Simple Balance
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Theme, timezone and currency

Switch between light and dark, set the timezone that decides what today is, and pick the currency new accounts and budgets start in.

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Settings opens on Preferences, where you choose whether Simple Balance is light or dark, which timezone decides what day it is, and which currency new accounts start in. None of these change a transaction you’ve already recorded.

Switch between light and dark

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Under Appearance, choose Light, Dark or Follow my system.

The change happens as soon as you pick, with no button to press. Follow my system, the starting choice, matches your device’s light or dark setting and changes when the device does. Light and Dark stay as they are.

Your choice is saved to your account, so it comes back on any browser you sign in from.

The button in the sidebar

The moon or sun button at the bottom of the sidebar is a shortcut. It switches to whichever of light and dark you aren’t looking at.

If you’re on Follow my system, pressing it sets Light or Dark, so the app stops following your device. Choose Follow my system under Appearance to go back.

Set your timezone

Your timezone decides what day it is for Simple Balance. It’s set from your device the first time you sign in, so you may never need to change it.

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Under Regional defaults, choose your Timezone. Zones are listed by region and then city, so New York is under America. Each one shows its short name and how far it is from UTC today, like EDT (UTC-04:00) for New York in summer.
  3. Press Save preferences. The app says Preferences saved.

What your timezone changes

  • The date a new transaction starts on. If the timezone were left on UTC, something you entered at 7 p.m. in California would start on tomorrow’s date, because it’s already tomorrow in UTC.
  • Where the date choices start and end, like This month and Last 30 days.
  • Where figures stop. The Overview, Reports and Budgets never count past today.
  • The day a recurring transaction comes due and puts a row on Staged.
  • The day and time a template reminder email goes out.
  • The times on Activity history, whatever device you’re reading it on.

Changing your timezone doesn’t move any transaction. Each one keeps the date it already has.

Choose your default currency

Your default currency is the one Simple Balance suggests when you make something new.

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Under Regional defaults, choose from Default account currency or crypto asset. The list has every currency your browser knows, plus 14 crypto assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).
  3. Press Save preferences.

What your default currency changes

  • A new account starts in it. You can pick another currency on the form.
  • A new budget starts in it, and you can pick another there too.
  • It comes first on the Overview and in Reports, with any other currencies after it in alphabetical order.

It’s only a starting point. It doesn’t change the currency of an account you already have, and nothing is ever converted. More than one currency covers keeping accounts in several.

Set for you when you first sign in

The first time you sign in, Simple Balance sets your timezone from your device and your currency from the country in your browser’s language setting. English (United States) gives US dollars and English (Canada) gives Canadian dollars. If it can’t tell, the currency starts on US dollars.

This only happens until a choice is saved, so it never replaces one you made. If your device already matches where an account starts, UTC and US dollars, nothing is saved, and it looks again the next time you open Simple Balance. After that, only you change them, or an AI assistant you’ve allowed to.

Changes an AI assistant can make

An AI assistant you’ve connected with Read, stage, and commit access can change your timezone, your default currency and your theme. Every change to your preferences, by you or by an assistant, is listed on Activity history. Connecting an AI assistant covers what each kind of access allows.

The rest of Settings

The same screen has Connected agents, covered in Connecting an AI assistant, and Sign-in methods, Password and Delete this account, covered in Your account and plan. That page also covers the Plan and billing tab.

On a self-hosted copy that doesn’t sell plans, there’s no Plan and billing tab, only the preferences.