How PesaTrack works

From an M-PESA SMS arriving on your phone to a categorised expense inside a budget — end to end, on the device.

1. 1. An SMS arrives

   M-PESA or NCBA sends you the usual transaction SMS. Android's SMS broadcast delivers it to every app with the receive permission — one of those is PesaTrack.

   PesaTrack KES

   Incoming SMS

   Screenshot placeholder — see plan §10

2. 2. The parser reads it — nothing else

   PesaTrack's SmsReceiver checks the sender. Only MPESA and NCBA are processed; every other message is ignored at the receiver level. The matching parser extracts amount, recipient, date, transaction code, and the transaction cost.

   PesaTrack KES

   Parsed row

   Screenshot placeholder — see plan §10

3. 3. Auto-categorisation runs

   Three passes, in order — keyword rules, learned recipient mappings, then payment-type heuristics. If nothing matches, the row lands in UNCATEGORIZED with a soft notification so you can tag it when convenient.

   PesaTrack KES

   Category applied

   Screenshot placeholder — see plan §10

4. 4. Budgets and analytics update

   The Budgets screen shows the remaining amount and days left. The Analytics screen updates category totals, the trend line, the savings-rate card, and the income-vs-spend overlay. All in real time. No round-trip to a server.

   PesaTrack KES

   Budget updated

   Screenshot placeholder — see plan §10

5. 5. Nothing leaves the device

   The row lives in a local Room database. Analytics — if you opted in — receives only anonymous events like "opened Analytics screen". No amounts, no recipients, no category names, no note text. See Privacy.

   PesaTrack KES

   Local storage

   Screenshot placeholder — see plan §10