One business. Every device.

1 · The mental model: two tiers, three form factors

Almost every difference on this page comes down to one of two things: a sensor the device doesn't have, or a privacy tier you've chosen. Once you see those two levers, the whole table makes sense.

Key idea: nothing on the web is a watered-down placeholder. If a browser can do it securely, the web does it for real. If it can't, we say so plainly and hand you a real way to get it done — we never draw a button that pretends.

A note on Android: the web app is live now, but the native apps — iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android — aren't in the app stores yet (they're built and coming soon). Android isn't live yet, so it ships behind the web app — but it mirrors the iPhone/iPad/Mac coverage below (minus the Apple-only on-device AI) when it launches. We've broken it out as its own column so you can see exactly where it'll land.

Think of this page as the map — what works where. For the blueprint — exactly where your data physically lives and the engineering behind each decision — see Security & architecture. We keep the deep “why” in one place there, and just point to it below.

2 · How to read this page

Every feature below gets one of four honest states per platform:

4 · Why some things are iPhone-only

Three features are iPhone-first — not because we held them back, but because they physically need a phone in your pocket: automatic mileage tracking, geofenced auto clock-in, and W-9 / receipt camera capture with on-device OCR.

Automatic mileage & geofenced clock-in — why not on the web or Mac?

Both rely on continuous background location: the app notices when you start driving, or when you arrive at a job site, even when it's not open. A Mac doesn't travel in your truck, and a web browser is not allowed to read your location in the background — that's a deliberate security boundary in every browser, and a good one. So this can only work where there's a GPS chip and an OS that permits background location: your iPhone.

How we handle it: on the web and Mac, these screens clearly say “this one's best on iPhone,” explain exactly why, and show a QR code to grab the app — while keeping manual entry fully working so you're never blocked. When you do use the iPhone app, every auto-detected trip and clock-in syncs straight back to your Mac and web app.

And on the iPhone, the location never leaves your device

The trip detection and geofencing run entirely on-device. We don't upload your location history anywhere — only the finished trip (miles + purpose) or clock event syncs, exactly like a manual entry would. That's the whole reason it's app-only: doing it privately requires being on the device. The full data-flow — what's stored where, and what never leaves — is in Security & architecture.

5 · Scanning & OCR — how the web fills the gap

In the apps, you point the camera at a receipt and it reads the amount and vendor for you, on-device, with Apple's Vision engine. A browser can't run that private OCR — but we still made scanning work on the web, two honest ways.

Under the hood this uses a one-time, pre-authorized secure upload link — your phone uploads directly to your own storage, the desktop watches for it, and nothing is stored on the capture page itself. The only thing that stays app-only is the automatic amount/vendor reading; the web nudges you to the app for that, but the scan itself is real and lands in your account.

6 · Why the web is the “cloud tier” — and that's the point

There's one row that looks like a web “miss” but is actually a deliberate design choice: fully on-device / iCloud-only mode is app-only.

On Apple devices you can run Businessily with your data never leaving your devices — synced only through your private iCloud. A web app, by definition, keeps your data on a server so any browser can reach it. We could pretend the web is “on-device,” but it isn't and never can be — so instead we make the web's cloud tier as trustworthy as possible: a private, row-level-security-isolated database where only your account can read your rows, full tax IDs (SSN/TIN) never stored, and no bank logins. The Security & architecture page shows the whole blueprint.

So this isn't a gap to “close” — it's two honest options. Want maximum privacy and you're all-Apple? Use on-device mode. Need to work from a Windows PC, a Chromebook or a colleague's laptop? The private cloud tier is there, and your apps sync to it too.

7 · The genuinely partial bits — and the plan

A few things on the web are real but lighter than the apps. We'd rather list them than hide them.

• Multi-currency & VAT on invoices — now live on the web: per-invoice currency, VAT and reverse-charge. The only app-only extra is the seller/buyer tax-ID lines printed on the invoice PDF, which are never stored in the cloud.
• Outlook / Microsoft 365 sync is now fully live on the web app too, alongside Google and the native apps. Either way, Apple/Google/any calendar can subscribe to your booking feed right now.
• 1099-NEC e-file via IRS IRIS is built but marked “coming” on every platform — it's waiting on our IRS IRIS API access. Until then, 1099-NEC prep and Copy-B PDFs are fully live, so you can file by mail or your accountant's channel.
• Tap to Pay (on iPhone, and on Android) is wired up but “coming” pending the platform entitlements. Every other payment method — card, in-app Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App Pay and Wise — is live today.
• Voice logging, document full-text OCR search and on-device AI lean on on-device intelligence, so they live in the Apple apps for now.

8 · Where the web actually wins

It's not a one-way street. A couple of things are easier — or only — on the web.

And of course the web runs anywhere — Windows, Android, Linux, a library computer — which the Apple apps can't.

9 · How we close gaps without faking them

Three rules keep this honest:

1. Never draw a button that lies. If a browser can't do something, the web doesn't show a dead control. It shows a short “best in the app” card that explains why, with a QR code and a download link — and leaves any manual path working.
2. Build a real bridge when one exists. Scanning is the model: the web can't OCR privately, so we built the phone-camera capture and the desktop→phone QR handoff so the result still lands in your account.
3. Reach parity wherever a browser can. Compliance calendar, encrypted backup, reconciliation, inventory, POS, payroll & the federal forms, time tracking and job costing — all of these run on the web too, because a browser can do them securely. Only the handful that need a sensor or on-device AI stay app-only.

The result: across iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web, you get the same business and the same data — and the only differences left are the ones a phone's sensors or your own privacy choice genuinely create.