---
title: Your profile and preferences
canonical: "https://cloudmonitor.ai/docs/using-cloudmonitor/profile-and-preferences/"
description: "Set your cost basis, view, language and theme. These are personal settings and none of them change what you are allowed to see or do."
---

Everything on this page is yours alone. Changing it affects what *you* see; it never changes what you
are allowed to see, and nobody else in your organization is affected.

Open it from your avatar in the top-right corner, then **Profile & preferences**. The page hides the
sidebar and the filter bar while you're on it — press the back arrow to return to where you were.

## Profile

Your account, shown read-only. If the name or email is wrong, an admin fixes it under
Settings ▸ Users & Access.

## Cost basis

This is the most consequential setting on the page, and the one worth understanding.

| Option | What it means | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| **Billed cost** | Exactly what the provider invoiced, including one-off purchases, upfront fees and refunds | Reconciling against the invoice you actually received |
| **Effective cost** | Upfront and commitment fees spread across the period they cover, so spend follows usage | Showback, chargeback and trends — this is the default |

The difference shows up whenever you buy something upfront. Pay for a year of capacity in January and
**Billed cost** puts the whole amount in January; **Effective cost** spreads it across all twelve
months, which is almost always what you want when comparing teams or months to each other.

The Overview is the exception: it shows both figures side by side, so this setting doesn't change it.

## View

Three options — **Practitioner**, **Leadership**, **Cost centre**. Your view changes the headline and
the highlighted numbers on your Overview, and which screen CloudMonitor opens on when you arrive
without a specific link.

:::tip[A view is not a permission]
Switching your view never grants or removes access to anything. What you can see and do is set by
your **role** — whether you're an admin, and which cost groups you own or belong to. Switch
freely; you cannot lock yourself out of anything.
:::

Pick the one that matches the job you do most:

- **Practitioner** — day-to-day cost control. The fullest view, and the default.
- **Leadership** — spend, forecast, budget variance and realized savings, without the operational
  detail.
- **Cost centre** — budget burn-down, chargeback and tag coverage for the groups you're responsible
  for.

## Language

English, Español, Nederlands and Français. This changes the app's own labels and is remembered in
the browser you set it in — so it won't follow you to a different computer.

Your own data is unaffected: cost group names, tags and resource names appear exactly as they were
entered.

## Appearance

Light or dark, remembered in this browser.

## Demo mode

Switches the whole app onto illustrative sample data from a fictional company. Useful for showing
someone how CloudMonitor works without exposing real figures.

While it's on, a **Demo mode** badge sits in the top bar so nobody mistakes the sample numbers for
real ones. Turning it off returns you to your own data.

:::note[Nothing you do in demo mode is saved]
Demo mode is a sandbox. It's also not in every installation of CloudMonitor — if the card isn't on
your Profile & preferences page, your organization's version was built without the sample data.
:::