Help

No. On first launch, enter a first name or nickname, choose the currency, then tap Start on this iPhone. There is no sign-up, no username and no Northstar password.

To protect your finances, Northstar opens only with Face ID or the iPhone passcode, and asks again before sensitive actions: exporting, restoring, erasing, inviting, joining, leaving or deleting a space, or lengthening the lock delay. Without a passcode set in iOS Settings, the app can’t be set up.

To choose when the app locks: Settings › Security and backups › Auto-Lock.

In the Expenses tab, open the Budget and income menu, then Edit budgets. Pick a category, tap Monthly limit and save with Save budget.

A budget carries forward to the following months until you change it. You can also go through Settings › Current space › Categories and budgets.

Tap the + button in the Home tab (or in the Expenses tab), enter the amount, category and date, then tap Add this expense.

For income: Expenses › Budget and income › Edit income.

Yes, as a PDF or a photo. Tap Scan or upload: Scan photographs a document, Upload takes it from Photos or Files. From another app, tap Share, choose Northstar, then Prepare files.

Nothing is added before you check it. By default the document is kept as a source file: to not keep it, tap 1 document under the line count, open Saved source files and untick it before adding. Up to 10 documents, 60 pages and 250 transactions per import; at most 30 pages and 20 MB per document. CSV files are not read.

Out of 100, it compares your variable spending with the usual pace of your budgets at this point in the month. 90 and above: On pace. 75 to 89: Running a little fast, or A little tight when it’s the room for your goals that falls short. Below that: Time to rebalance. Once the month’s income is entered and a goal or a debt plans a monthly amount, the room for goals counts for 30%.

The ≈ sign marks an estimate: Northstar learns your pace from the months you review. Fixed costs, repayments and spending without a budget don’t count in the pace. It is not a credit score. In the app, tap the score, then How it is calculated.

No. The currency is chosen when the space is created (CHF, EUR, USD or another code) and then stays fixed. Northstar doesn’t convert amounts.

Open Settings › Current space › Sharing and sync, then under Shared with whom?, tap Invite. After a confirmation and Face ID, Apple’s sharing sheet opens: invite your partner with the email address or phone number of their Apple Account, with read-only or edit access.

Inviting turns on iCloud for that space only. Each of you keeps the app on your own iPhone.

Install Northstar, then tap the invitation link you received. In iCloud invitation, tap Join and sync this space. The space appears in Choose a space; open it when it shows Ready to open.

As with the rest of the app, the iPhone needs a passcode.

Only if you turn them on, in Settings › Current space › Notifications. They report changes made by your partner, without amounts, and changes to access to a shared space. Northstar sends no reminders and no overspending alerts.

If you created the space: Settings › Current space › Sharing and sync, then Manage access (Invite while nobody has joined). After a confirmation and Face ID, Apple’s sheet lets you remove a person or stop sharing. If you joined the space: Leave this space, at the bottom of the Current space card.

On your iPhone. If you turn on iCloud for a space (Enable iCloud) or share it, Apple also keeps it in iCloud. Northstar sends nothing to the developer and contains no ads or tracking tools.

The details are in the privacy policy.

Settings › Security and backups › Back up, then Prepare encrypted export. Northstar shows a key starting with NSK1: keep it somewhere safe, turn on I have stored the key safely, then save the file, for example in Files or iCloud Drive.

Without the key, nobody can open the backup, not even the developer. The backup covers the open space: finances, history and source files.

The iPhone’s backup doesn’t contain Northstar’s data. For a space you joined, ask for a new invitation. For a space you created, restore an encrypted backup: on first launch, enter a first name or nickname, open Already using Northstar? Recover my data, then Restore an encrypted backup. The backup becomes a new space that isn’t shared.

So make an encrypted backup from time to time, and keep its key.

Settings › Erase my data, at the very bottom (also offered on the welcome screen). On this iPhone only erases every space on this iPhone and leaves the data in iCloud. On this iPhone and in iCloud also deletes the Northstar spaces of your iCloud account.

To confirm, type DELETE, then tap Permanently erase. If you created a shared space, erasing it in iCloud deletes it for everyone, but copies already on other iPhones are not erased. If you joined someone’s household, the iCloud option takes you out of it; the person who created it keeps its data, including your entries.

No. Northstar connects to no bank and never moves money. You enter or import your expenses and income yourself.

No. Apple Intelligence is optional and off at first. Once turned on in Settings › Help with entries › Apple Intelligence, it helps read documents and pick a useful question about your figures; it doesn’t calculate the score and changes nothing without your confirmation.

It needs iOS 26, a compatible iPhone and Apple Intelligence turned on in iOS Settings. Northstar works fully without it.

Northstar starts in the iPhone’s language: French, German or English (French if none matches). To change it: Settings › You › Language. The change is immediate.