Help & FAQ

Every question below names the button or field you actually see in ExpenseFlow, in the words the app uses. 36 answers across 7 topics — pick a topic to jump straight to it, or use your browser's find-in-page to search for a word like claim, export or role. Inside the app the same list is searchable from the Help screen in the menu.

Getting started

What is a workspace?: A workspace is one self-contained ledger — a temple trust, a family budget, a student's month, your own spending, or anything you build yourself. Each one keeps its own entries, members, categories, budgets and settings, and switching between them changes everything on screen. Your account can hold as many as you need.
How do I create a workspace?: Open the menu (the three lines at the top left) and tap New workspace. Choose a template — Organisation, Family, Student, Personal or Custom — give it a Workspace name, pick a Currency and an optional Monthly budget, then tap Create workspace. Organisation also asks What kind of organisation? so the category list arrives already filled in.
What is the difference between the templates?: They differ in which modules are switched on. Organisation turns on reimbursement claims and multiple members; Family turns on pooled salary mode; Student and Personal are built for one person, so claims and extra members are locked off there; Custom leaves all six module toggles to you. A locked module is not a refusal — the menu offers to open that template's sample workspace or start one.
Can I look around before putting real data in?: Yes. The welcome screen has Explore with sample data, which adds filled-in workspaces marked Demo. Everything you type on a Demo workspace stays on this device only. Settings → Data & backup → Remove sample data takes them away again in one tap, and never touches a workspace you created.

Entries and budgets

How do I add an expense or income entry?: Tap Add entry (top right on a laptop, the round + button on a phone). Pick − Expense or + Income at the top of the form, then fill in the date, Amount, Category, Item, Who paid, Payment mode and Receipt available?. The rest — fund source, beneficiary and Note — are optional. Tap Add expense or Add income to save. Nothing but the amount can be left blank on an expense.
The category or person I need is not in the list.: The form offers it for you: type the name and an + Add "…" to <Category> or + Add "…" as new member button appears under the box. Tapping it saves the entry and keeps the new category or member for the rest of this workspace.
Can I change or delete an entry after saving it?: Open it from the Dashboard or the Ledger and tap it to edit. An editor may only change entries they recorded themselves; an owner or admin may change any entry in the workspace. Deleting an entry only ever removes that one row — the category and member it names stay.
How do category and item budget limits work?: Set them in the workspace's own settings under Categories & items. The Dashboard card Budget & item limits then shows a live gauge per limit with "X left" or "X over", and while you are typing an amount the entry form tells you what this one entry does to the person's or category's running total before you save it.
Where do I change the currency symbol or the date format?: Both live in the workspace's own settings, in the Workspace card: Currency offers ₹ $ € £ ¥ ৳ ₦ R$ with a field for your own symbol, and Date format chooses DD/MM/YYYY (the default), MM/DD/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD. They apply to that workspace's amounts and dates everywhere, including exports.

Members and roles

What can each role do?: Owner — everything, including deleting the workspace and handing out admin rights. Admin — everything an owner can do except delete the workspace or make someone else an admin. Editor — records and edits entries, but only the ones they paid for themselves. Viewer — looks and never writes; whether they see the whole workspace or only their own figures, and whether they may export, is set by the owner in the policy grid.
How do I add someone who already has an account?: Open this workspace's settings and use the Workspace members card: tap Add member, type their Username (the lookup tells you straight away if no account answers to it), choose their Role — admin, editor or viewer — and fill in the optional Extension, Email and Phone if you need to. Tap Add member.
Two members have the same name. How do I tell them apart?: The Add member form has an Extension box for exactly that — a short word like a place, a family name or an initial. The app then shows "Anita (Market)" against "Anita (Temple)", while both of them keep their real account and their own entries.
Can I store a member's phone number or email?: Yes. An owner or an admin taps the pencil titled Edit details on any member's row and can add a Phone and an Email for that person in this workspace. It is a note this workspace keeps about them — it does not change the address they signed up with, and clearing a box removes it from here only.
How do I share a workspace so people can join themselves?: Tap Share in the Workspace members card. It copies one permanent link for this workspace, like a WhatsApp group link. Anyone who opens it and has an account sends a join request, which an owner or an admin answers from the Join requests card by choosing a role and tapping Approve or Reject.
How do I change what editors and viewers are allowed to see?: This workspace's settings has a card titled What members below you may see. It is a small grid: Editor and Viewer across the top, Their details and Downloads down the side. Set details to Only their own so a person only sees their own figures, or Full workspace for everything; set Downloads to Exports hidden to take the export buttons away. You and your admins always see the whole workspace.
How do I remove someone, or leave a workspace myself?: An owner or admin removes a person from their row in the Workspace members card. To step out yourself, open the workspace switcher in the header and tap Leave this workspace — the owner is not offered that, since only they can delete a workspace. Your own recorded entries stay in the ledger, and an owner or admin has to add you back.
How do chats work?: The menu has Chats. Every shared workspace has one thread that all of its members see, and you can start a private one-to-one chat by typing that person's @username — you do not have to share a workspace to message them. Chats live on the server, so a preview profile does not open them. A message may be up to 2000 characters.

