Sharing your books with your family and choosing a plan in Cashfulness
In short
When an account isn't only yours, Cashfulness gives you three routes, and you choose based on who records the transactions, not on who owns the money: the ownership share, the shared account, the shared space. Then the plans: you start with a free trial, no credit card needed; the paid plans are Premium, for keeping your books on your own, and Ultra, for sharing a space with your family. You can cancel whenever you like, and your data stays yours.
This page goes with lesson 10, the last one, of the free video course "Cashfulness step by step". The steps are in the same order as the video.
Watch the lesson
The lesson lasts about six minutes.
Three routes: who records the transactions?
| Who records | The route |
|---|---|
| Only you, but the asset is partly someone else's | Ownership share |
| Both of you, each in your own space | Share account |
| The same books for everyone | Share the space |
The ownership share
The house is in two people's names, but only you record the transactions.
- Accounts, open the account, Edit.
- Go to the Additional properties step.
- Turn on Ownership share and enter your percentage in Your share.
The transactions stay at their full value, as on the bank statement. The share changes how much that account weighs in your net worth on the home page and in the indicators; the Balance Sheet report shows it in full. You can set a share on asset and liability accounts that have no sub-accounts.
Sharing an account
The family account, where you both record transactions, each from your own app and in your own space. You share it from the account's page, with the Share account icon. From there the account can be read in two ways: My part, the rows you wrote yourself, and Actual account balance, the one to compare with the statement.
The other person gets no notification: tell them yourself. Signing in with their address, they'll find it under Settings, Accounting Spaces, Manage Accounting Space, Accounts shared with me. An account with an ownership share can't be shared.
Sharing the whole space
The person you invite sees the same accounts, the same transactions, the same reports. With the Ultra plan you can invite up to four people, and only the owner can invite.
- Settings, Accounting Spaces, Manage Accounting Space: Enabled Users shows who's in and with which role.
- Invite New User: type the Email and choose the Role: Editor, who can add and change things, or Viewer, who looks but doesn't touch. The Owner is you.
- If you like, choose a Permission profile (optional).
- Send Invite. The app shows you the code; the person also gets an email with the code. You'll find it under Pending invitations, with Copy code and Revoke invitation.
The invite is personal: it only works for that address, and whoever receives it has to sign in with the same email. They accept from Select Accounting Space, with Accept Invite and the Invite Code. The invite expires after fourteen days.
Permission profiles are ready-made: Full Access, Read Only, Shared Expenses, Child/Minor, Caregiver/Assistant, New Partner, Simplified Entry. For example, Child/Minor only sees the Register and Budgets, read-only; Simplified Entry is for someone who only needs to record expenses, with a basic interface. As trust grows, the permissions grow with it.
The plans
The free trial. When you sign up, you start with a free trial: it lasts two hundred transactions or sixty days, whichever comes first, and you don't need a credit card. It isn't a demo: it's the real app, with a few limits. You record your real books, in one space, with three monthly budgets and a small archive for documents. When the trial ends, your data stays yours: you can look at it and export it. To record new transactions, you need a plan.
| Premium | Ultra | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions | unlimited | unlimited |
| Accounting spaces | 1 | up to 5 |
| Invited people | none | up to 4 |
| Monthly budgets | 5 | unlimited |
| Document storage | 1 GB | 10 GB |
| Automatic backups | yes | |
| Report PDFs and printing | yes |
Premium is designed for keeping your books on your own; Ultra for sharing a space with your family.
Monthly or annual, website or store. Both can be paid monthly or yearly, and the annual plan costs less than twelve months paid one at a time. Current prices, VAT included, are on the pricing page. From Your plan, in the System section of the sidebar, Upgrade to Premium opens the choice between Monthly and Annual. On iPhone, iPad and Android you buy inside the app and pay the price the store shows you in your country; on Mac, Windows and Linux the app takes you to the website, with the same account.
The plan is yours, the limits belong to the space
Your subscription is tied to you, not to your device: with the same login you use it on your phone, your tablet and your computer. In a shared space, though, the limits are set by the owner's plan. That's why the Your Subscription page has two boxes: Your plan and Limits of this space, saying where they come from.
Cancelling, and changing your mind
On the website you'll find two commitments: an email before every renewal, and cancelling whenever you like, effective at the end of the period. You cancel where you pay: the Billing Portal takes you to the store or to the website's payment page. On a first payment made on the website you have fourteen days to get a refund; for purchases from the stores, refunds go through Apple or Google. On iPhone, iPad and Android there's also Restore purchases.
If you move to a smaller plan, or your subscription expires, nothing gets deleted. Spaces over the limits stay available read-only, and on the Adjust to your plan screen you choose with Keep this one which one stays active. You can come back whenever you like, and you'll find everything there.
Common mistakes
- Sharing the space when the ownership share is enough. If only you record the transactions, the share is simpler.
- Inviting a different address from the one the other person signs in with. The invite only works for that address.
- Looking for the Billing Portal on a gifted plan. It only appears with a paid subscription.
- Cancelling in the wrong place. You cancel where you pay: the store or the website.
Frequently asked questions
If my subscription expires, do I lose my data?
No. Nothing gets deleted. Spaces over the plan's limits stay available read-only, and you choose which ones to keep active. If you come back, you'll find everything.
Does the person I invite need a subscription?
Not to join your space: in a shared space the limits are set by the owner's plan. To invite up to four people you need the Ultra plan.
Where can I find the prices?
On the pricing page at cashfulness.com, VAT included. If you buy from the App Store or Google Play, the price the store shows you in your country applies.
In the manual
The user manual covers this in the Plans and subscription and Settings chapters and, for who pays and who carries shared expenses as costs, in The chart of accounts.
The previous lesson
Lesson 9 · Encrypted documents and privacy in Cashfulness. The document code, the Recovery Key, hidden amounts and two-factor sign-in.
What next: double entry
This lesson ends the course. In ten lessons you've seen what you need to keep your household books properly, in a few minutes a week. If you'd like to understand what goes on underneath, why every transaction has two sides and the books always balance, carry on with the Double-entry bookkeeping, step by step course.
Vittorio Giusti is an economist and psychologist, and he built Cashfulness.