How to track recurring subscriptions and bills on iPhone?

You have subscriptions you’ve forgotten about. Most people do. The point of recurring transactions in Expensa is to enter them once so they show up in your spending automatically — and you stop being surprised by your card statement.

How it works

A recurring transaction is a template. You set it up — Netflix, $15.99, monthly — and Expensa creates a real transaction on the right day, every period. Catch-up runs on app launch, so missed days fill in automatically the next time you open the app.

Frequencies: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Works for expenses, income, and transfers between your own accounts.

Set one up

You don’t create recurring transactions from a separate screen — you create them from the regular Add Transaction flow.

1. Tap + on the dashboard to add a transaction.
2. Pick the type — Expense (Netflix), Income (salary), or Transfer (monthly savings move).
3. Enter the amount and currency. Pick the account that pays it and a category.
4. Tap the repeat button in the form. Pick a frequency.
5. Set the start date — this is the anchor for every future occurrence. Optionally set an end date.
6. Save.

If the start date is today, Expensa creates today’s transaction immediately and schedules the next one. If it’s in the future, the first one fires on that date.

Expensa for iPhone Track spending automatically Receipt scanning, budgets, Apple Pay sync — free on the App Store. Get the app

Manage them in the Recurring tab

Once a recurring transaction exists, the Recurring tab is where you see it. Two segments: Expenses and Income. The header shows total monthly cost across the segment — double-tap the number to switch between monthly and yearly view.

Each row shows category, account, next run date, and amount. Tap a row for the detail sheet:

• Pause — stop generating new transactions without losing the template. Resume later with one tap.
• Cancel — soft-delete. Future transactions stop; past ones stay in your history.
• Edit — change amount, account, category, frequency, period, notes, or tags.

The “Started on” date is locked once the recurrence has fired at least once — but you can set the next transaction date directly if a charge moved.

A 10-minute audit

Open your last two bank statements. For every recurring charge, add a recurring transaction in Expensa. Then open the dashboard. The Subscriptions category total is usually the moment people cancel two or three things they hadn’t thought about in a year.

Limits

Free plan: 3 active recurring transactions. Enough for rent, salary, and one streamer — not enough for a real audit. Premium removes the limit.

Notes that matter

Multi-currency works as expected. Notion in USD while your account is in EUR? Expensa stores the original amount and the rate at the time the transaction is generated, so reports stay consistent.

Notifications are app-wide. If you want a reminder when something is due, turn on recurrence reminders in Settings → Notifications — applies to all recurring transactions, not per-template.

Catch-up is idempotent. If you don’t open the app for two weeks, the missed transactions are created on launch — no duplicates if one already exists for the same day.

Apple Pay sync pairs well with this. Card-attached charges (most subscriptions) can also be auto-imported via Apple Pay sync — recurrences are for the predictable monthly rhythm, automation catches everything else.

Troubleshooting

Transactions aren’t generating. Open the app. Catch-up runs on launch and during background refresh; if the device hasn’t checked in for a while, opening it triggers the missed runs.

Wrong amount on a future occurrence. Edit the recurring template, not the individual transaction. Future transactions use the new amount; past ones keep the value they were created with.

Charge date moved. Edit the period — if the recurrence has already started, set the next transaction date directly.