Questions and answers

About the company

Who makes these apps?

The Pocket App Company is a small software company built and run by one person. It makes three apps — PocketBoss, Mucknotes and Almoner — each for one kind of one-person business or small organization, and sells nothing else: no ads, no data.

How do I get help?

Email support@thepocketappcompany.com. Every app also has a Help & legal page inside it, and PocketBoss carries a user manual under Tools.

Do you sell my data or show ads?

No. None of the apps show ads, sell data, or let a third party use your records for its own purposes, and none of the companies that run the apps for us may use your data to train AI models. Each app's privacy policy lists exactly who processes what.

How do I delete my account?

In each app, go to the Account page and tap Delete account, or email support@thepocketappcompany.com from the address on your account. Your sign-in is removed at once and your records are erased within 30 days. Each app has a page that spells it out: PocketBoss, Mucknotes, Almoner.

Which countries are the apps for?

They are sold in the United States first. PocketBoss invoices in your own currency and dials with your own country code; its mileage log and tax-year summary follow US tax-year conventions. Almoner's year-end statements are the US church giving statement.

PocketBoss — questions tradespeople ask

Is there a free plan?

Yes. Free is the whole business: your booking page and calendar, unlimited invoices and quotes, card payments, PDFs and invoice email, clients, expenses, time on the job, and a mileage log you fill in by hand. There is no card to enter and no time limit. Boss is $14.99 a month and adds the extras listed under "What it costs".

Does it take a cut of my payments?

No. A card payment is a direct charge to your own Stripe account — the money goes from your customer to you and never passes through ours, so we cannot hold it or freeze it. PocketBoss adds no fee on top. Stripe charges its own card-processing fee and bills you for it directly; check Stripe's pricing for the rate. PocketBoss earns from the $14.99 subscription and nothing else.

Can my helper log in?

On Free there is one login, the owner. On Boss there are up to 5 logins in the business. You mint an invite code in Crew & logins, your helper enters it, and they join as staff: they can work the schedule, clients and invoices, but they cannot change the money settings, edit the business profile or delete records. A helper inside a Boss business gets the Boss features too.

Does it track mileage automatically?

Yes, on Android with Boss. It is opt-in and off by default. When you turn on Drives, the phone notices when you are driving during your working hours and records the drive with GPS; your jobs label the drives, and at the end of the day you check the list and mark each one business or personal. It records miles only — it applies no rate and puts no dollar value on a mile. A phone's sensors can be wrong or miss a trip, so check every drive before you use it for anything. On Free you log trips by hand.

Does it do my taxes?

No. PocketBoss keeps records: income from paid invoices, expenses by category, and miles. The Tax center (Boss) shows a year-end summary of your own entries that you can copy or download and hand to your accountant. It does not calculate what you owe, it applies no tax rate to anything, and it does not give tax, legal or accounting advice. Check the figures with your accountant before you file.

Does it work on iPhone?

Not yet. PocketBoss runs on Android and in any web browser today, including on an iPhone's browser at https://pocketboss-17392.web.app. A native iPhone app is planned, and there is no date to promise.

Can customers book online?

Yes. Every business gets a public booking page at its own link. The customer picks a service and a time inside your working hours, and the request lands in the app for you to confirm or decline. If you would rather the phone rang, turn online booking off and the page shows your number instead. The booking page is on the Free plan.

Can I send invoices by email?

Yes. Tap Send and the invoice goes by email from "Your Business via PocketBoss", with replies going to your own business email, and it carries a pay link so the customer can pay by card. You can also download the invoice as a PDF or copy it as plain text. Quotes send the same way; letting a customer approve a quote with a typed signature is a Boss feature.

Does it send reminders and texts?

Reminders go out by email: an appointment reminder about a day before the job, a polite chase when an invoice is overdue, and a follow-up on a quote that has gone quiet. Texts are different. Today, automatic texts from PocketBoss's own number are limited to the founder's account; every other business sends a text from its own phone, one tap from a prepared list, in its own words, and the app never texts a customer silently. A customer is only ever texted if they ticked the "It's OK to text me" box when they booked.

Can I take a deposit?

Yes, on Boss. Request a deposit on a job and PocketBoss makes a Stripe payment link, prefilled from the service's suggested deposit; when it is paid, the job shows the deposit as received.

Can I quote first and invoice later?

Yes, on Free. A quote reuses the same line items, tax and discount as an invoice, has its own numbering, and converts into an invoice with one tap when the job is won. Quotes that get no answer show up on your Today screen so you remember to follow up.

What happens to my data if I cancel?

If you cancel Boss, you keep it until the end of the month you paid for and then drop to Free — your records stay where they are. You can export your data any time as a JSON backup or CSV. If you delete your account, your sign-in is removed at once and your business records, including our backups, are erased within 30 days.

Where is my data stored?

On Google Firebase (Firestore and Cloud Functions). Stripe processes payments, SendGrid sends the emails, Twilio sends any text from the app's number, and Anthropic runs the AI features on the Boss plan. Card numbers never touch PocketBoss. Every night your data is backed up to a file you can download from Backups & data. The full list is in the privacy policy.

Does it track time on the job?

Yes, on Free. Clock in and out on a job, or add hours by hand. If you set your hourly rate, the job shows what that time was worth, so you can see when a service is priced too low.

Mucknotes — questions barn people ask

Is there a free plan?

Yes. Free gives you voice logging, reminders and insights for up to 2 animals, with no card and no time limit. Homestead is $9.99 a month for unlimited animals, PDF health summaries, the Coggins roster PDF, and written summaries and answers from your own records. Ranch is $39.99 a month and adds the tools for a barn with staff: tasks, the bulletin board, feed and medicine inventory, client records and reports, team logins and the activity log.

