Family Sharing¶
Family Sharing answers two questions that no single person's app can:
- What is our family's combined net worth?
- Which credit cards, insurance policies and accounts does our family hold, and who holds them?
Everyone keeps their own TrackMyRupee account. Each person chooses which of their accounts to share, and the family sees a combined, read-only picture of only what was shared. Nobody can change, or even see, anything you did not share.
Pro plan
Family view needs every member on Pro. See What happens when a plan ends.
1. The rules, in short¶
- Nothing is shared until you share it. Joining a family shares nothing at all.
- Accounts, not transactions. You share an account (a bank account, card, policy, loan, deposit or property). The family never sees a transaction, category, note, receipt or the holdings inside an account, and never an account or policy number.
- Same numbers as your own screens. A shared amount comes from the same valuation as your own net worth, so it never disagrees with what you see.
- You can see what they see. A preview shows the family's view of your shared accounts.
- You are always in control. Stop sharing one account, or leave the family, and it disappears for everyone at once.
2. Starting a family¶
- Open Family in the menu.
- Choose Create your family and give it a name, such as "Our family". You become its owner.
- Under Invite someone, choose Send invite. Enter an email address to have the link emailed to them, or leave it empty and send the link yourself.
You can also start a family from Guided Setup: choose I want to share the big picture with my family. It appears there when family sharing is switched on for you, and it needs a Pro plan. It only creates the family. You invite people from the Family page afterwards.
A family has up to 5 members, and a person can belong to one family at a time. Seats taken by members and by open invitations both count, so cancel an unused invitation to free its seat.
Joining¶
The invitation link is single-use and expires after 7 days. The person opening it must sign in, and must be on Pro (an invitee without Pro is offered the 7-day trial or the plans page first). Before joining they see what the family can and cannot see, and accepting records their consent to share.
If a link expires or was cancelled, the owner can cancel it or renew it, which issues a fresh link.
3. Choosing what to share¶
Open Family > What I share to see all your active accounts. Accounts are grouped (bank and cash, credit cards, loans and property, investments). A group with more than four accounts starts folded: click its name to open it, or use Expand all and Collapse all. The same folding is on If something happens to me, and the app remembers what you opened.
For each account, pick one of two levels:
| Level | What the family sees | Counted in family totals? |
|---|---|---|
| Show amounts | The name, type, who holds it, and the amount | Yes |
| List only | That the item exists, with no amounts | No |
You can also give an account a nickname, shown to the family instead of its real name, so a personal account name never has to be revealed.
What each type shows¶
| Type | Fields the family sees (when amounts are shown) |
|---|---|
| Bank accounts, deposits, investments, property | The balance or value |
| Credit card | Limit, amount used, available credit and the next bill date |
| Insurance | Cover (sum assured), premium and how often, next due date and who it covers |
| Loan | What is outstanding and the EMI |
For an insurance policy you can write who it covers (names, as free text) so the family can see who has cover.
Preview what they see¶
Choose Preview as a family member on What I share to see exactly what each member sees of your shared accounts, built by the same code they see it from. Use it before and after changing anything.
Stopping, and the activity list¶
Stop sharing any account at any time. Sharing activity lists what you shared, changed or stopped, for your eyes only. If you switch on Tell family when I share something new, the other members get a notification when you share a new account.
4. The family's pages¶
Members open the family's net worth and accounts from the Family section (Net worth and Who holds what). Your own Net worth and Accounts pages stay yours, with no switch on them.
Family net worth¶
- Net worth for the whole family, with owns and owes.
- What the family owns, split across cash, investments, property and other groups.
- By member, showing what each person contributes.
- History, month by month (see below).
Only accounts shared with amounts are counted, and only in the viewer's currency. Items shared as List only, or shared in another currency, are shown but not counted, and the page says how many.
Who holds what¶
A single inventory of the family's credit cards, insurance, bank accounts and deposits, and loans and property, with the member who holds each, plus Coming up in the next 30 days for card bills and insurance premiums.
History¶
History uses the stored month-end net worth snapshots only, never daily ones, because a balance dropping on a given day can reveal a purchase. It counts each account only from the day its amounts were first shown to the family, so switching an account from List only to Show amounts never exposes earlier months. The totals in your own snapshots are never reused, because they include private accounts.
5. Gentle notes¶
A few calm, optional observations on the family pages, for example that a premium falls due soon or that card bills are coming up. They are built only from what is shared, never compare people, never judge an amount, and say when there is nothing to do.
