Bank notifications and SMS auto-log

Bluecoins can log transactions for you automatically by reading the push notifications from your banking apps and the SMS from your bank — no bank login, no credentials stored. A notification that says “You spent ₱250 at Café” becomes an expense entry in Bluecoins, filed under the account and category you choose. Push and SMS are both supported; v13 reads bank push notifications as well as SMS.

How it works

Bluecoins uses Android’s notification listener service to watch notifications posted by banking apps, and it reads bank SMS through the SMS reader. When a matching notification arrives, the app extracts the transaction details and creates an entry in the same transaction form you use for manual entry — so anything auto-logged is an ordinary, editable transaction.

Bluecoins never stores bank credentials. It never logs in to your bank; it only reads what the bank pushes to your phone. That is the privacy model: the phone is the data source, and nothing is sent anywhere on your behalf.

Turning it on

The feature lives in Settings → Notifications → Push:

1. Enable push notifications — the master switch. This is a premium feature.
2. Grant notification access — Bluecoins opens Android’s notification-listener settings so you can allow it to read notifications. Without this permission nothing can be detected.
3. Check SMS notifications — the separate switch for SMS-based auto-log, with its own sender configuration below it.

The app allow list

Bluecoins does not read notifications from every app. You add banking apps explicitly:

• Add application opens a picker of your installed apps (system packages are filtered out), and the app keeps a per-app list of notification sources.
• For each app you can set the default account and default category its transactions should be filed under.
• Bluecoins ships with a built-in list of hundreds of banking-app packages across countries so their notifications are visible to the listener; apps can still be added manually.

SMS senders

The SMS side works the same way:

• Add bank senders from your contacts or by name.
• Each sender can be configured with its own default account and category.
• A force-check-all-SMS option logs from every sender instead of a list.

Copy notification to notes

An optional toggle copies the raw notification text into the transaction’s notes field, so the entry carries the original message alongside the parsed amount and payee.

What it means day to day

• Card payments, transfers, and receipts arrive in Bluecoins without opening the app.
• Everything auto-logged passes through the normal transaction form and can be edited, split, re-categorized, or deleted like any manual entry.
• Your banks never see Bluecoins, and Bluecoins never sees your bank passwords — only the notifications your phone already receives. See the transactions guide for what happens to the entries once they are created.

Troubleshooting

If Bluecoins stops detecting transactions, work through these in order.

Notification access was turned off

Some devices turn off Notification Access for apps after a while. If Bluecoins is no longer logging transactions, check that access is still granted:

• In Bluecoins, go to Settings → Notifications → Push and confirm the Enable push notifications switch is on.
• If it is, open your phone’s Settings → Apps → Special access → Notification access (on Samsung, Special access is in the toolbar menu at the top right) and make sure the switch for Bluecoins is on.

Power saving mode

Power saving mode often stops apps from waking in the background to raise notifications. If you have power saving on and Bluecoins is not detecting transactions, try turning it off (or excluding Bluecoins from it) and see whether logging resumes.

Device-specific battery optimization

Android manufacturers often add their own memory and battery management that kills background apps — and with them, notification listening. The most common offenders:

• Huawei — by default kills non-protected apps when the screen locks, which stops notifications. Add Bluecoins to Protected Apps (phone Settings → Battery Manager → Protected Apps) so it keeps running with the screen off.
• Xiaomi — allow Bluecoins to autostart (Settings → Permissions → Autostart) and set it as a protected app (Security → Permissions → Autostart → Bluecoins → allow all permissions).
• Samsung — puts unused apps to sleep after a few days of inactivity, which stops notifications. Exclude Bluecoins under Settings → Device Care → Battery → Settings → Put Unused Apps to Sleep.

If you use a device from another manufacturer with similar aggressive battery management, look for an equivalent “protected apps” or “autostart” setting and add Bluecoins to it.