Getting Started
How to sign up with a magic link, create your first household, and find your way around Evensum.
Welcome to Evensum
Evensum helps you and your partner keep your shared finances organized: recurring costs, savings buffers, vehicle expenses, and a fair split of every shared amount. This article walks you through your first steps.
Signing up with a magic link
Evensum deliberately skips passwords. Instead, you sign in with a magic link:
- Enter your email address on the start page.
- Within a few seconds you'll receive an email with a sign-in link.
- Clicking the link logs you in automatically — a new account is created the first time around.
For security reasons, the link is valid for a limited time and can only be used once. If you don't see the email, check your spam folder. You can request a new link at any time.
Creating your first household
After your first login, you'll be prompted to create a household. A household is the central container for:
- Members (you and your partner, for example)
- Accounts
- Recurring income, expenses, and savings contributions
- The everyday ledger for variable costs
- Vehicles and their running costs
Give it a descriptive name, such as "Smith Household" or "Our Flat." You can rename it later at any time.
The setup wizard
Right after you create a household, a short wizard takes you through three steps:
- Who's in? – your net income and, if you share costs, your partner's name and income. They don't need their own login: Evensum creates a member without their own login that you can hand over later via an invitation.
- Your fixed costs – the big items (rent, electricity advance, internet, phone) from templates; others such as car insurance, liability insurance, streaming or a savings rate are collapsed. Rough amounts are fine. While you type, Evensum already shows what's left each month – and, for two people, how costs are split fairly by income (if not everyone has entered an income: equally).
- Almost done – optionally the recommended three-account model (joint account, reserve account, savings, see Accounts) and sample data to explore.
Every step is optional: Skip takes you straight to the dashboard, and anything created in the wizard can be changed or extended later at any time. As long as no items exist yet, the dashboard shows a "Getting started" checklist (add fixed costs, add income, invite your partner) that ticks off what's done.
Sample data to explore
If you'd like to get to know the app without typing everything yourself first, you can import sample data – right at the start of the wizard via "Start with sample data", in its last step, or anytime under More → Sample data. This creates a realistic example household: accounts, recurring costs, a household book, vehicles with fuel/charging logs, a loan and energy data. Members without an income also get a sample salary so the numbers add up. That way you can see at a glance how the dashboard, statistics and each area look with real content.
The sample data is marked internally and can be removed cleanly with one click under More → Sample data. Important: as soon as you edit and save a sample entry, it becomes your real data – it loses the marker and is kept when you remove the samples. So you can work with the examples safely and turn individual ones into your own.
Overview of the app's areas
Once your household is created, you have access to:
| Area | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Accounts | Overview of checking, joint, savings, and buffer accounts |
| Recurring costs | Recurring income, expenses, and savings contributions |
| Splitting | Who pays how much, including automatic settlement |
| Ledger | Everyday variable expenses |
| Vehicles | Fuel and charging costs |
| Statistics | Charts on income, expenses, and trends over time |
| Audit log | Who changed what and when in your household |
Inviting your partner
Once your household is set up, you can invite your partner by email in the Household & Members area. See Households & Members for details.
Suggested next steps
A sensible starting sequence looks like this:
- Set up your accounts (for example, two checking accounts and one joint account).
- Add your recurring income and expenses.
- Choose a splitting mode for shared costs.
- Optionally add vehicles if you want to track fuel or charging costs.
- Confirm your standing orders on the overview – Evensum then lets you know whenever they need adjusting (see Accounts).
From there, Evensum automatically calculates how much you should set aside each month for your savings buffer, and whether one of you owes the other a settlement payment.