Preferences
TL;DR
Preferences is where you tune how CentBase looks and behaves across every budget. Open it from More then Preferences and you get five sections in one scroll: Regional, Appearance, Budgeting, Notifications, and System. Every row is a real setting today except Reset to Defaults at the bottom and Language, which are coming soon placeholders.
- Regional: First Day of Week lets you pick Sunday or Monday. This changes how weekly targets and Budget Health count weeks.
- Appearance: App Theme gives you System, Light, or Dark. Font Size gives you Small, Standard, or Large and shows the current scale as a percent with a live preview.
- Budgeting: Reset budgets this month adds a balancing allocation so this month starts at zero without deleting your history.
- Notifications: Push Notifications is the master switch for every reminder. Default schedule time sets when schedule reminders fire. Scheduled transaction alerts controls the day-of nudge. Daily log reminder pings you to record what you spent, and its own page holds the switch and the times it fires at. The alert windows, including the insufficient balance warning and the advance reminder, now live under More then Budget Health.
- System: Language shows English for now and Version shows your installed build. Reset to Defaults at the very bottom is coming soon and does not reset anything yet.
Where to find it: More then Preferences then five sections in one scroll
Finding Preferences
Tap the gear in the top bar. CentBase opens the More screen, where Preferences is one of the rows. Tap it and you get a single Preferences screen with a collapsing header and a vertical stack of section cards.
Your choices stick after you close and reopen the app.
Where to find it: the gear in the top bar, then the Preferences row
Regional
One card, one row.
First Day of Week
Tap First Day of Week to choose Sunday or Monday in a small picker sheet.
This controls week boundaries for envelope targets. A Weekly target counts its occurrences from your chosen week start, and the Budget Health check for underfunded envelopes uses the same boundary. Pick Monday if your week starts on Monday, or Sunday if that matches how you plan.
Where to find it: Preferences then Regional then First Day of Week then Monday or Sunday
Appearance
Three rows under the Appearance card.
App Theme
Tap App Theme to choose System, Light, or Dark.
- System follows your device setting.
- Light keeps the app light.
- Dark keeps the app dark.
The change applies right away. No restart needed.
About the look
CentBase ships one look, a dark-first palette built around a near-black canvas. There is nothing to choose here, and nothing is missing: every screenshot you have seen uses it.
If you want the deep look, set App Theme to Dark. Dark is where the palette was designed, and it is what the Play Store screenshots show.
Font Size
Tap Font Size to open a slider sheet titled Font Size with the subtitle Scales all text across the app. Drag the slider and you see a live preview of real text at that scale.
Your current size shows as a percent, for example 85 percent, 100 percent, or 115 percent. Behind that percent are three steps: Small, Standard, and Large.
This scales all text in the app, from the month bar to transaction rows. Spacing and corner radii stay the same. Only the type scales.
Where to find it: Preferences then Appearance then App Theme or Font Size
Budgeting
One card, one action: it adds a balancing allocation so this month starts at zero without deleting history.
Reset budgets this month
You will see Reset budgets this month with the helper text Clears leftover from previous months so this month's envelopes start at 0.
Tap it and CentBase asks you to confirm:
- Title: Reset budgets this month?
- Message: This adds a balancing allocation to last month so this month's envelopes start at 0 and leftover from previous months doesn't carry over. Your history stays intact.
- Actions: Cancel and Reset budgets
If you confirm, CentBase adds a balancing allocation to the latest month before today so the current month starts at 0. If it works you see This month now starts fresh. If something goes wrong you see Couldn't reset this month's budgets. Your transaction history is never deleted, only the carry into this month is zeroed.
Home then shows a small Reset adjustment banner on the current month explaining that the inflated prior month totals are expected. The balancing allocation lives there so this month could start clean.
This is the same balancing allocation behind More then Import Data then Start budgeting this month. That switch lives in the import wizard and does the same thing during import, but on the data you just brought in. Preferences does it on the active budget you already use. Both write the same history entry that the allocation history screen shows as Balancing allocation, start this month fresh.
