Guide

This guide explains Cofre Ink as it works today, one screen at a time. Words in bold are the words on the screen, taken from the English interface.

You can follow almost all of it at app.cofre.ink, where the data stays in your browser and there is no account. A few things, such as inviting other people into a shared space, need a server of your own, and the pages say so where it matters. The groups below are in the order a new person usually needs them.

Getting started

1. Where your data lives: the three ways to run Cofre Ink, and what each one gives you and asks of you.
2. First steps: the first screen, the example data, what is created for you and where you land.
3. Finding your way: the five sections, the space menu, the command palette and the switches in the header.

Common situations

1. Money as a couple: yours, mine and ours, splitting evenly or by income, and settling up.
2. From a spreadsheet: bringing an old spending spreadsheet in, and keeping a spreadsheet copy.
3. Card invoice and instalments: the closing day, the best day to buy, and what instalments commit ahead.
4. Without a bank connection: records that come from you, and where they stay.

Setting up

1. Accounts: current accounts, savings, cash, vouchers and investments, each with an opening balance.
2. Cards and vouchers: credit and debit cards, and benefit cards such as meal vouchers.
3. Categories and priorities: the starting set, categories inside categories, and how much each expense was needed.

Writing it down

1. Writing a record: an expense, an income or a transfer, including what has not happened yet and purchases in instalments.
2. Quick entry: one line of text read into a record, with a preview before anything is written.
3. The list of records: the month, search, filters, saved filters and changing many records at once.
4. Card invoices: which invoice each card purchase falls on, and what each invoice adds up to.
5. Rules that sort: a piece of text that puts matching records in a category by itself.
6. What repeats, and the calendar: records that come back every month, and the month laid out as a calendar.
7. Importing a statement: reading a file from the bank and checking every line before it is written.

Planning

1. Budget, save first and goals: limits per category, a part of what comes in set aside first, and goals.
2. Notices and findings: what the Overview points out, and why.
3. The check up: a word for the state of the money, four signs behind it, and a plan.
4. Reports: a month read back by category, by priority and by day, the last twelve months, and printing.
5. Projection and what if: the months ahead, from what you have written, and scenarios that change nothing written.
6. Investments: holdings with prices you type, a comparison with the CDI when you ask for it, and a compound interest simulator.

Sharing

1. Spaces: the personal space, shared spaces, and moving between them.
2. More than one person per device: profiles in one browser, and what they do not protect.
3. Members and invitations: roles, and invitation links, which need a server of your own.
4. Splitting and settling up: dividing an expense between people, and who owes whom.

Your data

1. Backup and restore: saving a space to a file, and bringing it back.
2. CSV and spreadsheets: the records as a CSV file, and a copy in a Google spreadsheet.
3. A copy elsewhere, and a second device: a file, a server, an online database or a WebDAV folder, synced when you press the button.
4. Changing where the data lives: what moves and what stays behind when you switch.
5. Erasing data: the danger zone, for one space or for everything.

Help

1. When something goes wrong: the messages Cofre Ink shows, what they mean and what to do.

Your own server

1. Install with Docker: running Cofre Ink on a machine of yours, for signing in from more than one device and sharing spaces with other people.