What Lightning does today

What It Does. Today.

Everything here works today: on Windows in the beta, on the phone in testing.

Download free See how it works

Free to use. Windows. No bank login.

Highlights

Five Things It Does Best.

Each one with a number from Mohab, our sample household, on 2026-10-04.

One Ledger on Phone and PC

Your phone holds the ledger and your PC borrows it over your own Wi-Fi. No account, no server.

Same ledger on both · +324,179 EGP this year

See the Low Point Before You Reach It

Salary, bills, loan payments and your emergency fund top-up are already in the plan, month by month.

Lowest point ahead · 181,397 EGP in 2026-11

Money That Isn’t Yours Stays Out

Cash you hold for family stays in your account but out of what you own. An expense someone paid for you still counts in your spending.

Held for family · −6,000 from what Mohab owns

Certificates, the Way Banks Write Them

Rate, simple or compound, payout, earliest withdrawal and maturity, grouped under the bank. Interest shows in your forecast as an estimate, apart from income.

NBE three-year certificate · 100,000 EGP

Every Figure Explains Itself

Click a figure on the Overview and see how it adds up. Estimates say they are estimates.

Net worth · 596,179 owned −49,500 owed = 546,679 EGP

All features

101 Features in Twelve Groups.

One line a feature, and only what Lightning does today.

Overview

The Overview Page

Net worth. What you own less what you owe, in EGP.
Free cash. What is yours to use after the bills you owe.
What it is made of. Cash, gold, shares, funds and certificates side by side.
If you sold today. An estimate of what each kind of asset would bring in cash, with a sale factor you can set.
Needs you. One list of every statement to review and every entry without a category, beside bills due, missing prices and a plan short of what you mean to save.
Cash flow and savings rate. What came in, what went out and what you kept.
Where it went. Your spending by category for any period.
Month by month. How each month compares with the others.
Explain a figure. Click a figure on the Overview to see how it adds up.
Financial health. Savings rate, emergency fund in months and debt to net worth against limits you set, with six months over time.

Phone and PC

Your Phone and PC

Your phone holds the ledger. Tap + to add spending wherever you are.
The same figures. Overview, accounts and cash planning, in a layout made for the phone.
Pair once. Type the phone’s code on your PC; both screens then show the same six check digits.
Your PC borrows it. Encrypted over your own Wi-Fi, opened with the same password as on your phone.
One edits, the other reads. While it is lent, the phone shows Lent to Office PC · read only.
Hand it back. Close Lightning near your phone and the ledger goes home; away from it, the PC’s edits are sealed for the next meeting.
Bank SMS into review. After you allow it, new messages from your banks wait for you; nothing posts until you say so.

Accounts and transactions

Accounts and Transactions

Accounts. Bank, cash, wallet and investment accounts, each with a starting balance.
Money in, money out and transfers. A transfer is never counted as spending.
Split a purchase. Across several categories.
Edit, void and restore. A wrong click never loses a record.
Select many. Then categorise or delete them in one go.
Search with Ctrl K. One box finds a page, an account, a name, a category, an investment or a #tag.
#tags. A #tag in a note gathers its transactions, with their money in and money out.
Check against the bank. A small difference becomes one adjustment; a bigger one is reviewed row by row.
Export selected rows. Take the entries you choose out of a register.
Counterparties. One name for each place you pay or get paid, with a default category.
Rules. Set the category, tags or split by name, note, amount or account, in Settings.

Money held for others

Money Held for Others

Held for others. Money and units you hold for someone else, shown apart from what you own.
Cash ownership. Reassign cash between you and a saved person without changing the account's total.
Paid on your behalf. Record an expense someone else paid and still count it in your spending.

CSV import

Bank Statement CSV Import

Bank CSV import. One signed amount column, or separate in and out columns.
Column mapping. Match the columns once, then review.
Review before posting. Only rows that need a decision need your attention.
One decision per new name. A name typed on several rows is created once.
Duplicates flagged. So the same row is not imported twice.
Link to an entry you already made. So the same money is never counted twice.
Name suggestions. Similar names are offered for you to pick, never merged silently.
Import helper. A blank template and a ready prompt to shape any statement with the tool you choose.

