer. Tapping the merge button will show the remaining payees/payers as a possible merge destination. Selection of a destination payee/payer for the merge shows the merge confirmation button.

App Logins – Thrive Settings

A primary password for app login is optional and can be created, updated, or deleted at any time. There are no app requirements for length or type of characters. You’re on your own here.

Manage Institutions – Thrive Settings (iOS), Main Menu (Mac)

Institutions can be created, renamed, and deleted if a financial institution has no associated accounts. Visibility of an institution and its accounts is selectable.

Create an institution.

Rename the selected institution.

Delete the selected institution if it has no associated accounts.

Manage Accounts – Thrive Settings (iOS), Main Menu (Mac)

Accounts can be renamed and deleted. Deletion of an account will also delete all of its transactions. Accounts can be visible or hidden in the accounts list view.

Rename the selected account.

Delete the selected account and all of its transactions.

Manage Categories – Thrive Settings (iOS), Main Menu (Mac)

Describing operations for managing categories will be cleaner if the two levels of categories are identified as top-categories and sub-categories. Each listed top-category includes the number of transactions identified with that top-category or blank, if none. A top-category can be created. If an existing top category is selected, then it can be renamed, merged with another top-category, or deleted if it has no transactions associated with it.

Create a top-category.

Rename a selected top-category.

Delete a top-category if there are no associated transactions.

If a selected top-category has transactions associated with it, then that top-category can be merged with another top-category. Tapping the merge button shows which top-category can be the destination (i.e., top-category with transactions) for the merge. Selection of a destination top-category for the merge shows the merge confirmation button.

Manage Sub-Categories – Thrive Settings (iOS), Main Menu (Mac)

If sub-categories have been enabled in the Configuration under Settings, then sub-categories can be included when managing categories by tapping the checkbox. With sub-categories checked, the transaction count is split to show sub-category counts: yellow number for those transactions without any sub-category, and white with a plus sign to indicate transactions with defined sub-categories. Expanding the top-category shows the breakdown of transactions by sub-category.

If a top-category has been selected, create a sub-category.

Rename a selected sub-category.

Delete a sub-category if there are no associated transactions.

If a selected sub-category has transactions associated with it, then that sub-category can be merged with another sub-category within the same top-category. Tapping the merge button shows which sub-category can be the destination (i.e., sub-category with transactions) for the merge. Selection of a destination sub-category for the merge shows the merge confirmation button.

If a selected sub-category has transactions associated with it, then that sub-category can be moved to another top-category. Tapping the move button shows which top-category can be the destination for the move. Selection of a destination top-category for the move shows the move confirmation button.

Configuration – Thrive Settings

Thrive in Life Kit app’s color theme can be selected from the standard options: System, Dark, Light.

You may find that a single set of custom transaction categories is sufficient to track expenses. However, sub-categories can be enabled to support a finer granularity and visibility into expenses and incomes.

Transaction pre-fill is intended as a time-saver and will complete the remaining fields, except amount, in a transaction based on the payee/payer entry.

If the action for app reset and clear database content is enabled, tapped, and confirmed, then all Thrive in Life Kit app configurations, app passwords, and all database content on this device will be removed resulting in a fresh start of the app on this device. Note: In-app purchase and subscription are not affected by this reset.

Pro-Upgrade Tier Usage (in-app purchase)

Charts

Charts represent the most useful feature associated with the Pro-Upgrade tier for its ability to analyze transaction data in five useful and insightful charts: Expenses by Category, Incomes by Category, Expenses over Time, Incomes over Time, and Cashflow.

Charts – Controls

For each of the five charts, you can select all accounts or a subset of accounts to display. You have the same flexibility with category selection.

For the expenses and incomes by category charts, you can choose a date interval for the chart: week, month, quarter, 3 months, year, 12 months, and all dates. Then, previous and next arrow buttons can be used to focus on a particular date range.

For the expenses and incomes over time charts and the cash flow chart, all data is grouped by month, quarter, or year with similar arrows to highlight a particular date range.

Charts – Expenses by Category

The expenses by category chart and its accompanying expense summaries by payees is extremely useful for understanding how your money is being spent. A horizontal bar chart shows the total expense and percentage for each category. Note: percentages less than 1% are not shown.

Selecting a category shows a payee summary table with number of transactions, total amounts and percentages for each payee in that category.

If subcategories have been enabled in the Settings Configuration view, then you have a choice to view the payee summary table at the category level, or view the expenses by sub-category chart. Selecting a sub-category then shows a payee summary table with number of transactions, total amounts and percentages for each payee in that sub-category.

For example, if Food is one of your categories with Groceries and Eating Out as sub-categories, selecting week as the data interval, selecting Food as the category will show the sub-category breakdown for Groceries and Eating Out. Selecting either sub-category will show the payee summaries. Using the previous and next data interval buttons will show how those expenses vary by week.

Charts – Incomes by Category

The incomes by category chart and its accompanying income summaries by payers is extremely useful for understanding how money is being received into your accounts. All other aspects of this chart are similar to the Expenses by Category chart.

Charts – Expenses over Time

The expenses over time chart and its accompanying statistics by category table is extremely useful for understanding how your expenses for each category vary by selected date resolution (i.e., month, quarter, year).

