User Guide v2.4

Everything you need to use FinBase.

FinBase is a private finance workspace for tracking personal and business money, managing accounts and labels, reviewing breakdowns, handling goal-linked savings, and using business-to-personal payment splits with safer transaction flows.

What is FinBase?

FinBase is a private, invite-only finance tracker built for people who want a real app instead of a spreadsheet. It tracks both personal and business finances in one place, while still keeping them separated by context.

It is designed around practical daily logging: quick enough to use often, structured enough to trust later, and private enough for trusted users, family, and close circles.

Ledger

Unified Ledger

Track personal and business transactions in one ledger without mixing the two contexts.

Accounts

Accounts & Labels

Track where money lives and split an account into named label buckets while still seeing what remains untagged.

Insights

Breakdowns

See where money is going with grouped visual summaries by category or account.

Access

Safer Access

Email verification, password reset, and persistent login make access more secure and more reliable.

Getting Access

FinBase is not open to the public. You can only access it through an invite link generated by an admin.

If you were invited

The admin shares a link that looks like myfinbase.xyz/invite/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Open it, fill in your details, create your password, and finish registration.

After registration

New accounts are asked to verify their email address before full access continues. FinBase sends a verification email with a secure one-time link.

Invite links are single-use If your invite link expires or has already been used, ask the admin to generate a new one.
Email verification matters Verification helps confirm ownership of the email address and supports recovery features like password reset later.

Logging In

  1. 1
    Open the login page Go to your FinBase domain and enter the email and password you registered with.
  2. 2
    Use “Keep me signed in” if needed FinBase supports persistent login so you can stay signed in for about 2 weeks when that option is enabled.
  3. 3
    Sign in and continue If your email is already verified, you go straight to the dashboard. If not, you are guided to the verification pending page.

To log out, use the logout icon in the sidebar footer.

Security & Recovery

Email verification

FinBase sends a verification email after account creation and supports resending a fresh verification link when needed.

Forgot password

If you forget your password, use the Forgot Password link on the login page. If the email exists in FinBase, a password reset link is sent to that inbox.

Password reset links

Password reset links are temporary and expire automatically. After a successful password reset, your old sessions are cleared and you have to log in again.

Good practice Use a password with at least 10 characters, including a number and a symbol, and keep your verified email accessible.

App Layout

Sidebar

The sidebar gives you access to Dashboard, Transactions, Accounts, Breakdowns, Splitter, Goals, and Settings.

Mobile header

On smaller screens the sidebar is hidden and replaced with a top bar and menu button.

Floating add button

The floating plus button is available across the app and opens quick access to transaction logging.

Flash messages

Success, warning, and error banners appear after actions to confirm what happened.

How the Ledger Works

FinBase uses one main ledger, but each transaction is tagged with a context: Business or Personal. This lets you see the full picture while keeping reporting meaningful.

Key idea The app is unified, but context keeps the money story clean.

Each transaction can also carry other important meaning:

  • Type - income or expense
  • Category - what the transaction represents
  • Account - where the money lives
  • Label - an optional sub-bucket inside an account
  • Goal linkage - if it contributes to or withdraws from a savings goal

Business vs Personal

Every transaction should be logged with the right context. A quick reference:

Transaction Context Type
Client payment received Business Income
Business cost / overhead Business Expense
Owner draw / business to personal move Business Expense
Salary / gift / personal income Personal Income
Transport / food / data / personal spend Personal Expense

Recommended Workflow

One common finance flow inside FinBase looks like this:

  1. 1
    Log money coming in Record salary, client payments, gifts, or other income in the correct context and account.
  2. 2
    Use the Splitter if needed For business-style payment allocation, first log the money received, then use Splitter to calculate overhead, net, and the part moving into personal.
  3. 3
    Log regular spending Use single transactions for one-off entries, or batch logging when entering several related transactions at once.
  4. 4
    Use labels when funds are reserved If part of an account belongs to a purpose like Work Funds, Church Funds, or School Fees, reserve that amount into a label.
  5. 5
    Review breakdowns Use Breakdowns to spot which categories or accounts are taking the biggest share of your spending or income.
  6. 6
    Link savings to goals When money is being saved into a goal, use the goal flow so both the transaction history and goal progress stay accurate.

Dashboard

The dashboard is your command center. It summarizes what has already been logged.

Business and Personal cards

These cards show monthly and all-time summaries by context, including income, spending, and net movement.

Account list

The account rows show what is currently available in each account after reserved money has been set aside. This includes positive label balances and active goal savings linked to that account. In other words, the dashboard reflects untagged available balance, not just the raw full account total.

Recent transactions

You can quickly review what was logged most recently.

Goals

Goal progress can appear on the dashboard so you can monitor target savings at a glance.

