Questions
Asked and answered
26 questions about what Contha does, what it costs, what happens to your data, and what it deliberately does not do.
Getting started
Getting started
Is there a free trial?
Yes. Every new account has the whole product for seven days with no card. When the week ends your books stay readable and exportable, and changing them takes a plan. Nothing is deleted.
Can I use Contha if I do not have a registered business?
Yes. The Personal plan is a complete personal finance app on its own: every account in one net worth, budgets, goals, recurring charges and reports, with no business, LLC or EIN required. The Business plan is there if and when a business appears beside it.
How long does setting up take?
Connecting an account takes a few minutes and history arrives with it, so the first net worth figure and the first month of categorized spending are there before you have entered anything by hand. Rules are written as you correct things rather than configured up front.
Do you support multiple income sources?
Yes. Connect every account you have. A day job, freelance clients and a side business all land in one categorized view, and the tax estimate accounts for wages being withheld while business income is not.
Can my spouse or partner use it?
Yes. Invite their email in settings and they sign in with it: their own login, their own layout, the same books. One plan covers the household, and you choose whether they can edit or only look.
Can I import from another app or from a spreadsheet?
Yes. CSV import takes a file from any bank or app, shows a preview before anything is written, and skips rows it already has rather than duplicating them.
Plans and billing
Plans and billing
Which plan do I need if I have an LLC?
It depends on how the LLC is taxed, not on the wrapper. A single-member LLC taxed as a sole proprietorship needs the Business plan. An LLC that elected S-corp treatment, a multi-member LLC taxed as a partnership, or more than one entity, needs Business+.
Can I change plans later?
Yes. Upgrade or downgrade any time from settings. The change takes effect on your next billing cycle and nothing you have already entered is lost either way.
Will my price go up?
Not while you stay on the plan you bought. Your subscription carries its own price and the date it was locked, and every figure the app shows you comes from that record rather than from the current price list. The list can change; what you pay does not, until you change plan yourself.
What does annual billing save?
Two months. A year is billed as ten months of the monthly price, so Personal is $50 a year rather than $60, Business is $100 a year rather than $120, Business+ is $490 a year rather than $588.
What happens if I cancel?
Your books stay readable and exportable. Cancelling ends the billing and closes the ability to change things; it does not delete anything, and every row can still be exported as one document.
Tax and business
Tax and business
Does Contha file my taxes?
No. Contha computes and organises what a return is prepared from: a Schedule C by line, the quarterly estimate, the reserve behind it, mileage and receipts. The filing itself is done by you or by your accountant, and there is a read-only package built for handing over.
How is the quarterly estimate calculated?
Self-employment tax on 92.35% of net profit with half deducted back, income tax on the rest, and the qualified business income deduction where it applies. Wages from a job fill the tax brackets and the Social Security wage base first, and withholding counts toward safe harbor. Each payment is a quarter of the lesser of 90% of this year and the safe harbor from last year.
Does it handle state taxes?
Partly, and the product says exactly where it stops. Federal figures use the full 2026 brackets, the self-employment tax base and wage limit, the qualified business income deduction and the standard deduction. State income tax is modelled for 29 of the 51 filing jurisdictions. Itemized deductions, tax credits, capital gains and the §199A wage limitation are not modelled, and the estimate says so where it is shown. The states that are not modelled are named on the homepage rather than left for you to discover.
Can it handle an S-corp or a partnership?
Yes, on Business+. The wrapper and the tax treatment are recorded as two separate things and every calculation runs on the treatment, so an S-corp’s revenue never lands on a Schedule C. It tracks basis, flags distributions over it, and states your K-1 position before the form exists.
Does it tell me what salary to pay myself from an S-corp?
No, and that is deliberate. Reasonable compensation has no formula, and a number produced by software would be advice. Contha describes the IRS’s own factors against what you have recorded and leaves the figure to you and your accountant.
Can my accountant see my books?
Yes, through a read-only link that needs no account. It carries five files, shows when it was last opened, expires in 30, 45 or 90 days, and turns off with one click.
Your data
Your data
Do you sell my data?
No. We do not sell your data, share it with advertisers, or use it to train anything.
Is my data secure?
The token that reads your bank is encrypted with its own key, so a leaked database is not a leaked connection. Access is enforced in Postgres on every table rather than in the interface, so a bug in a page cannot show you somebody else’s rows.
Can Contha move my money?
No. Bank connections are read-only. Contha can see balances and transactions and has no ability to move, freeze or spend anything. It is not a bank and holds no money.
Can I get my data out?
Yes, at any time and without asking. Every row exports as one document, and the accountant package is five files you can download yourself.
What happens when a bank connection breaks?
You are told. A connection that stops reporting is named on the figures it affects, with how many days behind it is, in the same sentence as the number rather than in a settings screen. If one dies you get one email about it.
What it does not do
What it does not do
Does Contha do invoicing?
No, on purpose. Contha sits on top of the bank and reads what actually happened. Invoicing is a different job and there are good tools for it.
Does it do payroll?
No. Wages an S-corp has paid are recorded and carried into the estimate, but running payroll, filing the returns and making the deposits are somebody else’s job.
Is this bookkeeping with a human in it?
No. There is no bookkeeper and no tax preparer on staff. Contha is software that computes from your own ledger, priced accordingly, and built to hand over to whatever accountant you already have.
Is this tax advice?
No. Contha computes figures from what you record and shows the rules it used. Whether a position is right for your situation is a question for a professional who knows it.
Something not answered here?
Write to hello@contha.com. A person reads it, and if the answer belongs on this page it gets added.