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AI assistants

Connect an AI assistant

Connect Claude, ChatGPT or another MCP assistant to Budget Smugglers. Ask about your money, and let it make everyday changes.

Budget Smugglers runs an MCP server. Claude and other assistants that speak MCP can use it to look through your budget and make everyday changes for you. You ask; the assistant calls the right tools.

  • “What did we spend on eating out last month, and how does that compare with the month before?”
  • “Recategorise the Woolies transactions from this week as Groceries, and make a rule for next time.”
  • “How much sooner would the home loan be paid off with an extra $500 a month?”

There are more in Things to ask.

The server URL#

https://my.budgetsmugglers.app/api/mcp

You’ll also find it under Settings › Connections in the app, with a copy button.

Two ways to connect#

  • Sign in through the browser (OAuth). The assistant sends you to Budget Smugglers. You sign in, then choose what it may do. Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code and most other clients work this way.
  • An API token. For clients and scripts that can’t sign in through the browser. You make a token in the app and paste it into the client’s settings. See API tokens and connected apps.

Read only, or read and change#

Every connection is either Read only or Read and change.

When an app signs in, the consent screen has a Let it make changes switch. Turn it off for read-only access. A read-only assistant doesn’t even see the tools that change things.

The connection covers every pool you belong to. If you’re in more than one, the assistant asks which pool, or works it out from the list.

What it can read#

Accounts and balances, transactions, categories and rules, people in the pool, budgets, goals, bills and income, the cash-flow forecast and reports. Also loans (payoff what-ifs, refinance history), savings accounts and term deposits (projections, bonus conditions), super (contribution caps, the employer contribution check, retirement projections), assets such as a home or car, share and crypto portfolios, and your notifications.

What it can change#

  • Add and edit transactions, and recategorise them one at a time, in bulk or merchant by merchant
  • Run auto-categorising, and manage categories and rules
  • People, splitting transactions between them, and who holds each account
  • Where transactions happened
  • Budgets, goals and goal contributions
  • Bills and income, and marking them paid or skipped
  • Accounts and businesses
  • Loans: terms, offsets, rate changes, linked transactions, payouts and refinances, and sharing a loan with another pool
  • Savings: terms, rates, bonus conditions, interest tags and planned top-ups
  • Super: members, funds, balance updates and what each fund transaction is
  • Assets: adding them, valuations, and linking the loans against them
  • Share and crypto portfolios: trades and holdings
  • Marking notifications read
  • Milestones

What it can never do#

  • Delete anything. Deleting is done in the app.
  • Import statements.
  • Change pools, members, roles or invitations.
  • Touch sign-in or security settings.

Your role still applies#

The assistant acts as you, with your role in each pool. A Viewer’s assistant can’t change anything, even with a read-and-change connection. Accounts hidden from you stay hidden from it too.

If a pool requires two-step sign-in, the assistant can only use that pool once you’ve set up two-step sign-in or a passkey.

Personal and business#

If you keep business accounts in a business, reports, budgets and the forecast cover your personal accounts unless you ask for more. Say “how did the business go last quarter?” or “what did we spend across all accounts?”.

If your business has a pool of its own, an assistant can report on both pools together. Money you move between them, like what you pay yourself, is left out.

The audit log#

Every change an assistant makes goes in the pool’s audit log under your name. The action starts with mcp., for example mcp.transaction.update, and the entry names the app or token that made it.

Set up your assistant#

The tool reference lists every tool the server offers.