AccountHouse Complete Feature Brochure

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.

Your complete feature guide

AccountHouse is shared household expense management for families and roommates — a web dashboard plus two Android apps: AH Lite (the everyday household app) and AH Split (Split groups on their own, with a web version at /split-app/ that shares the dashboard sign-in). The original AccountHouse Android app is deprecated but keeps working for existing users. Split groups for friends, encrypted DocuVault documents, household chat and calls, and developer APIs round out the product.

• Use this brochure for a brief view of every feature in one document
• One household ledger for expenses, income, budgets, payables, and recurring patterns
• Member roles (admin / member / viewer) with web and mobile permission controls
• Multi-currency capture with automatic conversion into a household default (AED by default)
• Split as a separate collaboration surface with its own groups and balances
• Security layers: password, email/mobile-approve 2FA, per-app sessions, per-area PIN gates, app lock, owner access policy rules, automated security locks, and login-detected alerts

Daily household finances

The core ledger keeps routine household money organized without mixing it with peer-to-peer Split balances.

• Dashboard — a current snapshot of expenses, income, savings, budgets, bills, goals, and recent activity.
• Household Expenses — record purchases, categories, payers, dates, notes, receipts, and original currencies, with favourites, tip/tax presets, smart category suggestions, and location quick picks.
• Recurring Expenses — daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or custom days-of-week patterns that auto-generate ledger rows, with a backfill preview and a per-pattern approval mode.
• Income & Savings — track enabled income sources and compare period income with household spending.
• Budgets — set monthly category limits, apply month-specific overrides, and monitor warning or exceeded states.
• Payables — organize bills and obligations by due date while retaining execution and payment history.
• Cards & Accounts — card faces with network, credit limit and utilisation, statement day, owner, and stored-value cards, plus Card Intelligence recommendations.
• Bank Accounts — running ledgers moved by expenses, transfers, adjustments, and imported messages, with safe-to-spend and statements.
• External Accounts — an address book of other people's payment details (IBAN/SWIFT/routing/IFSC and UPI, Paytm, PayPal, Venmo, Wise handles) you can attach when recording payments; no balances.
• Bank Messages (Android) — allowlisted bank SMS turned into draft expenses, matched to your cards by last-4, with Review, Learn, and capped Always modes.
• Shopping List — coordinate items, quantities, aisles, urgency, completion, and list ownership, and share a list as text or PDF.
• Calendar & Reminders — see financial dates and schedule one-time or recurring reminders.

Planning and financial insight

Planning modules turn ledger data into understandable progress and trends. Forecasts are informational rather than financial advice.

• Goals — define targets, record contributions, view progress percentages, and review pace toward a target date.
• Asset Registry — maintain assets, debts and insurance policies with today's values, payoff schedules, allocation views and household-currency net worth; it sits behind its own unlock and is excluded from AI features.
• Analytics & Reports — explore period comparisons, category patterns, cash-flow summaries, and exportable reports.
• Insights Engine — optional entitlement that scans spending and surfaces actionable suggestion cards.
• IntelliVis — chart and evidence visuals that explain Insights Engine findings on web and Android.
• Financial Health — review qualitative pillars and practical observations without exposing proprietary weights or thresholds.

Shared money with Split

Split is a separate collaboration surface for friends, trips, and shared costs. It does not silently alter the household ledger.

• Create groups and manage participants with clear group-level access.
• Record single- or multi-payer payments and choose equal or custom funding and consumption shares.
• See contribution, share, and net positions so each obligation remains explainable.
• Record settlements, apply allocations deterministically, and preserve settlement history.
• Use group modules: budgets, payables, recurring reminders, payment templates, receipt gallery, announcements, cross-group search, and CSV/Excel/PDF export.

People, roles, and communication

• Members & Roles — invite household members and control admin, member, or viewer permissions plus client access.
• Household Chat & Calls — one thread per household with mentions, replies, reactions, read receipts, voice messages, and pins, plus voice/video calls (1:1 and group up to 6). See the Chat & Calls guide.
• Alerts & Broadcasts — an in-app inbox for announcements and notices sent to your household, alongside push and email delivery.
• Notifications — receive relevant budget, payable, Split, calendar, account, and security notices.
• Mobile Apps — use AH Lite for household tasks, reminders, secure document access, and push alerts, and AH Split for Split groups.

