Support & User Manual

Set up once, in any order

owllet doesn't ask you to create an owllet account. A good first pass looks like this:

1. Choose whether your first workspace should use Easy or Power mode.
2. Open the Accounts tab and add the wallets you actually use (e.g. Cash, Checking Account, Credit Card). Each gets a starting balance, an icon and a color. Easy mode creates its own simple system accounts.
3. Open Settings → Categories and adjust the expense/income categories to match your life. You can add subcategories and, optionally, a monthly budget per category.
4. Log your first transaction from any screen via the + button.
5. Optional: turn on private iCloud sync, iCloud backups, and a PIN under Settings → Security and data, or share a synchronized workspace from its settings.

If you would rather explore first, Settings → Workspaces → Load demo data fills the active workspace with a full year of realistic sample activity. Loading it replaces that workspace's existing accounts, categories and transactions, so owllet asks for confirmation when data is already present.

Separate ledgers inside one app

A workspace is an independent set of owllet data. Use workspaces when you want to keep different budgets apart: personal spending, a shared household, a trip, a side project, or anything else that should have its own numbers.

• Each workspace has its own accounts, categories, budgets, transactions, recurring rules, dashboard setup, and Easy or Power mode.
• The active workspace appears in the app shell, and switching workspaces changes which ledger you are viewing and editing.
• Under Settings → Workspaces you can create, rename, customize, delete, and switch workspaces.
• If iCloud sync is set to selected workspaces, each workspace gets its own iCloud switch. Turning it off removes that workspace from iCloud sync but keeps it on the current device.
• After an owned workspace is synchronized, choose Share with someone to send an Apple invitation. Only that workspace is shared; your other workspaces remain separate.
• A shared workspace can be edited by its members. An invited member can leave without deleting the owner's data, and the owner can stop sharing or remove access.

Choose the depth per workspace

Every workspace is created as either Easy or Power. The choice is per workspace, so you can keep a simple ledger next to a detailed one.

• Easy mode focuses on quick day-to-day tracking. It keeps the interface simpler and uses built-in system accounts for the basic flow.
• Power mode unlocks the full app: custom wallets, categories, monthly budgets, Statistics, Budget, Calendar, recurring transactions, dashboard blocks, and deeper filters.
• You can add more Easy or Power workspaces later in Settings → Workspaces.

Private sync across your devices, invited sharing with others

Both features use Apple's CloudKit infrastructure, but they are different choices. Private sync keeps owned workspaces current across devices signed in to your Apple Account. Sharing gives invited iCloud users access to one chosen workspace. Neither creates an owllet account or gives the developer access to your data.

• All workspaces — every workspace you own is uploaded to your private iCloud and kept in sync.
• Selected workspaces — only owned workspaces enabled on the Workspaces page stay in private iCloud.
• Off — owllet removes owned sync data from private iCloud and keeps it on this device. Shares you own end; workspaces shared with you keep syncing until you leave or the owner removes access.
• Share with someone — available from a synchronized owned workspace. Send the Apple invitation through Messages, Mail, AirDrop, or another system share option.
• Accepting an invitation — adds that shared workspace and downloads its accounts, categories, transactions, and recurring items. Members currently have read and write access.
• Shared activity notifications — each participant can independently enable alerts under Settings → Notifications. owllet then reports new expenses, income, and transfers added by another member, plus who joins or leaves the workspace and any change to your own access. Individual transaction entries in Notification history show the author, amount and category or subcategory at a glance. This is separate from Recurring reminders; one can be on while the other is off.

Sync and sharing need a signed-in iCloud account. If you're offline, owllet still works locally and CloudKit catches up later.

Restorable copies in your private iCloud

iCloud backups are separate from live sync. They create restorable backup packages in your private iCloud database and count against your iCloud storage.

• Create a backup for the active workspace or for everything in owllet.
• Backups include workspaces you own. A workspace shared with you remains managed by its owner and is not copied into your private backup.
• Turn on automatic daily backups if you want regular protection.
• Restore a backup by replacing the current data or by keeping existing data and importing the backup as new.
• Before a replace restore, owllet creates a safety backup automatically.
• Deleting an iCloud backup removes only that backup file from iCloud. It does not delete data currently in the app.

Your monthly overview at a glance

The Dashboard is the home tab and is built from a set of blocks you can choose under Settings → Interface → Dashboard. To change their order, touch and hold a visible block, then drag it by its handle:

• Total balance — the combined balance of your wallets, with income and expenses for the current month underneath. Tap either figure to drill into the matching transactions.
• Budget overview — how much you've spent this month against your overall monthly budget, with a progress bar. Tap it to jump to the Budget tab.
• Latest transactions — your 5 most recent entries.
• Category and trend charts — the same donut and bar charts available on the Statistics tab, optionally pinned to the dashboard.

Which blocks show, and in what order, is entirely up to you — there's no fixed layout. Removing a block only hides it and never deletes financial data.

Expenses, income and transfers

Every entry has a type: expense, income, or transfer (moving money between two of your own wallets). The add/edit form includes:

• A numeric keypad for the amount.
• A wallet picker (and a second "to" wallet for transfers).
• A category picker (skipped for transfers — they don't need one).
• A date/time, and an optional note.

