A monthly money review with your AI

Say you sit down at the start of each month to see how last month went for your household. Your AI can run that review in one conversation: what came in and went out, where the money went, what changed from the month before, and what charges you on a schedule. See your year in spending.

How to do it

1. Ask your AI for last month's cash flow: money in, money out and the net. It covers the ledger you're working in, so name a ledger to review another one. See see income vs expenses over time.
2. Ask for your top spending categories last month, and how each compares with the month before. Your AI totals your transactions by category for both months. See get any report by asking your AI.
3. Ask about anything that stands out. Your AI can list the transactions behind a category total.
4. Ask what subscriptions you're paying for. Your AI lists each one with what it costs per month and per year. See find your subscriptions and price increases.
5. If you've set budgets, ask how each one is doing. To start one, see set a monthly budget.
6. Tidy up what the review turns up. Ask your AI to check for duplicate charges, or to link the two sides of a transfer so the move between your accounts stops counting as spending.

What you'll see

For the first prompt, your AI gives last month's money in, money out and net, a list of your largest spending categories, and your subscriptions with their monthly and yearly cost. If your accounts hold more than one currency, each currency is shown on its own.

For the second, your AI lists your largest categories for both months and points out what changed, such as a category that went up or down, or one that only appears in one of the two months.

Good to know

• One ledger by default. Cash flow, category totals, subscriptions and budgets cover the ledger you're working in unless you name another. For cash flow across all your ledgers, or category totals across the ledgers you name, ask your AI to combine them. Those totals are converted to your display currency, or shown one currency at a time if an exchange rate isn't available. See workspaces and ledgers.
• Money in and out is decided by sign. A refund that isn't matched to its purchase counts as money in, not as lower spending. See match a refund to its purchase.
• Transfers are left out of reports when they're linked as a transfer or categorized as Transfer. A move between your own accounts that is neither still counts. See transfers aren't spending.
• Budgets cover the current month. A budget's status is for the current calendar month, so it can't tell you how last month ended. For last month, ask for that category's total instead.
• Budgets count money out. A refund doesn't lower a budget's spending. Budgets don't leave transfers out, so a transfer in the budget's category or tag counts toward it.
• The subscription list skips payments that aren't subscriptions. Transfers between your accounts, loan payments, and rent or mortgage payments are left out. Pennyweight spots them by their category or transfer link, so one with an unexpected category can still show up. Your AI can leave it out of its answer, but the list itself doesn't change.
• Currencies stay separate within a ledger. For one ledger, your AI shows each currency on its own, and subscription totals come back one set per currency. See accounts and totals in more than one currency.
• Alerts can watch your budgets between reviews. Your AI can set an alert for when a budget reaches a share of its cap. Pennyweight checks alerts when new data reaches it, not in real time. See Set up an alert and My alert didn't notify me.

On the web

The web app's Reports page covers the ledger selected in the sidebar. Choose Last month in the date picker to see money in, money out, net and Kept, and your largest spending categories. Open Spending to see every category you spent in, with each category's change when there's an earlier period to compare against. Transactions in another currency are left out of the web totals, and a note names those currencies. See the built-in web reports.