Accounts

Accounts are the foundation of Whisper Money. They hold balances, transactions, and account history.

Quick start

1. Create one account for each place where you keep or owe money.
2. Pick the account type that best matches the real account.
3. Add balances for accounts that are balance-only.
4. Import transactions for accounts that have day-to-day activity.
5. Review the Accounts page to see balances and net worth movement.

Account map

Account types

Transactional and balance-only accounts

Some accounts are best tracked with transactions. Others are best tracked with balances.

Use transactions for:

• Checking accounts
• Credit cards
• Savings accounts with regular movements

Use balances for:

• Investment accounts
• Retirement accounts
• Real estate
• Loans

Balances, market values, and owed amounts

Whisper Money uses different words depending on the account type.

• Normal accounts use balance.
• Loan accounts use owed amount.
• Real estate accounts use market value.

This keeps the language closer to what the number means.

Connected and manual accounts

You can track accounts manually or connect supported providers.

Manual accounts are good when:

• Your bank is not supported.
• You want full control.
• You only need occasional updates.

Connected accounts are good when:

• You want automatic transaction updates.
• You want less manual work.
• Your bank connection is available and healthy.

Only checking, savings, credit card, and other accounts can receive synced transactions. Investment, retirement, real estate, and loan accounts are tracked by value, so a connection updates their balance rather than filling a ledger.

Connecting a bank is part of the paid plan. Manual accounts, imports, and everything built on top of them work without one.

The integrations page lists every bank and app that can be connected today.

Archiving an account

Archive an account you no longer use instead of deleting it.

An archived account:

• Disappears from the accounts page and from every picker for new data.
• Keeps its transactions and its balance history, so past months keep the figures they already had.
• Can be brought back at any time from the Bank accounts settings.

Archiving is not the same as hiding an account from the dashboard. Hiding only removes it from that one view; the account stays selectable everywhere else.

Shared accounts

An account can record the share of it that is yours. Use it for accounts you genuinely co-own, such as a shared household account or a property owned with someone else.

Open Edit account and fill in My share of this account (%). The share goes from 1 to 100, and 100 means the whole account is yours. Leaving the field empty keeps the share the account already has.

From then on, income and expenses only count towards your own figures by that percentage. On an account held 50/50, a shared grocery bill counts as half of what the bank charged in:

• Cashflow
• Budgets
• Label spending

The account itself is left alone. It keeps showing the real balance and the real amount of every transaction, because that is what actually moved. Inside a budget, entries coming from an account with a share below 100% are marked, so you can tell which ones only count in part.

The balance stays whole by default, so all of it counts towards net worth. When the share is below 100%, a checkbox appears under the field: Apply it to the balance too, so only my share counts towards net worth. Tick it for something like a flat you own half of, where only half the value is really yours.

Changing the share later also rewrites what the account has already spent in your budgets, past periods included. Budgets store what each transaction contributed at the moment it was assigned, so they are recalculated for the new share. Cashflow and net worth are worked out as you read them, so they pick up the new share on their own.

FAQ

Why is my loan reducing net worth?

A loan is money owed. Whisper Money subtracts it from assets when calculating net worth.

Why is my credit card not reducing net worth?

A credit card is a spending account, not wealth. Whisper Money tracks what you owe on the card itself and leaves it out of the net worth total, so paying the card off does not move that number.

Why does real estate use market value?

The important number for property is its estimated value today. That value can change over time.

Should I create one account or combine several?

Create separate accounts when the money is stored separately in real life. Reports are clearer that way.

Why did my past budgets change after I edited the share of an account?

Budgets record what each transaction contributed at the moment it was assigned, so changing the share rewrites that contribution in every period, closed ones included. It keeps a 50/50 account looking the same in January as it does today.