Ledger
A ledger is a self-contained set of financial records: its own accounts, transactions, budgets, documents, and people. Most households need one; some genuinely need more.
Key takeaways
- A ledger is the container everything else in Owniko lives inside.
- Each ledger has its own currency, members, and records, and nothing leaks between ledgers.
- Use separate ledgers for genuinely separate books, like a business or another country’s finances, not for separate categories.
"Ledger" is an old bookkeeping word for the book where an entity's records are kept, and Owniko uses it the same way: one ledger is one complete set of books. Your accounts, transactions, budgets, documents, contacts, and reports all live inside a ledger, and everything in it shares one currency and one set of members.
When one ledger is enough
For most households, always. A household with checking, savings, cards, a mortgage, and a car is one economic unit and belongs in one ledger, because reports are answered per ledger: net worth, cash flow, and budgets all add up within its walls.
When a second ledger earns its place
- A business. Mixing business and household records muddies both, and separating them is the first thing an accountant will ask for.
- Another country. Finances in a second currency, such as accounts and property in another country, keep their own currency in their own ledger instead of being force-converted.
- Books you manage for someone else. A parent's finances you help administer are their books, not yours.
The test: would you ever want these numbers added together in one report? If yes, same ledger with categories doing the separating. If adding them together would be meaningless, separate ledgers.
Where you’ll see it
Ledger switching lives at the top of the app, and the Ledgers Overview page shows each ledger side by side. Sharing is per ledger: the people on your household ledger need never see the business one.