Sharing

Overview#

The Sharing feature allows you to grant other Nextcloud users access to your financial data. This is useful for households managing joint finances, teams tracking shared budgets, or accountants who need visibility into a client's accounts.

Nothing is shared automatically. Inviting someone opens the door; you then choose, item by item, exactly what they can see and whether they can change it.

Adding a Share#

To share your budget data with another user:

1. Navigate to the Sharing page from the sidebar
2. In the search field, type the name or username of a Nextcloud user
3. A dropdown will appear with matching users on your instance
4. Select the user you want to share with, then click Invite
5. Once they accept, click Configure on their row to choose what they can see

An invited user starts with access to nothing. Until you pick items in Configure, they will see an empty budget.

Note: You can only share with users who have accounts on the same Nextcloud instance. The user does not need to have the Budget app enabled themselves.

Choosing What to Share#

Click Configure on a share to open its panel. It has one section per type of thing you can share:

Accounts, Categories, Bills, Recurring Income, Savings Goals, Projects and Import Rules.

Each section has its own tick list and its own permission dropdown:

Important: The permission is per section, not per share. Setting Bills to Read & Write does not also grant it for Accounts — each section is set separately, and every section starts at Read only.

This catches people out in a specific way. A bill knows which account it is paid from, but that dropdown can only offer accounts the other person is allowed to see. If you share your bills without also ticking the accounts they pay from, the Pay From Account field will show nothing to choose and Auto-pay when due will not be available, because auto-pay needs an account. Sharing the accounts as well fixes both.

Auto-share new is a per-section option too: tick it and anything you create later in that section is shared automatically, at the permission the section is set to.

Giving each other equal access#

Sharing runs in one direction only. For two people to have full control of everything — a couple managing the household books together, say — each needs to share with the other: two shares, each with the sections ticked and set to Read & Write.

You each still own what you created, and ownership cannot be transferred. In day-to-day use that makes no difference once both shares are set up. If you genuinely need everything under one account, the only route is Settings → Data Migration: export from one account and import into the other. Be aware that importing replaces the destination's existing budget data entirely — there is no merge — so export from both sides and keep the files before you start.

Shared Categories#

Categories shared with you appear on your Categories page alongside your own, each marked with a badge naming the owner:

• "Shared · <owner>" — read-only. You can still use the category to classify transactions, but you cannot change the category itself.
• "Shared (editable) · <owner>" — shared with Edit permission. You can rename it and change its colour directly from the Categories page.

Even with Edit permission, some aspects of a category stay with its owner: the type (income or expense), the parent category, the budget, whether it is excluded from reports, and deleting it. These change how the owner's budget and reports are calculated, so they remain owner-controlled.

If you don't want a shared category counted in your own reports, use the Hide from my reports toggle on its row (visible on hover). This affects only what you see — the owner's reports and other viewers are untouched, and the category still works for classifying transactions. Toggle it back with Show in my reports at any time.

Shared Import Rules#

You can share individual import rules the same way you share accounts or categories — pick which rules to share, at View or Edit permission, from the share's Configure panel.

A rule shared with you appears on your Rules page marked with a "Shared" badge:

• View — you can see and run the rule, but not change it.
• Edit — you can also modify the rule's criteria and actions. Edits apply for the owner and everyone it's shared with (it is one rule, not a copy). Only the owner can delete it.

Shared rules also run automatically when you import, and when you use Run Rule Now, exactly like your own rules.

Note on categories and accounts: a rule's actions (like set category or set account) point at the owner's categories and accounts. When such a rule runs for you, that action only takes effect if the target category/account is also shared with you — otherwise it is skipped, so a transaction is never filed under something you can't see. Sharing the relevant categories/accounts alongside the rule makes it fully effective.

Shared Bills and Income#

Bills, recurring transfers and recurring income can be shared individually, at View or Edit permission, from the share's Configure panel. They appear on your Bills, Transfers and Income pages alongside your own.

• View — you can see the bill and its schedule, but not change it or act on it.
• Edit — you can open and edit it, mark it paid or unpaid, and skip a payment. There is one bill, not a copy: the due date advances for the owner too, and any payment transaction is recorded in the owner's account.

A bill's payment lands in the account the bill points at, which belongs to whoever owns that account. You do not need to own the account to pay a shared bill — but the account does need to be shared with you for the payment to appear in your own totals.

Note: two people sharing the same budget will not see identical Bills pages. The Payments without a recorded transaction and Suggested recurring bills cards are worked out from your own bills and transactions only, so each of you sees your own — there is nothing wrong when one of you has a card the other doesn't.

Transfers Between Shared Accounts#

A transfer can move money between any two accounts you can see, including accounts someone has shared with you at Edit permission. Both sides of the transfer are recorded in their own account, so a transfer into a shared account shows up in the owner's ledger as well as your own.

If either account is shared with you at View only, the transfer is refused — recording it would write to an account you may only read.

Matching two transactions that already exist works across the boundary in the same way. Match transfer searches every account you can write to, so money that left an account you own and landed in one shared with you at Edit can be linked as a transfer — as can the reverse. Find Transfer Matches, the bulk scan, spans the same set. Accounts shared with you at View only are not offered as candidates, since linking records the transfer on both sides.

One thing stays inside your own accounts: the automatic scan that runs after importing a bank statement only links pairs where you own both sides. A statement of yours whose counterpart sits in a shared account is left for you to match by hand, rather than the import writing a link into someone else's ledger unasked.

Managing Shares#

To view and manage your active shares:

1. Go to the Sharing page
2. You will see a list of all users you have shared with, and whether each share is Pending or Active
3. To change what a person can see, click Configure and adjust the tick lists and permission dropdowns
4. To remove access, click Revoke next to the share entry

When you remove a share, the user loses access immediately. No data is deleted from your account.

Warning: Revoking a share cannot be undone from the shared user's perspective. They will lose access to all your budget data instantly.

Dashboard Integration#

When you receive shared access to another user's accounts, those accounts are automatically included in your Dashboard summary. This means:

• Net Worth includes balances from shared accounts
• Income/Expenses This Month includes transactions from shared accounts
• Currency breakdowns reflect shared account currencies
• Account count includes shared accounts

The Recent Transactions widget also displays transactions from shared accounts.

Related Features#

• Shared Expenses - Track and split expenses with contacts
• Settings - Configure app preferences and security
• Projects - Share a project budget and its figures