Use a small, repeatable manual system
Choose a review date that serves your question. Monthly, quarterly, annual, and event-based reviews are valid options. Collect balances from statements, record assets and debts separately, and check the totals before saving a dated snapshot. Confirm new accounts, closed loans, and transfers rather than carrying old numbers forward without checking.
A spreadsheet gives you flexible formulas and a place for valuation notes. A dedicated local-first tracker can make dated comparisons easier. If you use a cloud spreadsheet, its storage and sharing settings apply; a spreadsheet is not necessarily offline or private. Use neutral holding names and keep readable backups out of shared folders.
Enter balances, not account credentials
Open your financial providers separately. Copy the balances you want to review, and confirm their dates. Exitmargin does not ask for bank credentials or connect to financial accounts.
A generic holding name is usually enough to identify a balance. There is no need to put an account number, login, or password in a holding name.
Understand what browser-local means
The journal database belongs to this site in this browser profile. A different browser, profile, or device has a separate journal. The calculator and journal do not upload entered financial values to an application server.
Hosting still requires network requests. Cloudflare receives technical information to serve the site. Optional cookieless PostHog analytics measures allowlisted actions and excludes financial content, form values, and local record IDs. Replay is disabled. Cloudflare Network Error Logging is disabled separately at zone level. Local financial storage is not a promise of anonymous website use.
Local storage is not encryption
The current app does not encrypt its journal database or backup files. Someone with access to the browser profile may be able to open the journal. A device lock and a separate browser profile can limit casual access, but they do not add encryption to the app itself.
Do not leave readable backup files in shared folders or send them with a support request. Review screenshots before sharing them.
Preserve a backup outside browser storage
Browser storage can be cleared, evicted, or lost with a device. Private browsing may remove data when the session ends. If journal storage fails, do not clear site data as a first troubleshooting step.
Use Download backup in More and keep the file somewhere private that you can recover. To move devices, export, open the other browser, choose the file, and review the replacement before confirming. Export the destination journal first if it contains records you want to keep.
Choose the trade-off deliberately
A manual journal has no automatic bank updates or device sync. You choose which balances to record and when. That can suit a periodic review, but it does not replace account statements or a tool you need for detailed cash-flow tracking.
Keep your latest backup and know which browser holds the current journal. These simple habits make the local-first model easier to understand and maintain.
Bank-connected tracking versus manual entry
A connected service can reduce repeated entry and bring account balances into one view. Its coverage, permissions, storage, and retention depend on the provider. A connection is not automatically unsafe, and a manual tool is not automatically secure. Read the actual policies of any service you use.
Manual tracking takes more effort and values can become stale between reviews. Its advantage is a deliberate boundary: you choose the balances, leave credentials with the financial provider, and avoid giving the journal ongoing account access. Neither approach guarantees that every asset and debt is included.
Sources and scope
These are general explanations and product instructions, not personal investment, tax, or debt advice. The examples are synthetic. Product instructions describe the current app.
For product details, read How it works and Data & privacy. Report a correction through Help & contact.