When to use it. You imported a year of transactions, or last month's envelopes left messy leftovers you do not want pulling into this month. One tap on Reset budgets this month and this month starts at 0. Last month's totals look inflated and that is expected, the balancing allocation lives there.
Where to find it: Preferences then Budgeting then Reset budgets this month then Reset budgets this month dialog
See also: Import, restore and export for the import side version, and Account and envelope settings for how the per envelope Carry over balance setting interacts with this reset.
Notifications
Six rows under Notifications. This is your control room for every reminder CentBase sends.
Default schedule time
Tap Default schedule time to pick a time in the system time picker. It defaults to 9:00 AM if you have never changed it.
When a scheduled transaction has no explicit time of day, its reminder uses this default time.
Push Notifications, the master switch
Push Notifications is a single switch at the top of the Notifications card. It is on by default.
- Turn it on: CentBase saves your choice and checks whether the system permission for notifications is still granted. If the system says it was revoked, CentBase asks again so you can allow it.
- Turn it off: CentBase saves your choice and clears every pending reminder right away. While it is off, no reminder can fire until you turn it back on.
This is the single gate. No reminder in the app, including scheduled transactions, credit card due nudges, and funding shortfall warnings, can fire while this switch is off. Preferences gives you one place to silence everything and one place to bring it all back.
Daily log reminder
A daily nudge to record what you spent. It is on by default, and it works entirely on your phone, so it fires with no connection and no account.
Tap Daily log reminder in the Notifications section to open its settings. One page holds the whole thing:
- The Daily log reminder switch turns the nudges on and off. While it is off, the times below it are hidden, because a reminder that fires nothing has no times to show. Turning it off does not change the times, so turning it back on brings them straight back.
- The list below it shows the times the reminder fires at. It starts at two: 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM. Tap the × next to a time to remove it, and Add a time opens the system time picker to add another.
- The list holds up to six times a day, and the last time cannot be removed, so there is always at least one.
The notification itself is titled Log your transactions, with the line Record what you spent today so your budget stays accurate. Tap it and Add Transaction opens, ready for a new entry.
It is a phone notification only. It does not appear in the Notifications Hub, so it never fills the list you read in the morning.
It pings you on a schedule, not on your activity. If you already logged today's spending, the nudge still arrives. Turn the switch off if you would rather record things on your own rhythm.
Alert windows live on Budget Health
The warning windows moved to More then Budget Health, so every Home alert is tuned in one place. There you find the insufficient balance warning (the first day CentBase flags that upcoming schedules would overdraw an account) and the advance reminder that warns before a scheduled transaction posts. See Home for what those alerts do.
Troubleshoot notifications
Tap Troubleshoot notifications if reminders are not arriving. CentBase runs four checks in order and shows each result as a short message:
- Master switch: if Push Notifications is off, it tells you to turn it on first and stops there.
- System permission: if system notifications are blocked, it asks for permission again. If you deny it, it tells you to enable notifications in system settings and stops there.
- Exact alarms on Android 12 and above: if exact alarms are not allowed, it opens the system Alarms and reminders setting. If still denied, it warns that reminders may be delayed but keeps going.
- Sample notification: it sends an immediate test notification with the title Test notification and the body If you see this, notifications are working. If it appears, you see Test notification sent, check your notification shade.
This flow helps you tell whether the problem is the master switch, the system permission, exact alarm access, or the channel itself. The test arrives instantly so it isolates the permission path from scheduled timing.
Where to find it: Preferences then Notifications then Push Notifications or Default schedule time or Troubleshoot notifications
System
Two rows under System.
Language
You will see Language with the value English. That is the only language today.
Tapping it shows a Coming soon message: This feature isn't available yet, we are working on it. Choose Got it to close it.
