Cards and Accounts Documentation

How to read this document

Sections move from purpose → concepts → calculation process → worked examples → edge cases. Formula boxes use plain mathematical notation for clarity; they are conceptual summaries, not API contracts.

• Point lists call out operator-visible behaviour.
• Callouts mark warnings, limitations, or important qualifications.
• Worked examples use round numbers so you can reproduce the arithmetic by hand.

Purpose

Cards & Accounts keeps three related things in one place: My Cards (references for the cards you spend with), Bank Accounts (running ledgers the household moves money through), and External Accounts (an address book of other people's payment details). None of it connects to a bank — every balance is one AccountHouse maintains from your own records.

• Identify the instrument used on each expense
• Track running account balances, safe-to-spend, and statements
• Keep other people's payment details on hand for recording payments
• Keep sensitive data minimal — never full numbers or secrets

Card faces and safe references

Each card is presented as a card face carrying its everyday operational context: network logo, credit limit with current utilisation, statement day, owner, and an active/inactive state. Stored-value and prepaid cards are supported alongside credit and debit cards.

• Use a nickname and the last four digits as the identifying hint — never a full card number, CVV, PIN, or online-banking secret, including in notes.
• Card network (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, Diners, Maestro, UnionPay) is optional and defaults to none; it prints the scheme logo on the card face.
• Credit limit enables utilisation display; statement day anchors statement-period views.
• Owner and active/inactive state keep shared-household card lists current.
• Sensitive digits are hidden behind an eye-reveal that asks for fingerprint or PIN — this protection is on by default.
• The last four digits are how Bank Messages and ReceiptVis match activity to the right card, so keep them accurate.

Bank accounts: ledgers, safe-to-spend, and statements

A bank account in AccountHouse is a running ledger you maintain: expenses, transfers, adjustments, and imported bank messages move its balance. It mirrors your real account from your own records — AccountHouse never reads the bank's systems.

• Every balance movement is a visible ledger row: an expense, a transfer, an adjustment, or an imported message.
• Safe-to-spend shows what remains after known obligations, so the headline balance is not mistaken for free money.
• Statements group activity into reviewable periods.
• Raw balance figures are visible only to members with the manage_bank_accounts permission; others see the account without its amounts.

Cash accounts: money in hand, per currency

Under Accounts, an account can be a bank account or Cash. A cash account is the same running ledger with no bank behind it: add one for each currency of cash you hold, with the amount you hold today as its opening balance.

• An expense paid in Cash comes out of a cash account. With one cash account nothing is asked; with more than one, the expense form asks which, starting with the one in the expense's currency.
• With no cash account in the expense's currency, the one in the household currency is used, at the expense's converted amount. A wallet in any other currency is never guessed at.
• Income received into a cash account, and transfers from a bank account, add to it.
• Cash spent before the account's opening date is left out: the opening balance already counts it.
• Tick Also list in Asset Registry when adding it and a cash asset follows its balance there.
• A cash account stays a cash account, and cards can only be funded from a bank account.

External accounts: an address book, not balances

External Accounts stores other people's payment details so they are on hand when you record a payment — a landlord's IBAN, a cleaner's UPI handle, a friend's PayPal. It is purely an address book: external accounts have no balances and no ledgers.

• Bank details: IBAN, SWIFT, routing number, and IFSC.
• Wallet and transfer handles: UPI, Paytm, PayPal, Venmo, and Wise.
• Attach an external account when recording a payment so the record shows where the money went.
• No balance is tracked or implied for an external account.

Card Intelligence

Card Intelligence turns card and account activity into practical guidance: utilisation per card, burn rate, days-to-exhaustion at the current pace, and a recommended card for upcoming spending. It surfaces on the web dashboard and in AH Lite.

• Utilisation compares card spend against the configured credit limit.
• Burn rate and days-to-exhaustion project how long current balances last at the observed pace.
• The recommended card suggests which instrument to reach for next, with the reasoning shown.
• Balance amounts inside Card Intelligence follow the same gate as bank accounts: they are shown only to members with the manage_bank_accounts permission.

Linking expenses

Associating an expense with a card changes card-scoped reporting, not the expense amount or bank statement.

Review workflow

Replace, archive, or remove

Mark a card inactive or update its reference when it is replaced. Removing a reference should be considered in relation to linked history — inactive cards keep their expense associations for past periods.

Operational limits

Privacy, advice limits, and what we do not publish

AccountHouse is a household tracking and organisation tool. It is not a bank, payment processor, tax advisor, or investment advisor. Forecasts, health scores, balances, and alerts are informational.

• Household data is scoped to your household; other families cannot see your ledger.
• Public documentation explains product behaviour and calculation concepts, not proprietary internals.
• Exact scoring weights, anomaly thresholds, cryptography parameters beyond high-level algorithms, and operational detection rules are reserved.
• Never enter authentication secrets or complete payment-card credentials.