Net worth — what counts as a change

Your net-worth total is always the straight sum of every account and tracked asset, the moment you look at it. Nothing adjusts it.

The number that gets clever is the change badge — the +$X · % · period chip next to the total. It answers a narrower question: how much did your balances actually move over this window, as opposed to how much you simply made visible by connecting or removing an account.

Linking an account is not a gain.Connect a $100k account today and the total jumps $100k — that's correct, the money was always yours. But the change badge stays flat: importing, adding, deleting, or unlinking an account is logged as a signed visibility flow that cancels itself out of the delta. The badge moves only when a balance moves on its own.

So the badge separates two things the total blends together: money that entered the picture (a new connection) versus money that grew or shrankwhile it was in the picture — market drift, interest earned, a paycheque saved, a debt paid down. Only the second kind is "change."

change = last balance − first balance − visibility flows since the baseline

The percentage is measured against the capital that was actually present — the money that entered the window — not against zero. That keeps a small gain on a freshly linked account from reading as an enormous percentage.

What happened in the window	Total	Change badge
You link a $100k account	+$100k	— (visibility flow cancels it)
That account then earns $1,200	+$1,200	+$1,200
You unlink an account	down by its balance	— (visibility flow cancels it)
A debt is paid down $500	+$500	+$500

One more piece makes the period honest: the baseline is the true start of the window, not your first-ever snapshot. Keel carries the last snapshot taken before the window forward to the window's edge, so a "6-month change" measures a full six months — even if your most recent snapshot before that point was older.

Worked example: a $100k import mid-window

Window starts at $40,000 (the carried-forward baseline). Mid-window you link a $100,000 account, and over the period your balances earn $1,500. End balance: $141,500.

Visibility flows since the baseline = +$100,000 (the link). Change = 141,500 − 40,000 − 100,000 = $1,500 — the growth, not the import. The percentage uses the capital actually in play as its base, so the $1,500 reads against your real balances, not against a starting point that pretends the $100k was never there.

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