Mobile App

Overview

Principal Plan Mobile is a companion app for iPhone and Android. It displays the Envelope balances published by the desktop app for one paired file.

The app is a viewer. Nothing is entered or edited on the phone, no account or transaction detail is sent to it, and it never reads your data file directly. It shows only the Envelope names and balances the desktop chose to publish.

Install it from the App Store or Google Play. The badges at the bottom of the Pair Device tab in the desktop Mobile Pairing dialog open the store listings in your browser.

Pairing With the Desktop

Pairing is set up once, from the desktop, and takes a code and a passphrase.

1. On the desktop, open File > Mobile Pairing and select the Pair Device tab. Save the file first — Generate Code stays disabled while the file is unsaved or has unsaved changes.
2. Press Generate Code and enter a passphrase of at least 8 characters. A QR code appears in the box.
3. On the phone, open the menu with the three-bar button at the top left and choose Pair.
4. Point the camera at the QR code on the desktop screen. The scanner shows Align QR code within the frame until it reads the code.
5. Type the same passphrase on the Pair with Desktop page and press Pair.

The passphrase is never shown beside the QR code and never travels over the network, so a photograph of the screen alone will not give anyone your balances. It cannot be recovered either — if it is forgotten, generate a new code and pair again.

When pairing succeeds, the frame around the QR code on the desktop turns green and the balances appear on the phone.

The Envelope List

The main screen lists each Envelope with its balance, in the same order as the desktop Envelope List. Which Envelopes appear is decided on the desktop, by selecting them on the Envelopes tab of the Mobile Pairing dialog. Buttons there select every Envelope or the ones in the Allocation Plan in one step.

The bar at the bottom of the screen reports the data on display. It reads Not paired until a code is scanned, then shows when the desktop last published, for example Posted 14 Aug 2026 09:15.

Menu Commands

The three-bar button at the top left opens the menu.

Command	Description
Pair	Opens the scanner. Available only while the device is not paired.
Unpair	Forgets the pairing on this device and clears the balances. The desktop keeps its own pairing, so the device can pair again with a new code.
Refresh	Reads the published data at once instead of waiting for the next check.
Language	Opens the language list. The app starts in English, switches as soon as a language is picked, and remembers the choice.

The three pairing commands are disabled while the app is talking to the server.

Keeping Up to Date

The app checks for new data every five minutes while it is on screen, and stops checking while it is in the background. Refresh fetches immediately.

The desktop publishes when the paired file is opened or saved, when the Envelope choice changes, and every five minutes while it is running. Unsaved desktop edits are never published, so the balances on the phone always match the last save of the paired file. If the paired file is not open on the desktop, the phone keeps showing the data it last received.

See Mobile Pairing for the desktop side of pairing, including how to choose which Envelopes are published and how to end the pairing.