Documents, privacy, and security

• DocuVault — client-side AES-256-GCM encryption with an Argon2id-derived key, unlocked by password plus PIN, with a recovery key, biometric device wraps, member sharing via one-time expiring access codes, and a full audit trail. DocuVault content is excluded from AI features.
• Security — password protection, email OTP and mobile-approve 2FA, per-app device sessions, per-area PIN gates, app lock, owner access policy rules, and supported biometrics.
• Household isolation — authenticated operations remain scoped to the active household and the member's permissions.

Data, automation, and assistance

• Imports & Exports — move supported records through guided import flows (including Excel expense import) and produce portable reports or data extracts.
• Backup & Restore — export your account as a portable .ahbak backup file, and delete your account with a 3-day grace window. See the Account Lifecycle guide.
• ReceiptVis — scans receipt photos or PDFs into a reviewable expense or Split payment draft, with a live fast-pass scanner and a full scan in about 90 seconds.
• Developer API & Webhooks — connect authorized external tools, automate supported workflows, and react to documented events.
• InteliHouse copilot — a household AI assistant with per-area consent (income, goals, cards), confirm-before-execute actions, and Assets and DocuVault always excluded; verify important outputs before acting.

Location intelligence

Location capture is opt-in and foreground-only: when you add an expense you can tag where it happened with accuracy-tolerant quick picks (home is detected automatically), and the insights map shows where the household spends.

• Quick picks at add time — one tap to tag a known place.
• Foreground-only capture; AccountHouse never tracks location in the background.
• See the Location Intelligence guide for detection rules and privacy notes.

Shared calculation principles

Across modules, AccountHouse prefers deterministic, auditable arithmetic over opaque scores. Where forecasting is involved, documents label it as informational.

• Rounding: cent remainders are assigned deterministically so totals still reconcile.
• Currency: original amounts are preserved; household totals prefer converted values.
• Privacy: peer settlement details and sensitive figures can be scoped or PIN-gated.

Household isolation and roles

Every authenticated action is scoped to a household. Administrators invite members and assign roles that decide what each person can see and change on web and mobile.

• Administrator — full household control
• Member — record and manage their own activity within permissions
• Viewer — read-oriented access to reports and summaries
• Write permissions and client access (web vs app) can be tuned per person

Web and the app family

AccountHouse runs as a web dashboard and two Android apps. AH Lite is the everyday household app — expenses with offline capture, budgets, bills, income, cards, goals, calendar, the shopping list, DocuVault, InteliHouse, alerts, and widgets. AH Split is the Split app, and the AH Split web app at /split-app/ shares the dashboard sign-in and session. The original AccountHouse Android app — with chat and calls, Bank Messages, and multi-account switching — is deprecated: existing installs keep working, but it is no longer offered.

• Same account identity and permissions across clients.
• The apps coexist on one handset with separate identities — signing into one never signs out another.
• Push is routed so only one app on a handset notifies for a given alert: AH Lite first, then AH Split, then the original app.
• iOS is not offered — iPhone users use the web app.
• Distribution is by APK sideload from the official links (theaccounthouse.com/download/lite and /download/split); the apps are not on the Play Store yet.
• Optional app lock and biometrics on supported phones.

Beta positioning

• Register interest from the marketing site to request access
• Legal source of truth: Privacy Policy and Terms of Service on the website
• Forecasts and health scores are not financial, tax, or investment advice

A month in one household

Continue with detailed guides

Every feature summarized in this brochure has its own article and downloadable PDF in the Documentation hub.

• Household Expenses — capture, FX, and monthly rollups
• Split — funding, shares, obligations, and settlements
• Net Worth — assets, debts, and forecasts
• Security — sign-in, 2FA, sessions, and locks
• Developer API — external automation and webhooks
• Recurring Expenses — cadences, backfill preview, and approval modes
• Bank Messages — bank SMS to draft expenses on Android
• Chat & Calls — the household thread and voice/video calls
• Alerts & Broadcasts — the announcement inbox
• Location Intelligence — expense location tagging and the insights map
• Account Lifecycle — .ahbak backup, restore, and deletion with a grace window

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.
• This overview does not list every API field or internal job schedule.
• Detailed module PDFs go deeper on calculation processes without revealing proprietary weights.
• Legal wording remains governed by the current Privacy Policy and Terms of Service on the website.