Creating and editing an account

This page covers the mechanics of creating and editing an account. For a first-time walkthrough, see Setting up your first account instead.

Creating an account

You can start the Create Account dialog two ways:

• Click the + icon next to the Accounts header in the left sidebar.
• Go to the Accounts page and click the Create button in the top right.

The dialog has three fields:

• Name — 2 to 40 characters. Must be unique within the household. Pick something you recognize at a glance in the sidebar.
• Type — Checking, Savings, Credit, or Cash. See Account types for what each is for. You can't change an account's type after you create it; if you picked wrong, delete the account and re-create it (before you've added a lot of transactions).
• Statement Closing Day of Month — only visible when Type is Credit. See The credit-card closing day for how it works.

Click Create and the account shows up in the sidebar immediately.

Editing an account

On the Accounts page, each row has a pencil icon in its Actions column. Click it to open the Edit Account dialog.

You can change:

• Name — same rules as on create (2–40 characters, unique).
• Statement Closing Day of Month — for credit cards only.

You cannot change the Type. That's intentional — changing between, say, Checking and Credit would break the meaning of a lot of the account's history (credit-card-specific features like the Spending and History tabs would either appear or vanish on transactions that weren't recorded with them in mind). If you truly need a different type, create a new account and move transactions over.

Renaming vs. deleting

If you just want to stop seeing an account in daily use — the account is closed, you no longer use it, etc. — consider renaming it with a prefix like (closed) Old Checking rather than deleting it. That keeps the history intact for reports. Deletion is permanent and cascades to every transaction, reminder, and rule tied to the account. See Deleting an account before you commit.