Budget

Budget by Category

Amount or percent. Type 1,500, or 12% of your average monthly income.
Average of recent months. Use what you usually spend as the plan.
Carryover. See what the previous month left, category by category.
Any period. All time, year to date, a month or a custom range.
Loan payments. Planned for you until you set your own amount.
Bulk plans. Apply a plan to many categories at once, and undo it.
Fill this month. Plans the month in one click, up to the most you can plan.
Your savings target. The plan leaves room for it, your goals and the emergency fund, and says how much to cut if not.
Categories in three levels. Broad groups, categories and optional detail.

Cash planning

Safe to Spend, Bills and Forecast

Safe to spend. Your cash until the next income, after what you owe.
What you owe. Bills due and loans still to pay.
Next 30 days and three-month forecast. Every payment and income ahead.
Recurring bills, subscriptions and income. Suggested from your history, never created on their own.
A payment finds its bill. A clear match settles it; an early or changed amount waits for you.
Weekend bills. A bill due on Friday or Saturday moves to Thursday or Sunday.
Skip a payment. And undo the skip.
Loans. Progress and payoff date.
Debt and fixed-cost ratios. Debt to net worth, debt to cash, loan payments to income and fixed costs to income.
Reserves. Set cash aside for a goal and track what you have set aside.
Goals with a date. Each says what it needs a month, and the budget and forecast count it.
Emergency fund. Counted in months of income or of spending; its monthly top-up comes off safe to spend.
Certificate interest and maturity. Shown in the forecast, apart from income.

Investments

Shares and Funds

Buy, sell and dividends. Recorded inside your brokerage account.
Prices. Typed in, fetched, or filled from the price files of the markets you follow.
Egyptian Exchange catalogue. Pick shares and funds by name.
US stocks and ETFs. About 400 stocks and 70 ETFs on Nasdaq, NYSE and Arca, picked by name and priced in dollars.
Gulf and European shares. Pick the exchange and type the price; the currency follows the exchange.
Foreign gain in two parts. A dollar holding shows its price gain and its exchange-rate gain apart.
Net gain or loss. Gain from sales, price change on what you hold and dividends, in one figure.
Yearly return (XIRR). Based on when your money went in, shown once a holding is a year old.
Holdings after sale. An estimate of what you would keep after selling.
Every price change recorded. Monthly revaluations and sale-day adjustments, each one traceable.
Target allocation. Set the share you want in each kind of asset.
Investment plan helper. Shows how to split new money towards your targets.

Currencies

Dollars and Other Currencies

Hold a currency. Dollar and other balances stay in their own currency beside your EGP.
Convert between currencies. Records the rate you actually got.
Rates with their age. A rate you typed or traded beats a market rate, and an old rate says how old it is.
Exchange-rate gain. For each currency: average rate, gain not yet realised, gain realised and the spread you paid.

Gold and certificates

Gold and Bank Certificates

Gold by piece. Net weight, karat and cost for each piece, valued per gram of the same karat.
Buy and sell gold. Each purchase and sale is recorded against the piece.
Certificates. Principal, rate, simple or compound, payout, earliest withdrawal and maturity.
Maturity by date or term. Type a date, or a term in years.
Interest forecast. An estimate only; you enter the real interest from your bank statement.
Redeem a certificate. Enter what the bank actually paid back.
Bank portfolios. Certificates grouped under the bank that issued them.

Privacy and backups

Privacy, Backups and Recovery

Windows app. No Python or other software needed.
Profiles. Named, each encrypted and opened with its own password.
Recovery. A 12-digit recovery key and a security question reset a forgotten password.
Backups. One is made every time the app starts, and you can back up whenever you like.
Restore (early preview). Choose an encrypted backup from the lock screen and bring it back.
Data checks. Compare totals across your ledger and reports.
Export your numbers. One workbook prepared on your device; nothing is uploaded.
Privacy mode. The eye beside Search blurs every amount on screen.
Start fresh. A new empty profile, with the old one left exactly as it was.

Shortcuts

Typing Shortcuts and Everyday Settings

Sums in amount fields. Type 120+35*2 and it saves 190.
Dates. Type 31/1 or 2026-01-31, or pick from a calendar.
English and Egyptian Arabic. Switch the language in Settings; Arabic screens read right to left, with amounts and dates in their natural order.
Arabic digits. Amounts and dates typed with Arabic-Indic digits are understood.
Type and pick. Choose your own accounts, categories and names by typing.
Month picker. Pick a month; never type one.
Answers first. Up to three one-line answers under each page title.
Light and dark. Follows your device.
Sample household. Try everything on a sample before you enter your own.

Beta testers wanted

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Take the 3–5 minute survey: what you track, what you skip and what you wish Lightning did.

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