Account & envelope settings

Every account and envelope has a settings screen where you can tune how it behaves in your budget. This page walks through each setting and, importantly, what changes on the Home screen when you turn it on or off.

TL;DR

• Envelope settings control the budget math: whether the leftover carries into next month, whether the envelope is excluded from budget totals entirely, whether a funding target is set, and whether the envelope is archived.
• Account settings control the bank side: whether the account is included in the budget, how its balance is set, whether it's closed or archived.
• Both feed the Home screen: excluded items get an Excluded pill and vanish from totals, carry-over changes how "Available" is computed in later months, targets drive the Underfunded pill, and archived items are hidden everywhere until you reveal them.

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Where to find it: Home → envelope row menu → Edit → Budget behavior.

Envelope settings

Open an envelope and tap its menu → Edit (or Envelope settings) to see these. The same screen works for envelopes and sub-envelopes.

Carry over balance

Default: ON.

• ON (expense envelope): any leftover available balance at the end of the month rolls into the next month automatically. Next month's Home shows that carried amount on top of what you assign.
• Income envelopes: always off, and not a setting you can change. Income received in a month does not carry into the next month.
• OFF: the month starts fresh, leftover is not carried forward, and you start next month at zero.

Why you'd turn it off. For a one-off "Vacation" bucket you don't want last month's savings automatically re-floating into this month's plan.

Exclude from budget

Default: OFF.

• OFF (default): the envelope's amounts count toward your budget totals, Ready-To-Assign, the group totals, and the Home hero figures.

• ON: amounts aren't counted in budget totals at all. The envelope still appears on the Home screen, but:

  • it gets an pill,
  • its numbers are left out of every total, and
  • its spend-health pill (On track / Over budget) is replaced by the Excluded pill, because an off-budget item has no budget to be on or over.

Why you'd use it. For money that isn't really part of this month's plan, e.g. an envelope handled outside the app, or a slush fund you track but don't budget. The auto-created "Fees" envelope for transaction fees uses this setting so fee spending doesn't inflate your budget totals.

Targets

Targets are funding goals. You can add one or more, each with:

• an amount,
• a cadence, weekly or monthly,
• an optional note.

Each time a target fires in a month, it adds its full amount to what that envelope needs. When the envelope's allocation doesn't meet what its targets require, the Home screen shows the:

pill on the row, and the envelope is included in the Budget Health Summary section under "Underfunded envelopes".

Target info box (in app):

Targets are funding goals for this envelope. Add one or more targets, each with an amount and a cadence (weekly or monthly). Each time a target fires in a month it adds its full amount to what this envelope needs, so underfunded envelopes show up in Budget Health. You can snooze a target to pause it until next month.

Snooze a target

• When you snooze a target, it's excluded from this envelope's funding needs until next month, the Underfunded pill and Budget Health stop counting it for the rest of the current month.
• Next month it automatically resumes counting again. Unsnooze to bring it back immediately.

Archive an envelope

From the envelope's menu on the Envelopes tab, Archive:

• Hides the envelope from the Envelopes tab, pickers, and transaction forms.
• Keeps all its transactions and history.
• Its totals disappear from the Home screen entirely.
• You can still view and unarchive it from the Envelopes tab's overflow menu, Show archived, where archived rows show an pill.

An envelope with sub-envelopes can't be archived until its sub-envelopes are converted or deleted.

Convert envelope ↔ sub-envelope

• Convert to sub-envelope: nests the envelope under a parent.
• Convert to envelope: lifts a sub-envelope up to be its own envelope.
• Conversion is blocked between different group types (income vs. expense).

Fund subenvelopes

Default: OFF. Only an expense parent envelope (one with sub-envelopes) has this. You will not see it on income envelopes or on sub-envelopes.

When it is on, the parent is allowed to cover a sub-envelope's overspending at the moment you add a new expense. It does nothing by itself: permission only. You still turn on Parent covers overspending on the transaction, and only then does CentBase move assigned money from the parent down to the sub-envelope. When the parent has the permission on, its allocation sheet shows a small banner saying so. See When a parent envelope covers overspending for the full behavior.

