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Households

A household is where a vondo budget lives. The accounts, categories, transactions, recurring rules, reports — all of it sits inside a household. Up to five people can share access.

If you’re the only person on the account, that’s fine: you just have a household with one member. But if you’ve ever wanted a partner to see the grocery budget without bothering you, or two adults in the same family to record their own spending into one shared plan, this is what makes it work.

The shape of it

Thing	Where it lives	What that means
Accounts, categories, transactions, recurring, targets, reports, saved views, the budget itself	The household	Shared with every member. Edits by one are visible to everyone.
Plan & subscription, trial period	The household	The household pays for itself. Members don’t get billed separately.
Currency and timezone	The household	Same for every member, so the numbers and dates mean the same thing to everyone. Only the Owner can change these.
Display name, email, password, MFA, trusted devices, active sessions	Your user account	Yours alone. Stays the same no matter which household you’re in.
Theme and language	Your user account	Personal — each member picks their own. The household’s data is rendered with your preferences.

You can be a member of multiple households and switch between them. You can own one household at a time (the one whose subscription you pay for).

Roles

Just two:

Role	Can do
Owner	Everything: edit the budget, invite members, remove members, revoke pending invites, delete the household. Pays the subscription.
Member	Edit the budget normally. Leave the household whenever they want. Cannot manage other members or billing.

Exactly one Owner per household — whoever created it. Ownership can’t be handed to another person, so the Owner can’t leave; to step away, they delete the household. Other members can come and go freely.

Creating a household

If you’ve just signed up, you already have one — vondo creates a household for you on your first sign-in, names it after you, picks a default currency and timezone from your browser locale, and starts the 45-day trial. You’re the Owner. You can rename it (and change the currency and timezone) later.

If you’re a user without any households (for example, you got removed from one and you don’t own any), you’ll see a welcome screen on sign-in with two options:

Create your household — fresh 45-day trial, you’re the Owner, you can invite up to four other people. Pick a name (e.g. “The Smiths’ Budget”), confirm the suggested currency and timezone (or change them now if vondo’s guess is wrong), done.
Wait for an invite — if someone’s planning to add you, the welcome screen tells you which email to expect the invitation at, and refreshes automatically when one arrives.

Heads up: You can only own one household at a time. If you already own one and want to create a second, you’ll need to either leave or delete the first. There’s no limit on how many households you can be a member of, though.

Currency and timezone

A household has one currency and one timezone, and they apply to every member.

This isn’t a personal display preference — it’s part of the household’s data:

Currency is the unit your accounts and budget are denominated in. vondo doesn’t perform exchange-rate conversion, so it only makes sense if everyone looking at the budget sees the same currency. A $400 grocery line that’s $400 to one member and €400 to another would be nonsense.
Timezone controls budget-month boundaries — whether a transaction recorded at 11:30 PM on Jan 31 belongs to January or February. Two members in different timezones still need to agree on which month a given transaction lives in, so the household picks one timezone and uses it for everyone.

Who can change them

Only the Owner. Members can see the current currency and timezone on the household’s page but can’t change them. The Owner edits both from Profile → Households → [household name] in the household settings section.

For example: You set “Casa Aguilar” to MXN and America/Mexico_City when you create it. Your partner — who happens to have their phone set to English and uses Dark mode — opens the same household and sees pesos and the same month boundaries you do. Their theme and language preferences are still their own; the household’s money and calendar are shared.

Changing them later

You can change either at any time, but think before you do:

Currency: changing it doesn’t convert existing balances. A $1,000 account stays “1,000” — it’ll just be displayed with the new symbol. If you actually need to switch a household from USD to EUR with proper conversion, export your data, create a new household in the target currency, and re-import. (Most people only need to change currency once, right after creating the household.)
Timezone: changing it can shift a transaction’s budget month by a day at the boundary. For most people it’s harmless. If you’re moving across the world, just be aware that a couple of late-night transactions near month-end may pop into the previous or next month after the switch.

If you’re a Member and you want the household’s currency or timezone changed, ask the Owner — only they have the control.

Inviting someone

Open Profile → Households → [household name] → Invite a new member.

Type the email address of the person you want to invite.
Click Send invitation.
vondo emails them a link. The link is good for 7 days.

The new pending invite shows up in the household’s Pending invitations list. If they don’t accept in time, the invite expires — just send a new one.

A few rules:

5-person cap. Members + pending invites combined can’t exceed 5. If you’re full, you’ll need to remove someone or revoke a pending invite before sending a new one.
One pending invite per email at a time. You can’t double-send.
Email-based, not username-based. They don’t need a vondo account yet — the invite link guides them through sign-up if needed.

Worked example: You’re setting up a household with your partner. You create the household (“Casa Aguilar”), then click Invite a new member, type their email, and send. They get an email titled “You’re invited to Casa Aguilar.” They click the link, sign up for vondo (or sign in if they already have an account), accept, and choose to switch to Casa Aguilar immediately. Now both of you see the same budget.

Accepting an invite

When you click an invite link in your email, vondo opens a preview page that shows:

Which household you’ve been invited to
Who invited you
Which email address the invitation was sent to

If you’re not signed in, you’ll be prompted to sign in or create a vondo account. You can use any email address — the one the invite was sent to is just a routing hint; your vondo account can use a different email and that’s fine.