You can dismiss a note, or switch Gentle notes off for yourself. It affects only you.
6. Emergency access: "If something happens to me"¶
Family > If something happens to me lets you prepare a short sheet for the people you trust.
- What is on the sheet. You choose which of your accounts appear, and can add a nominee to each. The sheet says what exists and where to look. It never holds account numbers, card numbers or passwords, and TrackMyRupee refuses notes that look like a long number.
- Notes. Two free-text notes: one for where documents are kept, one for people to contact.
- Who can ask. Only members of your family whom you tick can ever ask.
- How they get it. Choose one:
- On request (default). A person asks, and you are told. You can approve or deny. If you do not answer within 7 days, they get a read-only copy, and you are told again that it was released. A denied person must wait 7 days before asking again, and you can withdraw access at any time.
- Always. Allowed members can open the sheet whenever they like.
- How long access lasts. For access given on request you can choose 30 days, 90 days, a year, or until you withdraw it. A week before it ends you are told, and you can Extend it from the emergency page. When it ends the person must ask again.
- Nicknames. Optionally show the nicknames you use on What I share instead of real account names.
- Checklist. At the top of the page, Is your sheet ready? shows what is still missing from the sheet as you last saved it: insurance policies or other accounts that are not on it, accounts with no nominee, no note about where your documents are, nobody to call, and nobody allowed to ask. Credit cards and loans never need a nominee.
- It is read-only, can be printed, and does not depend on a plan: it still opens if a subscription has lapsed.
Leaving, being removed, or the family being deleted ends emergency access in both directions.
7. Plans, and what happens when one ends¶
Family view needs every member on Pro.
- From 14 days before any member's Pro ends, a warning shows on the family pages.
- When a member's Pro ends, family view pauses for everyone. Nothing is deleted: shares, members and your own data stay as they are, and each person's own TrackMyRupee keeps working on their own plan.
- As soon as everyone is on Pro again, family view resumes.
8. Leaving, removing, handing over and deleting¶
- Any member can leave at any time from the Family page. Their shares end immediately in both directions. The "X shared something new" notifications about those shares are removed too, so nothing about the family is left in anyone's notification list after they leave.
- Only the owner can remove another member. Removal works the same way, and the person removed is told by a notification and an email.
- Handing the family over. The owner can choose Make owner beside any member. That person becomes the owner and is told. You stay in the family as an ordinary member, and can no longer invite people, remove members or delete the family.
- If the owner leaves, the longest-standing member becomes the owner and is told. If the last member leaves, the family ends.
- Deleting the family. Only the owner can do this, with Delete family at the bottom of the Family page. To stop an accidental tap, you must type the family's name exactly as shown (capital letters and extra spaces do not matter). Every member is removed, all sharing and emergency access end at once, and every other member is told by a notification and an email. Nobody's own accounts or data are touched. It cannot be undone.
- Joining records your consent; leaving, being removed, or the family being deleted records that it was withdrawn.
9. Privacy¶
- A member only ever receives a fixed, whitelisted set of fields for a shared account. Transactions, categories, notes, receipts, holdings inside an account, account or policy numbers and anything you did not share are not reachable from family pages, emails or notifications.
- Family data is never exported, and each export stays limited to the person who made it.
- Every family page works out your family from your signed-in account, never from the address in the browser.
Self-hosting
Family sharing is switched on with the FAMILY_ENABLED setting (or for a trial group with FAMILY_USER_IDS). The limits are FAMILY_MAX_MEMBERS, FAMILY_INVITE_DAYS, FAMILY_PRO_WARNING_DAYS, FAMILY_EMERGENCY_DELAY_DAYS and FAMILY_EMERGENCY_RETRY_DAYS. See Self-Hosting.
FAQ¶
Does my family see my transactions? No. Never. Only the accounts you choose, and only a fixed set of fields for each.
Can I share an account without showing the amount? Yes. Choose List only. It is shown, and it is not counted in totals.
What if a member is in another currency? Their amounts are shown to them, but not added into a family total in a different currency.
Do members share one login? No. Everyone keeps their own account, password and data.
Will I be told if I am removed, or the family is deleted? Yes, by a notification in the app and an email. They say who did it, and never mention any account.
Can the owner delete the family? Yes, and only the owner. They must type the family's name to confirm. See section 8.
What happens to my data if I leave? Your own account is untouched. All your shares stop, and the family can no longer see anything of yours.