The latest articles on DEV Community by RTX 3060 (@zeta_byte). https://dev.to/zeta_byte https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3678629%2Fe2afef22-097e-4f43-b626-c297e72eba00.jpg https://dev.to/zeta_byte en RTX 3060 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 18:14:30 +0000 https://dev.to/zeta_byte/ive-been-working-on-a-personal-finance-app-called-finvantage-and-i-recently-hit-a-roadblock-4mjh https://dev.to/zeta_byte/ive-been-working-on-a-personal-finance-app-called-finvantage-and-i-recently-hit-a-roadblock-4mjh <p>The App<br> FinVantage is an expense tracker with some features I'm pretty proud of:</p> <ul> <li>Receipt scanning with OCR - point camera at any bill, AI extracts everything</li> <li>Voice input - say "spent 500 on groceries" and it's logged</li> <li>AI insights - actual useful spending analysis, not just pie charts</li> <li>Full financial suite - budgets, investments, loans, tax planning</li> <li>100% offline - all data stays on device, optional encrypted Google Drive backup</li> </ul> <p>Built with Flutter, using TFLite and ONNX for on-device AI. Everything works great locally.</p> <p>The Problem<br> One killer feature was SMS auto-import - automatically reading bank transaction SMS and parsing them into transactions. Super useful in India where every bank sends SMS for debits/credits.</p> <p>Google Play rejected it.🙃</p> <p>They said SMS/Call Log permissions require an approved Restricted Permission Declaration Form, and my use case (reading SMS for financial data) doesn't qualify for the exceptions.</p> <p>What I've Tried</p> <ol> <li>Made SMS the core feature argument (rejected - they said manual input is an alternative)</li> <li>Removed the permissions and disabled the feature (app approved, but feature is now "Coming Soon")</li> </ol> <p>My Questions</p> <ol> <li>Has anyone here successfully gotten Google Play approval for SMS reading in a finance/expense app?</li> <li>Is there a legitimate path forward, or is this basically impossible without being a banking app?</li> <li>Any alternative approaches? (I've seen some apps use Accessibility Services, but that seems even riskier)</li> <li>Should I just wait and build user base first, then reapply?</li> </ol> <p>The app is live without SMS: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.finvantage.app" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.finvantage.app</a></p> <p>Would really appreciate any insights from those who've dealt with Google's restricted permissions process. It's frustrating to have a working feature that users want but can't ship it. 😅</p> <p>Built a finance app with SMS auto-import, but Google Play rejected it. Anyone successfully gotten SMS permission approval?</p> android flutter showdev discuss