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Setting up your first pay cycle

The pay cycle is the one thing Cashrou needs before anything else works. It takes about a minute, and getting it right means every figure after it lines up with your real pay dates.

4 min read·Updated 6 August 2026·Applies to the web app and iPhone
Before you start

Have your last pay date to hand. That is genuinely all you need to get the cycle right.

Steps

1

Open Settings, then Payday Schedule

On the web the rail has a gear at the top left. On a phone it is the last tab. Cashrou offers to set this up on first run, so if you are new you are probably already here.

2

Choose how often you are paid

Weekly, every two weeks, twice a month, or monthly. Pick what your employer actually does rather than what is convenient. Twice a month and every two weeks are different things and Cashrou treats them differently.

Every two weeks means 26 paychecks a year and two months with three of them. Twice a month means 24, always on the same two dates.
3

Enter your most recent pay date

One date is enough. Cashrou projects forward from it and shows you the next four periods so you can check they look right before saving.

4

Set the buffer you never want to touch

A figure that stays out of every safe-to-use calculation. Most people use one to two hundred. It is the difference between a plan you trust and one you second-guess.

The buffer belongs to a real account, not to a payday. If you keep two current accounts, set it on the one your bills leave from.
5

Save, then confirm your balances

Saving opens the first routine. Confirming balances is step one of it, and once that is done every figure in the app is live.

If the amount changes every time

The schedule is about dates, not amounts, so a variable paycheck does not need a different setting. You keep the rhythm you are actually paid on, and each cycle you enter what landed.

Income on a payday is split into what has arrived and what is still expected. Ticking a payment as received puts the real figure in, so the safe-to-use number is built on what you were actually paid rather than on an estimate of it.

Changing it later

Go to Settings, then Payday Schedule. Changing the frequency does not delete anything: past cycles keep the dates they had, and the new frequency applies from the next one onward.

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