Household currency

What it's about

patchio shows money in euros by default. If your family thinks in francs, pounds or krona, you switch the currency once for the whole household: Family → Currency. After that, the right symbol shows up everywhere – for expenses, income, budgets, contracts, savings goals and vehicle costs.

Important: patchio doesn't convert

The setting only changes the display. An amount you recorded as 12,50 stays 12,50 – it's just called something different afterwards. “12,50 €” becomes “12,50 £”, not “10,63 £”.

That's deliberate. An exchange rate would need a date, a source, and a rule for what happens to old entries – and it would change your figures after the fact. patchio doesn't touch your numbers.

So if you switch partway through the year, the old amounts stay the figures you entered. Convert them yourself if you need to, and enter them fresh.

How it works

Go to Family, open up Currency, and pick your currency from the list. It saves immediately, and underneath you'll see a preview of how amounts will look from now on.

You can choose from euro, US dollar, British pound, Swiss franc, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish krona, Polish złoty, Czech koruna, Hungarian forint, Turkish lira, and Canadian and Australian dollar.

Who can change it

Only admins of your household. Every other member sees the setting but can't change it – the currency applies to the whole family together, so it shouldn't be up to everyone individually.

Entering amounts

patchio is generous when you type amounts: comma and full stop both work as the decimal separator, thousands separators are optional, and a currency symbol before or after doesn't get in the way. patchio understands “12.50”, “12,50”, “1,234.56”, “1.234,56” and “£12.50” alike.

One thing to know: “1.234” with exactly three digits after the full stop is read as one thousand two hundred and thirty-four – the way it's written in Germany, and that's the same in both languages. “1,234” with a comma, on the other hand, means one point two three. If you want to be sure, write the amount with decimal places: “1234,00”.

Language and currency are two different things

You set the language in your profile, and it applies only to you. The currency belongs to the household and applies to everyone. The language doesn't change how amounts are written: in both languages the symbol comes after the number, with a comma before the cents (“12,50 €”, “1.234,56 £”) – just like on receipts and bank statements in Germany. That way everyone in the household reads the same figures, even if someone uses patchio in English.