Transactions

The Transactions page is your main ledger view. It supports adding, filtering, editing, and deleting transactions.

Adding a transaction

The form includes:

  • Date
  • Amount and currency
  • Description
  • Type - income or expense
  • Context - business or personal
  • Category - filtered to match the selected type and context
  • Account
  • Optional label - if the account has labels
  • Optional notes

Editing a transaction

Transactions can be edited directly from the ledger. Goal-linked changes and grouped transaction links are preserved more safely than before.

Filtering the ledger

You can filter by preset period, context, type, category, account, and custom date range.

Cross-currency behavior

If the selected account currency does not match the transaction currency, FinBase can use the single transaction flow to support conversion handling. Batch mode does not support cross-currency logging.

Helpful detail Label reserve and label spend actions affect label balances differently from normal unlabeled spending, so use the right option when moving money into or out of a label.

Accounts & Labels

The Accounts page shows where your money lives and how much of each account is still freely available versus reserved for labels and active savings goals.

Accounts

Each account belongs to a user, has a currency, a type, and a context. Real balances are driven by transactions, not by manually editing a visible balance later.

Labels

Labels let you split one account into named buckets. Example:

  • GTBank - total real account
  • Work Funds - reserved labeled amount
  • Untagged - free balance not currently reserved to any label or active goal

How labels work

Labels belong to one account only. They do not move across accounts. Their balances are calculated dynamically from labeled transactions. Positive label balances reduce the amount shown as untagged or freely available. Active goal savings linked to the same account also reduce that freely available amount.

Reserve vs spend

Reserve moves money from untagged balance into a label. Spend reduces money from that label when you actually use it. This helps label balances stay meaningful instead of acting like disconnected notes.

Deleting a label

Labels are meant to be deleted only when their balance is already zero. When a zero-balance label is deleted, its old transaction history is safely untagged instead of breaking the ledger.

Breakdowns

The Breakdowns page gives you a visual summary of where your money is going or where it is coming from.

What it shows

  • Donut chart for quick visual understanding
  • Total amount for the current filter set
  • Top bucket so you can quickly spot the largest category or account
  • Ranked list with percentages and exact amounts

Available filters

Breakdowns reuse the same filter language as Transactions, with a few additions for analysis:

  • Period - all time, this month, last month, last 3 months, custom
  • Context - personal, business, or all
  • Type - income or expense
  • Group by - category or account
  • Currency - one currency at a time
  • Account - optional narrowing filter
  • Category - optional narrowing filter for category-specific analysis

How to use it well

Breakdowns are best used after you have logged enough transactions to reveal a pattern. For example, you can ask:

  • Which category is taking the biggest share of my spending this month?
  • Which account is most active for personal expenses?
  • What does my income mix look like in one currency?

Click-through behavior

Rows in the ranked list can open the Transactions page with matching filters, so you can move from summary into the raw ledger.

Important currency rule Breakdowns are intentionally single-currency in V1. FinBase does not mix NGN, USD, and other currencies into one chart.

Batch Logging

The Batch Log page lets you record multiple transactions in one submission.

What it is for

Batch mode is useful when one income event needs to be distributed into many expenses or allocations, such as salary breakdown, household planning, or several same-day purchases.

How it works

  • A shared date and context sit at the top.
  • Each row contains its own description, amount, currency, type, category, account, optional label, and optional goal link.
  • The page starts with 2 rows and lets you add more.
Important limitation Batch mode does not support cross-currency transactions. If the transaction currency and account currency differ, use the single transaction form instead.
All-or-nothing save If one row fails validation, none of the rows are committed.

Payment Splitter

The Splitter helps you calculate how a business payment should be broken down before recording the owner-draw style transfer into your personal account.

Before using it

Log the payment received into your business account as income first. Splitter is meant to allocate money that should already exist in your ledger.

Step 1 - Enter gross payment

Enter the amount received, currency, description, and date.

Step 2 - Remove overhead

Add any real costs connected to earning that payment, such as transport, taxes, data, or freelancer fees.

Step 3 - Review the live breakdown

The Splitter calculates gross, overhead, net, and the split rule allocations in real time.

Step 4 - Move allocation to personal

Select the allocation rule you want to move and confirm the transfer from a business source account into a personal destination account.

What this action records It records one business expense and one personal income for the selected allocation.
Business-to-personal only Automatic posting in Splitter is limited to business-to-personal movement. If you only use personal accounts, you can still use Splitter as a calculator, but not as an auto-logger.
What it does not auto-post Other breakdown buckets still need to be logged manually if you want them reflected in the ledger.

Goals

Goals track named savings targets and are tied more closely to real money movement than before.

Adding a goal

  • Name
  • Target amount
  • Currency
  • Optional deadline
  • Colour
  • Linked savings account

How progress works

Goal progress is transaction-driven. Contributions and withdrawals can create paired transactions so the goal and the linked savings account stay consistent.