Version
You will see Version with your installed build, for example 1.0.0 (17). It comes live from the app package info, the same source as the version caption on the More tab.
This row is display only. Tapping it does nothing.
Where to find it: Preferences then System then Language or Version
Reset to Defaults
At the very bottom, below the System card, sits one outlined button:
Tap Reset to Defaults and you will see Reset to defaults is coming soon. Nothing is reset today.
Coming soon. This button is a placeholder so you know where the feature will live. A future release will ask you to confirm and then restore every Preferences row to its default in one go. For now, change each row individually instead.
Where to find it: Preferences then very bottom then Reset to Defaults
Summary
| Section | What you control |
|---|---|
| Regional | First Day of Week (Sunday or Monday) for weekly targets and Budget Health. |
| Appearance | App Theme (System/Light/Dark) and Font Size (with live preview). |
| Budgeting | Reset budgets this month: balancing allocation so this month starts at zero, history intact. |
| Notifications | Default schedule time, Push Notifications master switch, the daily log reminder and its times, lead and horizon windows, and Troubleshoot. |
| Reset to Defaults | Placeholder at the bottom; shows "coming soon" and does not reset anything yet. |
Sample use cases
- Your week starts on Monday and your Friday target fires on the wrong day. Open More then Preferences then Regional then First Day of Week, tap it, and pick Monday. Weekly target counts and the underfunded check now cut at Monday.
- You want the app to follow your device at night. Go to Preferences then Appearance then App Theme and pick System. CentBase follows the device, so it flips to dark at night and light during the day with no manual toggle.
- You want the dark look from the Play Store screenshots. Go to Preferences then Appearance then App Theme and pick Dark. Everything switches over at once, and you do not have to restart.
- The text feels too small. Go to Preferences then Appearance then Font Size, drag the slider toward Large and watch the preview scale in real time. Confirm and every screen scales together. The header shows the new percent, for example 115 percent.
- You imported two years of transactions and this month's envelopes are carrying a mess. Go to More then Preferences then Budgeting then Reset budgets this month and confirm Reset budgets. The current month now starts at 0, last month's totals look inflated and that is expected, and allocation history shows Balancing allocation, start this month fresh. See Import, restore and export for the import side version.
- You want every scheduled bill to nudge you at 7:30 instead of 9:00. Go to Preferences then Notifications then Default schedule time and pick 7:30 AM. Every future schedule with no explicit time now uses 7:30.
- Reminders stopped arriving. First check that Push Notifications is on. If it is off, nothing can fire. If it is on, tap Troubleshoot notifications. CentBase checks the master switch, re asks system permission if needed, checks exact alarm access, and sends a Test notification. If the test appears, your channel is fine and a missing scheduled reminder is likely the lead days window or an exact alarm deferral. If the test does not appear, follow the message to enable notifications in system settings or allow Alarms and reminders.
- You want a same day nudge, not three days early. Go to More then Budget Health and set the advance reminder lead to 1 day, or turn it off entirely if you only want the day-of nudge. The day-of nudge itself stays a switch under Preferences then Notifications then Scheduled transaction alerts.
- You keep forgetting to log what you spent. Go to Preferences then Notifications and tap Daily log reminder. The page has the switch and the times together. It is already on and pings you at 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM. Tap Add a time to add one that fits your day, for example 8:00 PM after dinner. The nudge arrives as a phone notification and opens Add Transaction when you tap it.
- You want an earlier heads up when an envelope will run short. Go to More then Budget Health, find Insufficient balance alerts under Scheduled transactions, and step Warning horizon to 14 or 30 days. CentBase now flags shortfalls further out.
- You tap Reset to Defaults and nothing happens. That is correct today. The button shows Reset to defaults is coming soon. Change each row individually for now. A future release will make this button restore every default in one confirmed step.
See also: Account and envelope settings for per envelope Carry over balance and Exclude from budget, and Import, restore and export for the import wizard and the balancing allocation details.