Nobody at Ahead looks at your transactions.
Who could see your records, and what stops them.
You, and the people you invite
Yes
Other people who use Ahead
No
Ahead's support
No
Someone you send a share link to
One loan only
The founder, going around the app
Possible
Our own access to your data.
Any service that works out your budget on its servers has someone who could open the database. We will not pretend otherwise. What we can do is make sure it is never opened casually. These rules are in place today:
The database is not on the internet
It accepts connections only from the app, on the same server. Nobody can connect to it from outside.
No copies on our computers
Your data is never copied to a laptop, not as a backup, a spreadsheet or a screenshot. If we need real data to fix a bug, we ask the person who reported it for their own export, and delete it afterwards.
Our tools refuse to open it
The tools we use to build Ahead are set to refuse any command that would open the live database. Getting past that needs a person to type the command by hand, on purpose.
Every look is written down
The server keeps a log of every command a person runs on it, with who ran it and when. If someone opens the database with full access, every query they type goes into the log too.
Everyday checks cannot see your budget
When we check something in the database, such as whether a payment went through, we use a login that can read only names and emails, plans, invoices, payments, error records, bug reports and support messages. It cannot read your transactions or anything else in your budget. Full access is used only to fix a problem.
We ask first
If fixing a problem ever needs a look at your records, we ask you first, and we tell you what was looked at.
No bank logins, no card numbers, no SMS.
You type in your transactions, or import a statement file you downloaded from your bank yourself. Looking at each one helps you notice where your money goes. There is also a simple security reason: an app holding thousands of bank logins is a target for hackers, and if it is hacked, its customers suffer.
We store only the transactions you type in or import: amounts, dates, payee names, categories and notes. A statement file you import is read and then deleted; only the rows you choose are kept. What we hold is private and worth protecting, but none of it can be used to move your money.
This is also why Ahead has no Account Aggregator or RBI registration. Those are for apps that pull data from your bank, and Ahead never connects to a bank.
Many apps read your bank account because it helps their business. We do not, because it is your money and your privacy.
Your budget, shown to you. Nothing else.
Used for
Only the calculations you see: what is left in each category, what carries into next month, and how long your money will last.
The only numbers we look at across all users are counts: how many households signed up, finished setting up and added a first transaction. They tell us whether the app works, and say nothing about anyone’s money.
Never
- Sold, rented or shared with anyone for their own use.
- Used for advertising. There is no advertising anywhere in Ahead.
- Used to score your credit or to offer you a loan, a card or an investment.
- Used to train an AI model, ours or anybody else’s.
- Combined into data about households in general.
Encrypted when it travels and when it is stored.
On the way
TLS 1.2 or 1.3
Everything between your phone or laptop and Ahead is encrypted, and older versions are refused. Your browser is told to always use an encrypted connection to us (HSTS), even if you type the address yourself.
On the disk
Encrypted storage
The database is on encrypted storage in our hosting provider's Bangalore data centre. A disk taken out of the building could not be read.
In the backups
AES-256, key kept off the server
A backup is made every night and encrypted, using a key that is not kept on the server. Someone who copied all our backup files could not open any of them.
Your password
Stored only as a bcrypt hash, a code that cannot be turned back into your password. We cannot read it, and neither could anyone who stole the database. That is why a forgotten password can only be reset, never sent to you.
Your two-factor secret
Encrypted in the database with AES-256, and so are your recovery codes.
Why each amount is not encrypted separately.
Ahead adds up your budget, carries money into next month, works out your runway and searches your payees. It does this on its servers, so the server has to be able to read the numbers. Encrypting each amount with a key kept on the same server would sound good, but it would not protect you any more than the encrypted disk and backups already do.
The only way we could never read your records is if every calculation happened on your own device, with a key only you hold. But then a forgotten password would mean your data is lost forever. We chose a design where a forgotten password can be reset by email. We protect your data by strictly limiting who can reach it, and we do not claim it is sealed.
Two-factor login, and a way back in.
