Everything your AI can do in Pennyweight

Once connected, your AI reads and changes your Pennyweight data. This page maps what it can do, area by area, with a link to the how-to for each task. If you're new, start with how Pennyweight works.

You can also ask your AI what it can do, and it reads a summary Pennyweight provides. See your first conversation. To test how well your AI handles bookkeeping tasks, see check whether your AI is ready.

Workspaces and ledgers

• See where it's working. Your AI can tell you which workspace and ledger it's using, list your ledgers, and switch the active ledger. See choose which ledger your AI works in.
• Create a ledger for a business, a trip or a project. After your trial ends, a new ledger stays read-only until you subscribe it in the web app. See create a ledger and run several businesses in one account.
• Demo ledgers. You add a demo ledger of fictional data in web Settings → Ledgers. Your AI can switch to it but can't create one, and it stays out of totals that combine ledgers. See try Pennyweight with a demo ledger.
• Your workspace. Your AI can read your workspace but can't create another. See workspaces and ledgers.

Bank connections

• Connect a US bank or card. Your AI gives you a link, and you finish in the web app. See connect a US bank or card and connect a bank from your phone.
• Check connection health. Your AI can tell you whether each connection is working and give you a link to reconnect one that needs it. See check your bank connections and fix a bank that needs reconnecting.
• Read extra bank details. Card and loan details (APRs, minimum payment, due dates), investment holdings, and bank-detected recurring bills and income, once you turn them on for that bank in web Settings. See turn on extra details, APR and due dates, investment holdings and two kinds of recurring.

Accounts

• Balances. List your accounts with their balances, or total your cash. See see your accounts and balances. A credit card or loan shows a negative balance; see why.
• Manual accounts. Add cash, an asset, or a bank Pennyweight can't link, in its own currency. See add a manual account and track a card or loan you can't link.
• Opening balance. Set or correct an account's opening balance, the starting point for its balance (person accounts have none). On a linked account, the balance you see stays the one your bank reports. See set or correct an opening balance.
• Nickname or hide. Give an account a nickname or hide it from the web sidebar. Neither changes a balance. See nickname or hide an account.
• IOUs. Track money you lent or borrowed with a person account, and keep a note on what it's about. See track money you lent or borrowed.

Transactions

• Search and explain. Find transactions by date, merchant, amount, category, tag, account or ledger, and open one with its change history. See ask about any transaction and why a transaction has its category.
• Categorize. Change a category, tags or notes on one transaction, or the category or tags on many at once after a preview. See change a category, recategorize many at once, tags and notes and clean up a merchant name.
• Split one charge across categories. See split a transaction.
• Link pairs. Link the two sides of a transfer, a refund to its purchase, or a PayPal purchase to the card charge that paid for it, and undo a wrong link. Linking moves no money. See link transfers, match a refund, a purchase shows twice and undo a wrong transfer match.
• Duplicates. Look for likely duplicate pairs. The pairs are suggestions for you to decide on. See find and fix duplicates.
• Manual entries. Record cash or a missing transaction, and correct a manual entry's amount or date. Bank-synced amounts and dates can't be edited. See record cash, correct a manual entry and why you can't edit a bank amount.
• Delete and restore. Delete a transaction and bring it back within 30 days. See delete and restore.

Imports

• Statements in chat. Your AI reads a PDF, screenshot or CSV you share and imports the rows into an existing account, after a preview you confirm. See import a PDF or screenshot and import a CSV.
• Direct CSV upload. Pennyweight can also read a CSV file itself. When the dates aren't written as YYYY-MM-DD, your AI names the file's date order, such as MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY; Pennyweight never guesses it. See CSV date errors.
• Large imports. Your AI can plan an import across many accounts, and hold prepared parts in Pennyweight when your AI app can't save files. See import years of history and import from your phone.
• Undo. List past imports and remove one as a whole. See undo an import.

Coming from another app? See moving to Pennyweight.