If you’re signed in, two buttons:

Accept invitation — joins the household. You then choose Switch to this household now or Stay where I am (in which case the new household appears in your switcher and you can hop over later).
Maybe later — closes the page without accepting. The invite stays valid for the rest of its 7-day window.

Expired or invalid links show a clean “this invitation can’t be used” screen. Ask the inviter to send a fresh one.

Switching households

If you’re a member of more than one household, you’ll see a switcher at the top of the navigation (web) or under the “…” overflow menu (mobile). Tap it for the list. Each entry shows:

The household’s name
Your role (an Owner badge if you’re the owner)
The member count
An Active badge on the one you’re currently using

Tap any entry to switch. The budget, accounts, and activity refresh to show that household’s data. Your profile, preferences, and security settings stay the same.

Common use: a freelancer with a personal household and a “business” household for client expenses. They switch between them depending on whose money they’re spending. Same login, two budgets, no cross-contamination.

Managing members

Open Profile → Households → [household name] to see:

The member list (with an Owner badge on whoever owns the household)
Your pending invitations
Forms to invite new people and (for owners) delete the household

Remove a member (Owner only)

Click Remove next to the member you want to remove. Confirm. They lose access to this household’s budget immediately.

Their vondo account isn’t affected — they keep their other households, their profile, their sessions, everything. Only this household disappears from their view.

The Owner can’t remove themselves — to step away, use Delete household below.

Revoke a pending invite (Owner only)

In the Pending invitations list, click Revoke next to the invite. The token stops working immediately — if the invitee clicks the link after you revoke, they’ll get the “this invitation can’t be used” screen.

Leave a household (Members)

Open the household’s page, click Leave household, confirm. You lose access right away. The Owner gets the seat back to invite someone else if they want.

If you change your mind, the Owner can re-invite you.

Deleting a household

This is the destructive option. It deletes everything in the household: accounts, transactions, categories, recurring rules, reports, member access. It’s irreversible.

Steps (Owner only):

Open Profile → Households → [household name].
Scroll to Delete household.
Read the warning. Type the household’s name to confirm.
Click Delete permanently.

A few preconditions:

No active subscription. If the household is on a paid plan, cancel it from the billing portal first. vondo refuses to delete a paying household to prevent surprise billing situations.
Owner only. Members can’t delete; they can only leave.

The other members of the household lose access immediately and won’t be billed for anything.

Delete household vs delete account

These are different operations:

Action	What disappears	Where to find it
Leave household	Your access to this one household	Households page → Leave
Delete household	The household and everything in it. Your user account stays.	Households page → Delete (Owner only)
Delete your vondo account	Your user account itself. You lose access to every household you’re in. If you own a household, you have to delete it first.	Profile → Danger Zone → Delete my account

Households and billing

The subscription belongs to the household, not to you.

A household has its own 45-day trial.
A household has its own plan (Monthly / Annual) and its own billing.
The Owner pays for the household. Members don’t get billed separately.
If the Owner’s subscription lapses or the trial ends without a plan, the entire household goes read-only until the Owner subscribes again. Members can’t fix this — only the Owner has the billing controls.

A worked example:

You and your partner share “Casa Aguilar” — you’re the Owner. You also belong to “Mom & Dad” (your family household, where your mom is the Owner). You pay the Casa Aguilar subscription. Your mom pays Mom & Dad. When you switch to Mom & Dad, you see whatever plan your mom is on. When you switch back to Casa Aguilar, you see your own.

If your mom forgets to renew Mom & Dad, that household goes read-only for everyone (you included) until she resolves it. Your Casa Aguilar subscription is unaffected.

See Plans & Billing for the full subscription mechanics.

Common scenarios

Situation	How to handle it
Sharing a budget with a partner	One of you signs up first, creates the household, invites the other. Both edit the same budget.
Personal + work budgets	Create two households. Switch between them via the switcher. Each has its own subscription.
Family budgeting with adult kids	Parents create the family household and invite the kids. The kids can also have their own personal households if they want — no conflict.
Bookkeeper managing client budgets	Get invited into each client’s household as a Member. Switch between them as you work. The client keeps Ownership and billing.
Moving from solo to shared mid-budget	Just invite the second person. They join the existing household with all its history. Nothing migrates or splits.
Splitting after a shared budget no longer makes sense	The household — and its data — stays with the Owner. The other person leaves and creates their own new household (export first via Import & Export if they want to take a copy of the data).

Tips

Pick a household name that’s specific. “Budget” works when you have one household; the moment you’re in two, you’ll want “Casa Aguilar” and “Aguilar Consulting” to tell them apart in the switcher.
Use Owner sparingly. Most households only need one Owner. If you’re in a couple, decide together who’s the Owner; the other partner is a Member with full edit access. Same powers day-to-day, fewer “wait, who’s responsible for billing?” moments.
The 5-member cap exists for a reason. Households are designed for partners, families, and small bookkeeping setups — not for whole teams. If you’re trying to budget across more than 5 people, you’re probably looking for a different kind of tool.
Invitations are forwardable. The link in the email contains a one-time token; anyone with the link can accept. Treat it like a password. Send it directly to the person, not in a public channel.
Keep your owned household healthy. If you’re an Owner, your subscription powers everyone in the household. Update your payment method when the card expires; renew before trial ends. Members can’t rescue the household — only you can.