The wallet and category pickers each include a + button. Create a missing item without leaving the transaction flow, and owllet selects it automatically when the form closes.

The Transactions tab shows one month at a time, grouped by day. The Transactions overview card above the day cards shows the selected month, Total income and Total expenses, excluding transfers. Use its arrows to browse earlier months or move forward to the current month. Months with no entries show zero totals, and the month controls stay available. Swipe a row to delete it — you'll always get a confirmation prompt first, since this can't be undone. Use the Search tab to find a specific transaction.

Recurring transactions

Turn on Repeat on an expense or income entry (transfers can't repeat) to turn it into a template that keeps producing transactions on a schedule, instead of a one-off entry:

• Pick a frequency — daily, weekly, monthly or yearly — with an optional step other than 1 (e.g. every 2 weeks), and an optional end date so it doesn't repeat forever.
• Fixed amount, auto-post — posted automatically the moment it's due; if owllet wasn't open on the due date, it's back-dated to the correct day the next time you open the app.
• Fixed amount, remind only — waits in the Recurring tab for you to Approve or Skip; nothing is added to your ledger until you do.
• Variable amount — always waits for your approval, since the exact figure isn't known in advance. The amount you confirm becomes the suggested amount next time.

To use the moment of approval as the transaction date, turn on Use approval time in the Repeat card. Ledger date & time then shows When approved. For a fixed amount, tapping the approval checkmark sets the ledger date and time; for a variable amount, it is the moment you confirm the amount. This works for both expenses and income, switches off automatic posting, and keeps the repeat schedule unchanged. Leave it off to keep using the scheduled due date.

The Recurring tab lists anything waiting for your decision at the top, and every recurring item below it — swipe a row to pause/resume or delete it.

Reminders & notifications

Turn on reminders under Settings → Notifications to get notified when a recurring item is due — in every workspace you have, not only the one you're currently viewing. By default, a reminder fires right at the item's own due date and time. If you'd rather be nudged differently, switch on Custom reminder time to set your own time of day and how many days in advance (up to 14) you want the heads-up instead.

Each workspace gets one reminder, timed to whatever is due soonest in it. When a single item is waiting, the notification names it and says whether it will post automatically or wait for your approval; when several are due, it tells you how many. Tap it to switch to that workspace and open the Recurring tab, where you can review, approve, skip, or add everything waiting for you.

Shared workspace activity is a different notification setting on the same screen. When enabled, owllet notifies you whenever another member adds a new expense, income, or transfer to a shared workspace, and whenever someone joins or leaves a workspace you share, or your own access to one is removed. It has its own switch and does not follow the Recurring reminders switch, custom time, or advance-notice setting.

Notification history keeps everything owllet has notified you about in one place, across every workspace, with each entry naming which one it belongs to. Open it from the side menu whenever something is unread, or any time from Settings → Notifications. Individual shared-transaction entries show who added the transaction, its amount in bold and its category or subcategory. Expense and income amounts use the same colors as the Transactions list, including your changes under Settings → Interface → Appearance. Tap a shared transaction to open its full details over the list and mark it read; closing the details returns you to your notifications. Unread notifications also show as a badge on the app icon and in the side menu.

As many wallets as you need

An account represents anywhere money lives — cash, a bank account, a card, savings, an investment account. Each one has a name, a starting balance, an icon and a color; its current balance is simply calculated from its transaction history.

• Hide, don't delete — if you stop using a wallet but want to keep its history, hide it instead of deleting it. Hidden wallets disappear from the "new transaction" picker but their past transactions stay exactly as they were.
• Deleting an account with transactions doesn't erase that history — it's moved into an internal "deleted accounts" bucket so your overall statistics stay correct.
• Choose which wallets count — once you have two or more wallets, a wallet icon appears next to the total balance on both the Dashboard and the Accounts tab. Tap it to tick or untick individual wallets: the total balance updates to match your selection, and on the Accounts tab the wallet list below narrows to the same selection. Leave everything ticked (the default) to see the combined total across every wallet.
• Choose the order — under Settings → Accounts, touch and hold an account and drag its three-line handle. The same order is used in account lists and pickers, and is preserved by iCloud synchronization and backups.

Two levels deep, with an optional monthly limit

Categories are either expense or income, and can have one level of subcategories (e.g. "Home & Bills" → "Rent", "Utilities"). Each gets its own icon and color.

Give any category a monthly budget and the Budget tab will track what's spent against it, with a left-to-spend figure and a percentage. Budget periods follow calendar months; there is no weekly or yearly option. Use the arrow controls to browse earlier months, while the forward arrow stops at the current month. Historical views compare that month's transactions with the category limits currently configured in Settings.

Overspent categories show a warning icon and highlighted spending details. A main category is evaluated using its rolled-up spending and the combined budgets of its visible subcategories, while each subcategory is evaluated against its own limit. Leave a budget field empty (or zero) to show No budget set.