Any authenticator app
The one you already use will work. To turn on two-factor, you first type in a code from the app, so it cannot be switched on in a way that locks you out.
Recovery codes
You get these when you turn on two-factor, and you can make new ones. Losing your phone should not lock you out of your own records.
Every device you are signed in on
Listed in Settings with the browser and when it was last used. You can sign any of them out from there.
Your sign-in is kept away from scripts
It is stored where scripts on the page cannot read it, so even a harmful script would have nothing to take.
Signing in does not reveal who uses Ahead
A wrong password and an email with no account get the same reply, so nobody can use the sign-in form to find out who uses Ahead. Repeated attempts are slowed down.
No trackers, and no amounts in our logs.
The app has no analytics, no advertising trackers and no scripts from other companies. The only outside page it opens is Razorpay’s payment window, when you pay.
When something fails, our error log records what failed and where, and leaves out the amounts, payees and notes. Emails from Ahead never contain an amount from your budget either: an invitation to share a loan says who sent it, not how much.
Stored in India. Four companies help run it.
DigitalOcean
Bangalore, IndiaStores the server, the encrypted database and its backups, in India. Its Bangalore data centre is certified to ISO 27001 and audited under SOC 2 Type II. Those certificates are DigitalOcean’s, not ours.
Cloudflare
WorldwideCarries the encrypted traffic between your device and the server, and protects it from attack. It keeps none of your records.
Zoho ZeptoMail
United StatesSends our emails, so it sees your name, your email address and what each email is about. Never an amount from your budget.
Razorpay
Bengaluru, IndiaTakes payments. It never receives your budget or your transactions.
The full list, and your rights over each, is in the Privacy Policy.
You can always download your data, or delete it.
Downloading your data and deleting it always work, even if a payment has failed, your household is locked, or you have cancelled.
Deleting really deletes. Accounts, transactions, budgets, loans and everything else in the household are removed, not hidden. What stays is a record that changes happened, by whom and when, with nothing about what they were. Your sign-in (your name and email) stays until you ask us to remove it too. Invoices for anything you paid stay for eight years, because tax law requires it. Backups are kept for thirty days, and our host’s weekly copy of the server for four weeks after that. So within sixty days, no copy of your records exists anywhere.
Your rights, and most of them are buttons in the app.
Ahead is run by Larissa InfoTech Private Limited. Under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, we are responsible for your data, and you have rights over it. Your records are stored in India.
A copy of everything
Instant, and never refused.
Correct it
Erase it
Complain
The Privacy Policy has the full list and how each right works.
If something goes wrong.
If we ever find that your data has been exposed, we will quickly tell you and the Data Protection Board of India, as the law requires, with what we know and what we are doing about it.
If you find a weakness in Ahead, write to [email protected]. We will read it, fix it and record what we did.
From the founder
I run Ahead, and I am the only person who can sign in to its server. I wrote this page so you can check how I handle that, instead of just trusting me. It describes how Ahead is built. It is not an audit, a certificate or a bug bounty. Everything here is true, and if something is not built yet, this page says so. If anything changes, this page will change first, with a new date.
The founder, Larissa InfoTech Private Limited
Updated 9 October 2026
What changed
9 October 2026
- Added: two rules that were listed as not built are now in place. Every command a person runs on our server is written to a log, and everyday checks in the database use a login that cannot read your budget.
- Removed: the note about a future button in Settings that would let support see your budget for a short time. It is not built yet. If we ever need to look at your records, we still ask you first.
6 October 2026
- Added: a statement file you import is read and then deleted. Only the rows you choose to import are kept.
- Changed: "We store only what you typed" now reads "We store only the transactions you type in or import".
This list starts on 6 October 2026. Changes before then were not listed one by one.
Try the export on day one.
Download everything in your household as spreadsheet files. It works even before you pay.
- No card
- Nothing starts charging when the trial ends.
- Nothing to connect
- No bank login, and nothing reads your SMS.
- Download any time
- All your data as spreadsheet files, paid or not.