Settings
Every section of Settings explained: your account and preferences, the budget you have open, and the View options on each page.
Written By Pedro
Last updated 12 days ago
Settings holds your account, how the app looks and behaves for you, and the settings of the budget you have open. Display options for each page also sit on that page, under its View button.
Opening Settings
On a computer: click your name at the bottom of the sidebar and choose Settings.
On your phone: tap More in the tab bar to open the sidebar, tap your name at the bottom, then Settings. Settings shows a list of sections first. Tap one to open it, and tap the back arrow to return to the list.
From the budget menu: click the budget name at the top of the sidebar and choose Budget settings or Members to open those sections directly, or Manage payees or Manage tags to open those dialogs.
The sections are grouped by who they affect, and each group says so under its title:
You: "Only you, in every budget". Your account and how the app looks and behaves for you.
Your budget, shown by its icon and name: "Everyone in this budget". Settings saved to the budget you have open, shared with everyone in it.
A few settings say "This device only" instead. They are saved on the device you change them on, so your phone and your computer can differ.
Search settings
Type in Search settings at the top to find any setting by name or by a related word, such as "dark", "2fa" or "rollover". Each result shows its group and section. Select one to open its section with that setting highlighted.
You can also search for a setting from Quick actions at the top of the sidebar.
You
These settings belong to your account. They apply in every budget you open, and nobody you share a budget with sees them.
Profile
Personal information: your first and last name. Select Save changes after editing.
Email: the address that gets your sign-in codes and account emails. Select Change email to switch to a new address. While Lunch Flow is connected, the button is disabled; select Why can't I change my email? to see why.
Connected accounts: link Apple or Google to sign in with one click, alongside the sign-in code Zerosum emails you. Disconnect at any time; you can keep signing in with the emailed code.
ℹ️ Important: Apple and Google sign-in are alternatives, not replacements. Email sign-in with a one-time code is always available, even when a provider is connected.
Security
Password: add a password to sign in with, then change it whenever you like. Two-factor authentication requires one.
Two-factor authentication: use an authenticator app for a one-time code at sign-in, and generate replacement backup codes whenever you need them.
Active sessions: see every device that has signed in and revoke any session you do not recognize.
See Account security for what to save, when to trust a browser, and what to do if you lose access to your authenticator app.
Appearance
Color mode: Light, Dark or System (matches your device). Saved on this device only. You can also switch it from Appearance in the menu under your name.
Color theme: the look of the whole app. The picker has two groups: Full themes (Midnight, the default, plus Slate, Iris, Lavender, Plum, Rosewater, Paper, Moss, Tide and Ink) that repaint every surface, and Accent only options that keep the standard surfaces and recolor buttons, links and highlights. Every option has a light and a dark variant.
Separate dark mode theme: turn it on to pick a different theme for dark mode. The theme row then splits into Light mode theme and Dark mode theme.
Increase contrast: stronger borders, secondary text, links and focus outlines on every theme, in light and dark mode. It starts on when your device asks for more contrast.
Font size: make text and controls bigger or smaller across the app, from 80% to 150% in 5% steps. Saved on this device only, so your phone can use a larger size than your computer.
Show category colors: turn it off to hide category color dots and accents in budget, transaction, picker, calendar and notification views. Analytics charts always keep each category's Analytics color, so their series stay easy to tell apart.
Show account icons: show or hide account images, bank logos, emojis and initials throughout the app.
See Themes & Appearance for a full tour of the themes.
Navigation
Where Zerosum opens, your phone's tab bar, and the sidebar.
Home page
Choose the page Zerosum opens on: Budget (the default), Calendar, Accounts, All Transactions, Overview, or Analytics. It's where you land when you launch the app or sign in, and where you arrive when you switch budgets. Links and notifications still open their own page, and Budget in the sidebar always opens your budget. On your phone, the home page is also the first tab.
Mobile tab bar
On your phone, the bar at the bottom of the screen starts with your home page and ends with More, which opens the full sidebar. The row in Settings shows a preview of your bar. Select Customize to choose up to three tabs in between:
Reorder: drag a tab by its handle.
Add or remove: switch a tab off, or switch on another page. The bar holds three tabs, so turn one off to add another.
Reset tab bar brings back the original tabs.
The first tab is always your home page. To change it, use the Home page setting above it in Settings > Navigation. The page it replaces moves into the bar, so it stays one tap away.
On your phone, the + Transaction button also shows on your home page. The review badge sits on Accounts, or on All Transactions or More when Accounts isn't in the bar.
Sidebar
Customize sidebar: show, hide and reorder the pages and sections in the sidebar. This one is saved for you in the budget you have open ("Only you, in this budget"). The sliders button in the sidebar footer opens the same dialog.
Dark sidebar: in light mode, shows the sidebar in your dark mode colors: your dark mode theme if you set one, otherwise your current theme's dark look. It has no effect in dark mode.