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Account settings

Open an account → tap the menu → Settings (or Account settings).

Include in budget

Default: ON for asset accounts (checking, savings, etc.). Always OFF for liabilities (credit cards, loans).

• ON: the account lives inside the budget. A transfer between two on-budget accounts is an internal move, it simply shifts money and isn't categorized with an envelope.
• OFF: the account is off-budget. Money sent to it leaves the budget, so a transfer to it can optionally carry an envelope, i.e. be categorized as spending.

Why it matters for Home. A transfer that carries an envelope counts as spending against that envelope on the Home screen. Liability transfers can already do this ("Transfers to it can optionally be categorized as spending"). Turning an asset account off-budget gives it the same behavior.

Blocked? An account that already has an envelope-carrying transfer can't be turned back on, CentBase shows "This account has a transfer that uses an envelope, so it can't be included in the budget." Remove or uncategorize that transfer first.

Type (account subtype)

Sets the specific kind of account, which changes the transfer rule:

Kind	Example	Transfers to it
Checking	Everyday checking, cash	Not categorized
Savings	Interest-bearing savings	Not categorized
Investment	Stocks, funds	Not categorized
Other (asset)	Any other asset	Not categorized
Credit Card	Money owed on a card	Can optionally be categorized as spending
Loan	Money owed on a loan	Can optionally be categorized as spending
Other (liability)	Any other money owed	Can optionally be categorized as spending

Where to find it: Accounts tab → tap an account → menu → Settings.

Credit card details

For a Credit Card account, Settings shows Credit limit, Statement day, Payment due day, and Remind before due (with days before). These feed the account details header: credit usage bar (used / limit · percent%), statement due banner ("Due today / Due tomorrow / Due in N days"), and the payment-due reminder. The linked Credit card envelope is created when you save the card and is managed by the account, you cannot delete it separately. See Accounts.

Need a repayment plan for a loan? Open the account → Repayment strategy to set monthly payment, principal, and target note.

Adjust balance

Sets the account's balance (for example, to match your bank). Use it when an account's starting point is wrong or a batch of transactions is missing. The account keeps its history; the balance is simply set to the value you enter. The subtitle changes by type: "Set this account's balance" / "Set this credit card's outstanding balance" / "Set this loan's principal amount".

Close account / Reopen

• Close account: exclude this account from balances and totals. Closed accounts can no longer receive new transactions, CentBase rejects them. Accounts tab totals stop including it.
• Reopen account: brings it back; balances and totals include it again.

Note

A free-text note attached to the account, visible from the account's page.

Archive / Unarchive an account

• Archive account: hides the account from the Accounts tab and account pickers, but keeps its transactions and history (exact wording: "This hides the account from the Accounts tab and account pickers, but keeps its transactions and history. You can still view it from the Accounts tab → Show archived.").
• Unarchive: restores it to the Accounts tab and pickers.

Delete account

Permanent. Removes the account and all of its transactions. CentBase asks you to confirm first, and this can't be undone, but unlike archiving, this is a full removal, so think before you tap.

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How settings change the Home screen

Setting	On the Home screen
Carry over balance ON	Next month's "Available" includes last month's leftover
Carry over balance OFF	Each month starts at zero
Exclude from budget ON	pill; left out of all totals
Target not met	pill + "Underfunded envelopes" in Budget Health
Target snoozed	Pill and Budget Health stop counting it until next month
Envelope archived	Hidden from Home entirely, pickers, and transaction forms
Fund subenvelopes ON	Parent can cover its sub-envelopes' overspending on a new expense
Account off-budget	Transfers to it can carry an envelope = spending in the budget
Account closed	Excluded from balances and totals; new transactions rejected
Account archived	Hidden from Accounts tab and pickers
Account deleted	Permanently gone, with all its transactions

Summary

• Envelopes tune the budget: carry-over, exclusion, targets, snoozing, and archiving all directly change what you see in the envelope lists.
• Accounts tune the bank: include-in-budget, balance, close, archive, and delete change the Accounts tab and (for off-budget transfers) the envelope spending that shows in those lists.

See also: Envelopes, Transactions, and Saving a transaction for a future date.