Hide, don't delete — hiding a category preserves its existing transactions but removes it from new-entry lists and the Budget tab. Hiding a main category also hides every subcategory beneath it; a subcategory cannot be shown again until its main category is visible.

Under Settings → Categories, touch and hold a row and drag its three-line handle to choose the order. Main categories carry their subcategories with them. A subcategory can be reordered inside its current group or dragged into another group to move it under that main category. The custom order is preserved by iCloud synchronization and backups.

Swipe a category left to use the more advanced move, merge or delete actions:

• Move a category with no children under another main category and keep it as a separate subcategory, or merge it directly into an ungrouped main category when that option is available. You can also merge it straight into an existing subcategory.
• Move a main category that has subcategories to re-parent all of them under a different main category in one step.

A main category is always either ungrouped, with its own transactions, recurring rules and budget, or a group containing only subcategories. When it receives its first subcategory, owllet automatically creates a same-named subcategory for anything that was previously attached directly to the main category. If you select a main category that already has subcategories as the target, the moved category joins it as another separate subcategory.

Trends and breakdowns

Pick any date range (it defaults to the last 12 months) and owllet builds:

• An expenses-by-category donut chart, grouped by top-level category by default — tap the chart's header to switch to a subcategory breakdown instead. The six largest groups appear separately, while every remaining or uncategorized expense is included under Other. Tap any slice, including Other, to drill in.
• An income vs. expenses monthly bar chart.
• Separate monthly trend bars for income and for expenses.

Every chart is tappable for more detail on the period or category you're looking at.

Daily activity by month

The Calendar tab shades each day by how much you spent or earned that day. Tap a day for a quick summary; tap again for the full list of that day's transactions, which you can edit or delete from there. You can move between months, but not past the current one.

Make it look like yours

On iPhone, open Settings → Interface → Appearance and choose Light, Dark, or System. Light and Dark stay in the mode you select; System follows your iPhone's appearance, including when it changes. The app and open Settings pages update immediately.

Light and dark have separate customizable palettes. Tap a swatch or type a hex code to change the active palette's page background, income and expenses blocks, text, menus, notification badge, and 18 account/category colors. In System mode, the editor follows whichever palette is currently active. Your existing light colors are preserved; new and updated installations start in Light.

Reset to defaults appears when the active palette has custom colors. Confirming it resets only that palette, leaving the other palette and your selected mode unchanged. Full Owllet backups save both palettes and the mode. Restoring an older backup restores its light colors, selects Light, and uses the default dark colors; XLSX files carry ledger data, not appearance settings.

The owl logos inside the app follow its appearance: Dark uses the dark owl with a white wordmark. The Home Screen icon follows the iPhone's icon style instead. With Home Screen icons set to Automatic, it switches between the light and dark icons with the system, independently of Owllet's setting.

In the iOS app, open Settings → Interface → Bottom menu to choose your shortcuts. Tap an existing item to replace it, or Add menu item to add another available screen or the Add shortcut. Each item can appear once. Keep at least four items; when more are selected, tap an item and choose Remove from bottom menu to remove its shortcut. The screen remains available through Menu.

Four shortcut positions stay visible beside the fixed rightmost Menu button. With four items there is no scrolling; with five there is one extra position. Swipe horizontally to reach additional shortcuts, one position at a time. Icons settle into place, no scrollbar is shown, and Menu never moves. The bar sits above the home indicator, keeping every button fully visible and easy to tap.

You can show or hide the floating + button independently, or hide the entire bottom menu and use the top-right hamburger button instead. Page titles and the workspace switcher stay fixed while the cards scroll underneath in either mode.

Your own formatting, not live exchange rates

Under Settings → Currency you can define currencies with their own symbol, symbol position, number of decimal places, and thousands/decimal separators — with a live preview as you type. Exactly one currency is marked as default.

Excel in, Excel out — nothing leaves your device except the file you choose to share

Export & restore

• Export to Excel — a complete backup of your data as an .xlsx file (currencies, categories, accounts and transactions), shared via the standard iOS share sheet.
• Restore from backup — choose between replace all data (wipes the app and restores exactly as backed up) or keep existing, import as new (merges the backup into what you already have).

Import from another app

• Download sample file — a simple template with example rows, so you know the expected columns.
• Import file — adds the file's rows as new transactions. It matches accounts and categories by name; anything it can't match is skipped and reported in a summary so nothing is silently lost.

A PIN, optional biometrics, and explicit iCloud choices

All security options are under Settings → Security and data:

• PIN — a 6-digit code, stored as a hash in the iOS Keychain. Setting one turns on the lock screen.
• Face ID / Touch ID — optional, and only available once a PIN is set. If biometric authentication fails or is cancelled, the app always falls back to the PIN.
• Changing or removing the PIN always requires the current PIN — biometrics can't be used as a shortcut for that.
• The app shows a privacy cover whenever it's backgrounded, so nothing sensitive appears in the task switcher.
• Delete all data — a full reset of the app, confirmed by your PIN or biometrics.

The questions we hear most

We read every message ourselves

For anything not covered above — bugs, feedback, feature requests, or help with your data — email us directly. We'll get back to you as soon as we can.