Accounts and multi-currency

Accounts are the foundation of everything in OutBudget. Before you build a forecast or log a transaction, the app needs to know where your money lives. But this setup step isn't just labeling bank accounts — the currency structure you get right here determines how accurate everything downstream will be.

The core principle is this: each account lives in one currency, and that currency is the source of truth. Transactions are always entered in the account's own currency. Conversions happen at display time, not at entry time. This means you never lose the original number to rounding, and you can change FX rates or display preferences later without rewriting history.

Account types

OutBudget supports four account types. Choose based on how the account actually behaves, not just what it's called.

Checking — your day-to-day current account. Income lands here; expenses leave from here. Add one per currency you actively spend in.

Savings — money set aside from the main flow. Add a savings account when you want to track a balance separately: an emergency fund, a house deposit reserve, savings in a foreign currency held at a different institution.

Credit — a credit card account holds a negative balance representing what you owe. When you pay off the card, that's a transfer from checking to credit, not an expense. The transactions on the card itself are the expenses. This is the correct model: it gives you an accurate balance and correctly categorized spending.

Investment — brokerage and investment holdings. Useful for net worth tracking. OutBudget doesn't pull live prices, so you update balances manually or through periodic reconciliation.

Choosing your base currency

Your base currency is the currency your forecast, budget, and reports are denominated in. Your dashboard summaries — total net worth, category totals — are displayed in your base currency by default. You can toggle the display currency at any time to any of the other currencies configured in your settings.

The right choice is the currency you think and plan in — not necessarily the one you earn the most in. An Italian living in London, earning in GBP, who measures their financial life in euros should choose EUR as base, even though their salary arrives in GBP.

You can change your base currency later in Settings.

Adding accounts in different currencies

Each account has exactly one currency, specified when you create it. Set it correctly — it can't be changed once transactions exist.

Consider the Italian-in-London setup: three accounts, three currencies.

• GBP checking — where the salary lands
• EUR savings — long-term savings in euros
• USD investment — a US brokerage account for index funds

The dashboard converts all three to EUR using the FX rates you've set, showing a single net worth number. The underlying balances stay in GBP, EUR, and USD — exact, in their original currency.

How FX rates work

OutBudget automatically pulls live FX rates and applies them as a monthly average for historical conversions.

All transactions are stored exactly in their original transaction currency. When displaying those transactions in your base currency, OutBudget converts them using the average rate of the month they were recorded in. This keeps historical data consistent and prevents short-term, daily market spikes from distorting your past reports.

For future forecasts, the simulator assumes the latest monthly rate will remain constant over the duration of the projection. If you want to test different scenarios — such as a weakening base currency — you can override this default rate in Settings.

Transfers between accounts

A transfer is a two-sided transaction: money leaves one account and arrives in another. Transfers don't appear in your budget or forecast variance — they're balance-neutral moves, not expenses.

Same-currency transfers are straightforward. €2,000 leaves EUR savings and arrives in EUR checking. Both balances update; nothing else changes.

Cross-currency transfers are where the setup pays off. Say you move £5,000 from your GBP checking account to your EUR savings. At a rate of 1.18 GBP/EUR, that's €5,900. OutBudget records:

• Outflow: £5,000 from GBP checking
• Inflow: €5,900 into EUR savings
• Implied rate: 1.18

Both sides of the transfer are stored independently, so the historical rate is always intact and includes any exchange fee charged during the transfer.

Step-by-step

1. Set your base currency

The base currency is selected during account creation, but can always be changed in Settings. Go to Settings → Profile and confirm your base currency.

2. Add additional currencies

Go to Settings → FX Rates → Add rate and choose the currency you want to add. OutBudget automatically pulls and updates these rates, but you can review the current monthly averages and manually input custom overrides here.

3. Add your primary account

Go to Accounts → Add account. Choose the type, give it a name, select the currency, and enter the current balance. This is your starting point — OutBudget tracks forward from here.

4. Add accounts in other currencies

Repeat for any account in a different currency.

Common questions

Should I add my credit card as a credit account or just track payments as expenses? Add it as a credit account. The actual expenses are the transactions on the card; the payment from checking is a transfer that settles the balance. Mixing them up inflates your reported expenses and distorts your forecast.

How often do I need to update FX rates? Rarely. OutBudget pulls monthly average rates automatically. You only need to touch them if you want to set custom exchange rates for your future forecast simulation or manually adjust a specific historical average.

Do I need to enter historical transactions, or can I just start from today? You can start from any date. Add the account with its current balance and OutBudget works forward from there. Historical transactions are only needed if you want historical analytics for that account.