Money saved into an active goal also reduces the freely available untagged balance on the linked account until it is withdrawn or the goal balance returns to zero.

Goal history

You can open a goal’s history view to see the transactions tied to that goal.

Withdrawals

Withdrawals from a goal can create a reverse flow: money leaves the goal account and enters the destination account.

Archiving instead of deletion

Goals are no longer treated like throwaway records. When a goal reaches a zero balance and you no longer want it active, it is archived instead of being fully removed. Archived goals stay out of normal active views and dropdowns but keep history safer.

Best practice Withdraw or move out any remaining goal balance first. A goal is only ready for archiving once its current amount is zero.

Settings

Settings is where you configure your personal environment inside FinBase.

Profile

Update your basic profile details, including display name, email address, and avatar colour.

Password

Change your password securely from inside your account.

Accounts

Add accounts, remove accounts, and update account context where supported.

Categories

Create your own categories while still using system defaults.

Split rules

Split rules drive the Splitter calculations. They should total exactly 100%.

Cupira Connection Key

You can generate a secure connection key in Settings to link FinBase with Cupira. This lets Cupira read your active savings goals without changing your FinBase data.

Danger Zone

You can permanently delete your own account from Settings. FinBase requires your current password, an exact confirmation phrase, and an acknowledgement checkbox before deletion is enabled.

Permanent action Deleting your account removes your FinBase account and associated records. This action cannot be undone.

Install on Your Phone

FinBase works as an installable PWA, so you can use it more like a native app.

Android (Chrome)

  1. 1
    Open in ChromeVisit your FinBase domain.
  2. 2
    Open the browser menuUse the three-dot menu.
  3. 3
    Tap “Add to Home screen”Confirm installation.

iPhone (Safari)

  1. 1
    Open in SafariVisit your FinBase domain.
  2. 2
    Tap ShareUse the share icon in Safari.
  3. 3
    Tap “Add to Home Screen”Confirm installation.
Note FinBase also includes offline fallback support for the shell experience, so the app can fail more gracefully when the network drops.

Tips & Best Practices

Log immediately The quicker you log, the more accurate the ledger stays.
Set up accounts first Accounts are foundational. Most other flows depend on them.
Use labels deliberately Reserve them for meaningful buckets, not every tiny category.
Reserve before you rely on a label If money belongs to a label, explicitly reserve it there so your untagged balance stays honest.
Use batch mode for grouped entries If you are entering several related transactions, batch logging is faster and cleaner.
Review your breakdowns regularly Visual summaries make it easier to spot overspending patterns than raw ledger rows alone.
Verify your email early Verified accounts recover more smoothly and avoid getting stuck on access flows later.
Use the right context every time Dashboard quality depends on correct context tagging.
Use Splitter only after income is already logged Splitter allocates existing business money; it does not create the original inflow for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can other users see my transactions?
No. FinBase isolates user data. Other users cannot see your transactions, goals, labels, accounts, or split rules.
Do I need to verify my email?
Yes. New accounts are expected to verify their email address before continuing fully into the app.
What if I forget my password?
Use the Forgot Password link on the login page. If your email exists in FinBase, a reset link will be sent to you.
Can I edit a transaction?
Yes. Transactions can be edited from the ledger modal.
Do labels create separate accounts?
No. Labels are sub-buckets inside a single account, not separate bank accounts.
Why does the dashboard account amount differ from the full real account balance?
Because the dashboard shows available untagged balance after reserved money has been set aside, including positive label balances and active goal savings linked to that account.
What does Breakdowns show?
Breakdowns shows a visual donut chart and ranked list of top categories or accounts for the current filters, one currency at a time.
Does batch logging support currency conversion?
No. Batch mode rejects cross-currency rows. Use the single transaction flow when conversion is required.
Does the Splitter log every bucket automatically?
No. It logs the selected business-to-personal transfer, but not every other bucket in the breakdown.
Can I use Splitter with personal-to-personal accounts?
Not for automatic posting. Personal users can still use Splitter as a calculator, but auto-posting is limited to business-to-personal allocation.
How do goals work now?
Goals are linked more directly to transaction flows. Contributions and withdrawals can drive progress and history more accurately, and inactive zero-balance goals are archived instead of simply deleted.
What is the Cupira connection key for?
It lets you securely connect FinBase to Cupira so Cupira can read your active savings goals and show your progress there without changing anything in FinBase.
Can I delete my account myself?
Yes. FinBase includes a self-service delete account flow in Settings with multiple confirmation steps.
How do I log out?
Use the logout icon in the sidebar footer.
FinBase v2.4 - Built by Ebenezer (THEWPBRO)
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