This document constitutes the official Privacy Policy and application information for the Kharcha Mini - Expense Manager Android application, published and maintained by Programming Place.

1. Data Collection

Kharcha Mini Expense Manager stores your expense and income data locally on your device using a local database. This data includes:

• Transaction records (amounts, categories, dates, descriptions)
• Category definitions you create
• App settings and preferences

All financial data is stored exclusively on your device and is never transmitted to our servers or third parties without your explicit consent.

2. Third-Party Services

The app uses the following third-party services:

Firebase Services

We use Firebase services provided by Google for the following purposes:

• Firebase Crashlytics: To monitor app crashes and errors, which helps us improve app stability. This service may collect device information (model, OS version) and crash logs.
• Firebase Analytics: To understand app usage patterns and improve user experience. This collects anonymized usage data such as app launches and feature usage.
• Firebase Performance Monitoring: To monitor app performance and identify areas for optimization. This may collect performance metrics and device information.

These Firebase services are governed by Google's privacy policies. You can read more about Firebase's data practices here: https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy

Future Third-Party Services

In the future, the app may include additional third-party services such as Google AdMob for showing advertisements. These services may collect certain information used to identify you or your device, such as:

• Device information (e.g. model, OS version)
• Advertising ID
• Usage data (e.g. ad views, interactions)

These third parties are governed by their own privacy policies. You can read more about Google AdMob's data practices here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads

3. Data Security

We are committed to protecting your privacy and take reasonable steps to safeguard your data:

• All local data is stored locally on your device
• We do not collect or transmit your financial transaction data
• Third-party analytics data is anonymized and does not include personal financial information

4. SMS Auto-Import Feature

Kharcha Mini includes an optional SMS Auto-Import feature that can automatically detect payment and debit transaction messages and create expense entries from them. This feature is disabled by default and must be explicitly turned on by you in the app's Settings.

How It Works

• When enabled, the app reads incoming SMS messages in real time and scans your existing SMS inbox (one-time scan) to detect bank/UPI debit notifications.
• Only messages that appear to represent a payment debit are processed — credit, refund, cashback, and reversal messages are automatically ignored.
• The app extracts only the merchant or payee name and the transaction amount from qualifying messages and saves them as a local expense entry.
• A deduplication fingerprint (a one-way SHA-256 hash of the sender address, timestamp, and message body) is stored alongside each imported expense solely to prevent the same message from being imported more than once. The original SMS content is not stored.

Permissions Used

• READ_SMS: Used only when you trigger an inbox scan from Settings, to read existing messages and import any payment debits you may have missed.
• RECEIVE_SMS: Used only when Auto-Import is enabled, to listen for new incoming SMS messages in real time.

Data Handling

• All SMS processing happens entirely on your device. No SMS content, sender information, or financial data is sent to our servers or any third party.
• The app does not store the full text of any SMS message.
• You can disable Auto-Import at any time from Settings. When disabled, the app stops listening for new messages and performs no further SMS inbox reads.
• Imported expense entries are stored in the same local database as your manually entered expenses and can be deleted by you at any time.

5. Permissions

The app may request the following permissions:

• READ_SMS / RECEIVE_SMS: Only requested and used when you enable the SMS Auto-Import feature in Settings. See Section 4 above for full details.
• Biometric Authentication (USE_BIOMETRIC / USE_FINGERPRINT): To protect your data with fingerprint or face recognition. This data is processed locally on your device and never transmitted.
• POST_NOTIFICATIONS: To show a notification when a new expense is automatically imported from an incoming SMS message.
• WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE: On Android 9 and below only, to save backup files to the Downloads folder. Not used on Android 10 and above.
• Internet Access: Only for Firebase services (crash reporting, analytics). Your financial data is never transmitted over the internet.

6. Children's Privacy

The app does not knowingly collect personal data from children under the age of 13. It is suitable for all age groups.

7. Changes to this Policy

This policy may be updated from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated date.

8. Developer & Contact Information

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or the Kharcha Mini application, please contact the developer directly:

Effective Date: September 1, 2026 (Updated: September 2026)