Rules

• Create a rule that gives a merchant's transactions a category, in one ledger. A new rule can also update matching existing transactions when it's created. See create a rule and rules belong to a ledger.
• Manage rules. List, look up, test, edit, turn off or delete them. See test, edit or delete a rule.
• New transactions. Rules categorize imports when you confirm them, transactions added without a category, and new bank transactions the next time you open the web app or your AI uses Pennyweight. This isn't real time.
• Older transactions. Existing transactions change only when you ask, either as the rule is created or later. Applying rules later shows a preview first. See apply your rules to transactions you already have.
• Rules never change a category you set by hand. See who wins, rules or a one-time cleanup and when two rules match the same merchant.

Reports

• Any total. Sum by category, merchant, month or a mix, over your whole history. See get any report and the built-in web reports.
• Categories. List the categories you use. See how categories work.
• Cash flow. Income against expenses over time, with transfers left out. See cash flow.
• Net worth, as a snapshot from today's balances. See check your net worth.
• Founder dashboard. Cash on hand, monthly burn, runway and a monthly trend of money in minus money out for one ledger (a month with more out than in shows 0). See founder dashboard.
• Currencies. Each stored amount keeps its own currency. Totals that combine ledgers, such as net worth, are converted to your display currency at daily exchange rates. See more than one currency.

Budgets and subscriptions

• Budgets. Create, change, pause, resume, roll over or delete monthly budgets, and check how you're doing. Each budget belongs to one ledger. See set a budget, pause or delete a budget and roll over unspent budget.
• Goals. Save toward a target with a sinking fund. See save toward a goal.
• Subscriptions. Find recurring charges in your transactions, with the latest price and the yearly cost. Your AI can't cancel them; you do that with the merchant. See find your subscriptions.
• Alerts. Get alerted to a charge over an amount, a balance below an amount, or a budget reaching a percentage. Alerts are checked when new data comes in, not in real time. Your AI hears about unread ones when it connects, and email alerts also send a notice with no amounts or names. See set up an alert and why an alert didn't notify you.

Knowledge and your profile

• Ledger knowledge. Save notes about a ledger, such as facts you tell your AI and things it notices, and read them back. A note you pin marks your decision. Pennyweight asks your AI for a confirmation before it adds a contradicting note or removes a pinned one, but editing a pinned note in place isn't checked. See what your AI remembers and teach Pennyweight how your money works.
• Your profile. Keep notes about you that apply across ledgers: how you like answers, the people in your transactions, short free-form notes. See your AI profile.

Export, backup and the audit log

• Export transactions or the audit log as CSV or JSON, or a ledger's knowledge as JSON. The download link lasts about 2 minutes. See export your data and export link expired.
• Back up and restore your whole account in one JSON file. Bank connections don't come back with a restore; you reconnect them. See full backup and restore.
• Audit log. Show a log of changes made to your data, usually with the reason your AI gave. Searches and reports aren't logged; exports are. See how your AI's changes are logged and review what your AI changed.

Feedback and web links

• Feedback. Send a bug report or a feature request to the Pennyweight team. You see the text first, financial details such as card and account numbers are removed, and nothing is sent without your OK. See report a problem.
• Web links. Give you a link to the right web page, such as billing, security or connecting a bank. See jump to the right web page.

What your AI can't do

• Move money. No transfers, payments or bill pay, through your AI or in the web app. See your AI can't move money.
• Create a workspace. Use ledgers instead. See workspaces and ledgers.
• Change security, access or billing. Your passphrase, recovery code, AI access and billing are managed in web Settings, and your AI can link you there. See what you do on the web vs with your AI and manage AI access.
• Delete a ledger, disconnect a bank or delete an account. You do these in the web app's Settings. See delete a ledger and disconnect a bank vs delete an account.
• Move a transaction to another ledger. See move a transaction to a different ledger.
• Link a bank outside the US. Import statements instead. See use Pennyweight without a bank link.
• Keep a photo or PDF. Your AI reads it in your chat, and Pennyweight saves only the transactions.

For size caps and expiry times, see limits and timeouts.