What animals can I keep records for?

Horses, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, poultry, rabbits, dogs and cats each have their own species plate and their own care library. Every animal gets a page with its history, its portrait and what is coming up.

How does the voice logging work?

Hold the button and say what happened — "wormed Bella and Duke with ivermectin". Your phone turns the speech into text; Mucknotes shows you the words it heard, and you tap Send or Delete. On Send, the text is sorted into one record per animal named, and the next due date is set from the care library. We never record or store audio. You can also type instead of talking.

Does it remind me when something is due?

Yes. Each care job has a cadence — a horse's farrier every 6 weeks, deworming every 6 months, core vaccines every year — so logging a record sets the next reminder. The Due Soon board shows what is overdue, due today and due this week, and the phone app can notify you.

Does it track Coggins?

Yes. Log a Coggins (EIA) test and Mucknotes sets the 365-day re-pull reminder. The barn-wide Coggins roster shows which horses are current and which are about to lapse. Exporting the roster as a PDF for a show secretary or hauler is a Homestead feature.

Can I add my own kinds of care?

Yes. Add a care type by hand or by voice ("add a new care type, sheath cleaning, every six months"), for the whole barn, one species or a single animal. It logs, reminds and charts like a built-in one.

Can my barn staff use it?

On Ranch, yes. Team logins show who did what; you assign tasks by voice, tick them off on the day's bulletin board, track feed and medicine inventory, and keep an activity log that cannot be edited after the fact.

Can a boarder see their own horse's records?

On Ranch you keep a record per client and can give them a PDF report or a private portal link for their animals. A portal link expires after 180 days.

Does it work offline?

Sorting a voice note into records happens on our server, so filing a record needs a data signal. Mucknotes does not advertise an offline mode.

Does it work on iPhone?

Not yet. Mucknotes runs on Android and in any web browser today, including an iPhone's browser at https://mucknotes-pocketboss.web.app. A native iPhone app is planned, with no date promised.

Is my voice recorded?

No. Speech is turned into text on your own phone. Only the text is sent to be sorted into records, and you see and can delete that text before it is sent.

What happens to my records if I cancel?

You keep the plan until the end of the month you paid for, then drop to Free. Your records stay in the app. If you delete your account, your sign-in is removed at once and your records are erased within 30 days.

Where is my data stored?

On Google Firebase. The AI that sorts a voice note and writes summaries runs through Anthropic on our own key. Nothing is sold or used for advertising. Details are in the privacy policy.

Almoner — questions treasurers ask

Is there a free plan?

Yes. Free covers the whole reporting job: CSV imports, monthly and fund reports, the board packet PDF, year-end statements, and report summaries on the standard allowance. There is no card and no time limit. Ministry is $69.99 a month and adds pledge tracking and other income, giving trends and lapsed-giver lists, emailed statements, count-sheet photo capture, team logins and unlimited summaries. On the web the first 30 days of Ministry are free.

Does Almoner take donations?

No. Almoner never handles a gift. It reports on giving that has already reached the church — from your bank, your giving platform or the plate — and takes no percentage of it. If you use Tithe.ly, Planning Center Giving or another platform to collect, keep it; Almoner reads its export.

Where does the giving data come from?

Three ways. Import the CSV your bank or giving platform exports (Planning Center, Breeze, Tithe.ly, QuickBooks and others — the common column names are matched automatically, and you check the mapping before anything posts). Type in a Sunday count sheet. Or dictate the plate — "fifty dollars from the Hendersons to the building fund" — and review the lines before they post. Duplicate detection stops a file being counted twice.

How do year-end giving statements work?

Pick the year and Almoner makes one PDF per donor, with refunds netted so nobody is thanked for the wrong amount, and a note of anything it had to leave out — anonymous gifts and donors whose year netted to nothing — so nobody goes unacknowledged. Ministry churches can email the whole batch.

Is it accounting software?

No. Almoner is a giving ledger and a report writer. Funds, other income and benevolence each have a proper home, but there is no double-entry bookkeeping and no bank reconciliation. It replaces the spreadsheet the treasurer keeps, not the church's accountant.

What is the board packet?

A PDF for the month that just closed: total received, gifts, donors, year to date, month over month, giving by fund and by payment method, with a plain-English summary written for people who do not read spreadsheets. On Ministry the headline numbers can also be emailed to the board automatically on the first of each month.

Can more than one person share the books?

Yes. A second counter or a co-treasurer joins with an invite code. Inviting a teammate is a Ministry feature.

Are the numbers reliable?

Every figure is computed the same way from the same rows, so the board packet, the fund report and a donor's statement can never disagree with each other. The import shows what it read and flags rows that look wrong or duplicated. The AI summary is prose written from those numbers — read it before it goes to the board, because a summary can be wrong even when the figures are right.

Is it for a particular denomination?

No. Almoner carries a plain cross, an olive branch and a few widely shared verses, and nothing specific to one tradition.

Does it work on iPhone?

Not yet. Almoner runs on Android and in any web browser today, including an iPhone's browser at https://almoner-pocketboss.web.app. A native iPhone app is planned, with no date promised.

What happens to our records if we cancel?

The church keeps Ministry until the end of the month it has paid for, then drops to Free. Every record and report stays in the app. Your data exports any time; deleting the account erases it within 30 days.

Where is our data stored?

On Google Firebase. Emails go through SendGrid; the written summaries run through Anthropic on our own key. Nothing is sold or used for advertising. Details are in the privacy policy.