Compact sidebar: tighter spacing between sidebar items.
Tables and lists
Display options for the budget and the transaction register. These are the same switches as the View button on those pages (see View options on each page), plus a few more, in one place.
Budget: Favorites group (favorite categories pinned above your groups; the favorites themselves are shared with the budget), Summary text, Budgeted column on your phone, Compact budget rows on larger screens, and Row bars (Spending bar, Goal bar, Combined bar, Split bars or No bar).
Transactions: Reconciled, Scheduled, Running balance, Tags, Receipts, Compact transaction rows, Expand splits, Category groups and, on your phone, Group by day.
Dates: Start week on Sunday or Monday. It sets the first column in calendar views. Saturday and Sunday stay shaded as the weekend whichever day starts the week.
Privacy and device
Hide amounts, review notifications, nearby payees, and settings for the mobile apps.
Hide amounts
A switch that masks every passive money figure in the app with ••••: account and category balances, transactions and their splits, the calendar, the overview, loan and analytics summaries, tooltips, and notifications. It is built for screen sharing and for budgeting in public. The quickest way to flip it is the eye button in the sidebar footer; it changes the same setting.
Details still show real numbers. Open a transaction editor, a category's details, an analytics drill-down, or a reconcile, loan, goal or recurring editor and its own amounts appear. Closing it masks them again, and opening a detail never reveals the page behind it.
Charts keep their shape. Lines and bars still draw at the real values; only the money labels on the axis and in tooltips are masked. Dates, counts and percentages stay visible.
Saved on this device only, for your user. It follows you across your budgets on that device, other people sharing a budget keep their own setting, and exports are never masked.
ℹ️ Important: This is a display preference, not a lock. Anyone using your signed-in session can turn it off, and chart shapes and category names can still hint at relative amounts.
Review notifications
In the mobile apps, Zerosum can let you know when transactions are ready to review, whether they came from bank sync or a scheduled transaction that's due. Transactions that arrive around the same time come together in one notification. If more than one budget notifies you, it names each budget and how many transactions are waiting there. Tapping it opens the review list.
Both controls live in the Notifications card in Settings > Privacy and device:
This device: turns review notifications on or off for the phone or tablet you're using. Turning it on asks for permission, and if notifications are blocked in your device settings, the row says so.
Budgets: a switch for every budget you own or were invited to. These are the same on all your devices. Budgets you own start on; a shared budget you were invited to starts off until you turn it on.
Each person in a shared budget chooses for themselves. Turning a budget off for you doesn't change anyone else's notifications.
On a computer, the same budget switches are in the Notifications card under Settings > Privacy and device, so you can change them there too. This device is only in the mobile apps.
With a single budget of your own, the card shows just This device, unless you turned that budget off.
💡 Tip: Keep a budget for someone else, like a partner's personal budget? Turn it off here and invite them, so they can turn it on in their own app.
Nearby payees and the mobile app
Use nearby payees: off by default. When it's on, Zerosum suggests payees you have used near where you are while you add a transaction on your phone. Turning it on asks for location access, and the row shows whether access is allowed. Saved locations are private to you and never shared with others in a budget.
Forget saved locations: removes every location saved for nearby payees. Location access and the switch stay as they are.
Haptic feedback: in the mobile apps only. Vibrates on taps, toggles and saves.
When the location button appears beside Payee as you add a transaction on your phone, it starts on. Tap it before saving to skip that transaction's location without turning nearby payees off. For more on payees, see Manage Payees.
Your data
Export your account data: select Request export. Zerosum builds the file in the background and emails you when it is ready. Select Download next to it here; each file is kept for 7 days, and Zerosum keeps your latest three. Exports include your profile, account details, activity, and full data for budgets you own. To restore a budget, Zerosum uses its automatic backups, not export files.
Delete your Zerosum account: select Delete and type DELETE to confirm. This permanently deletes your account and all your data.
⚠️ Warning: Request an export first if you want a copy of your records. Once the account is deleted there is no way to get it back.
Learn more in Backups & Data Exports and Data Security.
Subscription
Your current plan and its next billing date, and a Manage subscription button. Without a plan, you can choose one here. A gift subscription you received shows here too. In the iPhone app, a subscription bought through the App Store is managed from here as well. The Android app does not show this section.
You can also open it from Subscription in the menu under your name. See Billing & Tax and Gift subscriptions.
Budget
The second group's heading is the budget you have open: its icon and name, for example Family Budget. Changes here are saved to the budget and apply to everyone in it.
If you have two or more budgets, the heading is also the budget switcher, with a chevron next to the name. Select it and choose another budget to see that budget's settings. You stay in Settings, on the same section. While General has unsaved changes the switcher is disabled, so save or discard them first. With one budget, the heading is just the budget's icon and name.