Expenses are shown in a stacked bar chart style by categories. For each category, the stats table shows the minimum expense (depending on view width), average expense, and maximum expense by date resolution for the selected year. The previous year and next year buttons will show how those expense stats vary by the selected date resolution.

Charts – Incomes over Time

The incomes over time chart and its accompanying statistics by category table is extremely useful for understanding how your income for each category vary by selected date resolution (i.e., month, quarter, year). All other aspects of this chart are similar to the Expenses over Time chart.

Charts – Cashflow

The cashflow chart is a high-level chart that shows incomes (green bar) and expenses (red bar) for the selected date interval (month, quarter, year).

The yellow line where the bars for incomes and expenses meet represents positive or negative cashflow balance depending if it is above or below the zero line.

The white line represents the accumulated cashflow over time which will grow for each date interval that has positive cashflow and shrink for each date interval that has negative cashflow.

This chart shows your financial growth and the ability of your finances to absorb those inevitable unexpected expenses. For example, you can weigh the long-term cashflow hit to an unexpected or unusual expense that drives cashflow in one month negative.

Backup – Thrive Settings (iOS), Main Menu (Mac)

All of your app’s manually-entered or imported financial data can be stored in an encrypted backup file to a selected folder on this device or to an iCloud folder.

Restore – Thrive Settings (iOS), Main Menu (Mac)

The app’s financial data can be restored from the encrypted backup file. This operation overwrites all of your manually-entered or imported data, but does not overwrite auto-fintech downloaded data.

Export – Thrive Settings (iOS), Main Menu (Mac)

The app’s financial data can be exported and saved as a csv-formatted file. You can select which accounts and a date range for the export. This post provides more information about the exported data and column formats.

Import – Thrive Settings (iOS), Main Menu (Mac)

You can import financial data from several popular personal finance manager apps: Mint, Debit & Credit, Money Wiz, and YNAB. More information about their CSV-formatted file data and column formats is available as posts on the Thrive in Life Kit website.

Importing the exported Thrive in Life Kit file back into the app is also included. This option provides a clean approach to importing a generic CSV-formatted file as long as the data and column formats match those detailed in this post on the Thrive in Life Kit website.

After the financial data has been imported, it is necessary to enter the current account balance for each imported account. This additional information anchors the running balances for the imported transactions. This can also be edited in a selected account at any time by adjusting the starting balance.

Device Sync – Thrive Settings

Each device can be individually enabled to sync financial data with other devices. Syncing financial data with Apple Watch can be enabled separately.

App Logins – Thrive Settings

App passwords and pin-code are optional and can be created, updated, or deleted.

In addition to the primary password for app login, an optional secondary password for app login can be created, updated, or deleted at any time.

If watch sync is enabled, then a pin-code with a selectable length of 4 – 6 digits can be created for app login on Apple Watch. As with passwords, this optional pin-code can be created, updated, or deleted at any time.

Auto Fintech Tier Usage (in-app subscription)

Creating Downloadable Accounts

Auto fintech is all about automating the tracking of your financial accounts. Auto fintech access to financial accounts is read-only. There is no mechanism in Thrive in Life Kit to move money. Auto fintech accounts can be created by tapping on the circle-plus button located at the top of the left pane and completing a four-step process.

Start the process to create an auto fintech account.

Step 1: Search for financial institution

After three characters have been entered, a list of the first 25 institutions matching the text will be retrieved and shown. More characters will refine the search. Note that some institutions may have multiple entries. For example, BECU has both personal account and business account entries in the list.

Step 2: Enter requested credentials

Your selected financial institution will return the login credential fields provide access to your financial account’s transaction data. Both fields are initially masked to provide security.

Step 3: Satisfy any authentication requests

Nearly every financial institution will request additional information to authenticate you as the true user for the account. In many cases, this will involve an MFA process.

Step 4: Save downloaded transactions

Once the login credentials and authentication steps are successful, financial accounts and up to three previous months of associated transactions will be downloaded to Thrive in Life Kit. After downloading is complete, pressing the Save button completes the process.

Updating Downloadable Accounts

Auto Fintech accounts and their transactions are updated during app launch. New or updated transactions are highlighted with a blue bar. These updates are reflected in the Accounts with updated balances and a blue badge indicating the number of new or updated transactions.

It is also possible that a red badge with an exclamation point will appear on accounts common to an institution. This type of badge indicates that further action is needed by you to resolve the access issue. Tapping on the red badge will show a summary of the issue and steps needed to resolve. For example, if you have changed your login password to your financial institution, Thrive in Life Kit will guide you through the re-login and re-authentication process to regain access to your downloadable financial data.

Unsubscribing

Apple provides the option to unsubscribe from Thrive in Life Kit in Settings. Unsubscribing Thrive in Life Kit will affect all devices on your Apple account and delete all of your auto fintech connections. However, your financial data is your data and will not be deleted, but instead be converted to manually-edited data.

Manage Institutions – Thrive Settings

Institutions associated with auto fintech accounts are easily identified by an institution’s icon. Institution names can be edited.

Deleting an auto fintech institution with its accounts is a two-step process. First, the institution, accounts and transactions are removed from auto fintech and converted to manually-created versions. Second, each of these accounts are now manually-created versions and can be deleted.

Convert auto fintech institution, its accounts and transactions to manually created versions.