Claims and settlements

What is a claim, and how do I raise one?: When you pay for something the workspace owes you back for, tick Paid from own pocket — claim reimbursement in the entry form. That entry then appears on the Claims tab under your name, and its count shows in the Pending for <name> badge, waiting for an owner or an admin.
What happens after someone raises a claim?: It moves through submitted → approved → settled. An owner or admin taps the approve button on the claim, or Reject to send it back. Once it is Approved, the Settle button appears, and the claims card's top strip keeps the running totals: Pending payout, Submitted, Approved and Settled.
How does settling a claim work?: Tap Settle on an approved claim, or Record settlement on a person's row. The Settle — <name> dialog asks for Amount, Date, who paid it, an optional Payer member, Payment mode and a Reference. Record settlement writes it, and the payment covers that person's oldest approved claims first until the amount runs out, so partially paid claims simply stay pending.
What are Member balances?: Outstanding for a person means the claims they have raised minus the settlements already received. Tap a name in the Member balances card to see the claims behind that figure, and export the same numbers as CSV, Excel or PDF from Settlement history.
The Claims tab is missing.: The reimbursement module is switched off for that workspace, so its tab is hidden. An owner or admin turns it on in this workspace's settings under Modules → Reimbursement claims. Student and Personal workspaces are built for one person, so the module stays locked there.

Reports and exports

What is the Report tab for?: It builds one day's report card — the day total, purchases grouped by person, the reimbursement and settlement matrix, category and item gauges, and other members' contributions. Use the arrows to step to another day, or Today to come back. It is made to be posted into a group chat, so the picture and the text are both ready in one tap.
How do I send the daily report to my team?: On the Report tab tap PNG to download the card as an image, Share to hand it straight to your phone's share sheet, or Copy text to paste a plain-text version. Print options lets you leave whole sections — purchases, settlements, budget gauges, contributions — or single items and categories out of it before you send.
How do I export the full ledger to Excel, CSV or PDF?: On the Ledger tab set your filters first (the export always follows what is on screen), then tap CSV, Excel or PDF. Excel and CSV open in a spreadsheet with the date, category, item, member, mode, amount and reimbursement in separate columns, so totals still add up with a normal SUM.
Can I bring entries in from a spreadsheet?: Yes. This workspace's settings has a Bring entries in card with Import from Excel. It reads a sheet you export out of ExpenseFlow — same columns back in — and adds the rows to this workspace's ledger.
How do I filter the ledger before exporting?: The Ledger has quick presets — Today, 7 days, This month, All — plus From and To dates and Category, Member, Mode, Type and Claim status selects. Filters shows how many are in force, and Clear drops them all at once. The search box matches a note, an item or a member name.

Analytics

How do I read the Analytics charts?: Analytics draws Income vs expense for the last six months with a daily average, Spending by category, Top items, Member-wise where a workspace has several people, and Budget vs actual for anything that carries a limit. Everything above them follows the same period you choose: This month, 90 days, This year or All time.
How do analytics filters work?: Under Filters, Type, Category and Member each start at All. Narrowing one redraws every chart on the page at once, and the selects show what is in force — for example Category: Puja Materials. Clear puts all three back. The export you take afterwards shows exactly the filtered picture.
How do I export the analytics page?: Tap PDF or Image at the top of Analytics. Both are made from the charts as they are on your screen right then, so the file looks like the page — including any filters you set. The button says Preparing PDF… or Preparing image… while it renders.

Account, data and privacy

Where is my data kept, and who can see it?: In your own account, on Google Cloud Firestore, so the same workspace appears on every device you sign in from. Your records are readable only by the members of that workspace, and access is checked on the server for every read and write — knowing a workspace's identifier is not enough. Your browser also keeps a mirror so the interface stays fast.
How do I back everything up, or move to a new phone?: Settings → Data & backup → Export JSON backup saves this device's workspaces into one file. On the new device, sign in to the same account and your shared workspaces are already there; use Restore from backup for anything that lives only on the old device.
How do I change my name, username or password?: Settings has an Account card with Change name, Change username and Change password. A username is how members find and message you, so moving to a new one releases the old one for someone else to claim.
I forgot my password.: On the sign-in screen tap the forgot-password link and follow the email it sends. If that link is missing or never arrives, tell us from the Customer Support option in the menu and we will sort it out for your account.
How do I delete my account or a workspace?: A workspace you own is removed from its own settings card titled Remove this workspace — that also takes its entries, members and settlements. For anything that reaches past one workspace, including closing your account, send us a message from the menu's Customer Support option and say which account.
Does ExpenseFlow show ads or track me?: The app runs no behavioural analytics on your entries and no advertising personalisation, and it sets no tracking cookies — it only keeps your sign-in state in your browser so you stay logged in. The full policy is in the menu's Privacy option.

Still stuck? Contact us and tell us which workspace type you are running and where you got stuck — questions we cannot answer here become new entries in this list.