If your subscription is inactive, the budget is read only and these settings can't be changed.
General
The budget's Budget name, Budget color, Budget icon, Currency, Currency placement, Number format, Date format and Time zone. General saves only when you select Save changes; Discard puts back the saved values. If you leave with unsaved changes, Zerosum asks before discarding them.
Currency: changing it does not convert existing amounts. If the new currency uses a different number of decimals, Zerosum asks you to confirm first.
Time zone: decides when each day starts for the budget. Only the budget owner can change it, after a confirmation. See Budget time zone.
Budgeting
Rules for how this budget counts money. Each switch saves as soon as you flip it.
Set aside for next month: count income in next month's Ready to Budget instead of the month it comes in. Zerosum explains what will change and asks you to confirm. See Set aside for next month.
Carry over negative balances: keep an overspent category red across months instead of resetting it to zero and reducing next month's Ready to Budget. See Carry Over Negative Balances.
Plan future months fresh: when you budget a month ahead, goals ask for the full amount instead of subtracting what carries over. See Budget Goals.
The Income card below holds:
Expected monthly income: compared with your monthly goals in the budget's side panel. Leave it empty to hide the comparison.
Income categories: select Manage to name your income sources and choose which ones are set aside for next month by default.
Accounts, payees and tags
Organize accounts: reorder accounts, move them between groups, and create, rename or delete groups. See Accounts & Transfers.
Manage payees: merge and rename payees, and set their rules and defaults. See Manage Payees.
Manage tags: create, rename and remove tags. See Tags.
Bank connections: select Open to link accounts to your bank. Members can manage their own connections, but only the budget owner can link them to this budget's accounts. See Bank Sync.
The Auto-fill from payee card holds the master switches for the budget. When one is on, a transaction that gets a payee, whether you enter it or it is imported from a bank or a file, is filled in with what you usually use with that payee:
Category: the payee's usual category. Transfers follow their own category rules.
Tags: the payee's tags, for payees set to Recent or Fixed tags.
Account: on a new transaction, the account you usually use with the payee. For a transfer or a card or loan payment, the account you usually pay from. Imports keep their own account.
Turning a switch off stops that fill for every payee. To choose what one payee fills in, select Manage payees on the Per payee row.
Members
Everyone who can open this budget. The owner can invite people by email and remove members or pending invitations. A member sees the list and can select Leave budget. The owner's seats are shared across all their budgets: Basic includes 1 seat, Plus 3, and Pro 5.
Members can change every budget setting except the time zone. Only the owner can:
change the time zone
invite and remove members
link bank connections to the budget's accounts
start fresh, duplicate, delete, or restore the budget from a backup
View options on each page
Display options for a page live on that page, under the View button at the top right. On account registers and All Transactions, View shows just its sliders icon, and on an account register Reconcile sits to its right. Each group of options says who it affects, the same way Settings does.
Budget: Compare months on a computer, or Expand all groups and Collapse all groups on a phone; Show (Favorites group, Summary text, and Compact rows on a computer or Budgeted column on a phone); Row bars; and Organize categories, which changes the categories for everyone in the budget.
Account registers and All Transactions: Show (Reconciled, Scheduled, Running balance, Tags, Receipts), Display (Compact rows, Expand splits, Category groups, and Group by day on a phone), Forecast (Forecast recurring, just for you in this budget), and Columns (Reset column widths, this device only). On a phone, View also holds the sort order.
Overview: Arrange widgets and Reset widgets to default.
Analytics: Customize analytics bar. On a dashboard, Arrange widgets too.
On the budget and the register, More view settings at the bottom of View opens Settings > Tables and lists.
On a wide screen, the register toolbar also has one-click buttons next to View for Reconciled transactions, Scheduled transactions, Running balance and Expanded splits. They change the same settings as View.
The budget menu
Click the budget name at the top of the sidebar to open the budget menu:
Switch budget: your budgets, plus Create budget and Import budget.
Manage budgets: every budget you can open, with automatic backups.
Budget settings: opens Settings > General for this budget.
Manage payees and Manage tags: open the same dialogs as their rows in Settings > Accounts, payees and tags.
Members: opens Settings > Members.
Export budget data: downloads this budget's data.
Start fresh (owner only).
To delete a budget, open Manage budgets, select the More actions button on its row, and choose Delete. The same row menu has Budget settings for every budget, Rename, Members, Duplicate and Export budget data for budgets you own, and Leave for budgets shared with you. Automatic backups and restores are on the Manage budgets page too. See Multiple Budgets and Backups & Data Exports.
Things that live elsewhere
Default cleared status: set per account. Open the account, select Account settings, and choose New transactions start as. See Accounts & Transfers.
Keyboard shortcuts: on a computer, choose Keyboard shortcuts in the menu under your name.
Where to next
Was this helpful?
Still need help? Share an idea