Saving and keeping the book safe

Saving

Your changes are held in a working copy and written back to the file when you press ⌘S, when autosave runs, or when you close the book. Autosave and its interval live in Settings ▸ General.

Sharing a book across machines

A book can live on a NAS or shared folder. FinvestLens takes a lock while it is open so a second machine cannot overwrite your work, and gives it up when you close the book or quit — on the Mac, closing the last window quits. If FinvestLens was stopped before it could let go, by an update or a crash, the same machine clears the lock the next time it opens the book; another machine clears it once it has been quiet for half an hour with nothing unsaved, and otherwise lets you break the lock and open anyway.

Books on Box

A book can live in your own Box account. Set up a Box app of your own in Settings ▸ General ▸ Box, then choose Open from Box…, in the File menu or on the welcome screen.

• The book is kept on this device while you work on it. It goes up to Box as a new version when you save with ⌘S, close the book, switch books or quit — and on iPhone and iPad when you leave the app. Autosave keeps your work on this device until then.
• Opening it again fetches the latest version first, so a book saved on another device opens the way that device left it.
• Without a connection, your work stays on this device and goes up by itself when the connection is back. Box's version is never fetched over changes Box hasn't got yet.
• If another device saved a newer version first, nothing is replaced: Keep Both puts your version on Box beside it, as a separate book.
• A book goes only to the Box account it came from. While you're connected to another one, its changes wait on this device.
• A large book goes up in parts, so an upload that is cut off carries on where it stopped.
• The audit log stays on each device; it isn't uploaded with the book, and removing a copy from this device keeps it.

Locking the screen

Security ▸ Lock Now (⇧⌘L) hides the book until you authenticate. Turn on Require Authentication to Open to be asked every time.

If something looks wrong

• ⌘Z undoes anything, including an import.
• Book ▸ Repair Book runs the same checks as GnuCash's Check & Repair, and changes nothing until you choose Clean Up.
• Repair Book also names any transaction posted in an impossible year. A mistyped year hides well — the entry still balances and still reconciles, it has just left the period it belongs to, so it drops out of every report that goes by date. It is reported rather than corrected, because only you know which year was meant.
• An audit log is kept beside the book, recording each edit.