Things to ask your AI assistant

Once an assistant is connected, try these. Swap in your own names, amounts and dates. Anything that changes your data needs a Read and change connection.

Spending#

• “What did we spend on eating out last month, and how does that compare with the month before?”
• “Which categories have been creeping up over the last six months?”
• “Where did we spend the most money on our trip to Hobart in March?”
• “Which day last month did we spend the most, and on what?”

Budgets and goals#

• “How are we tracking against the budget this month? Anything over?”
• “Set the Groceries budget to $900 a month from next month.”
• “We’re saving $15,000 for a new car by next December. Set up a goal and tell me how much to put away each month.”
• “Give us a money health check. Where are we doing well, and where aren’t we?”

Bills and the forecast#

• “Which bills are due in the next fortnight, and will the everyday account cover them?”
• “Are there any regular payments I’m not tracking as bills yet? Add the ones that look real.”
• “Mark this month’s electricity bill as paid.”

Loans#

• “How much sooner would the home loan be paid off with an extra $500 a month?”
• “What if the rate went up 0.5% next year? How much more interest would we pay?”
• “How much is the offset saving us each month?”
• “When will the house get to 60% LVR?”

Savings and super#

• “Here are my bonus saver’s terms. Set up the conditions, and tell me if I’m on track this month.” (Paste the terms in.)
• “How much more can I salary sacrifice this financial year before I hit the concessional cap?”
• “Did my employer’s super payments all arrive on time?”

Shares and crypto#

• “How’s the share portfolio going? What’s up and what’s down?”
• “Show me the capital gains for last financial year.”
• “I bought 50 VAS today at $102.40. Add the trade.”

Tidying up categories#

• “Find transactions that look miscategorised in the last three months, and show me what you’d change.”
• “Make a rule so anything from Bunnings goes to Home and garden. Show me what it would match first.”
• “Recategorise the Woolies transactions from this week as Groceries, and make a rule for next time.”

Categorise with Claude, no API key needed#

The pool’s built-in AI categorising has to be turned on by a pool owner. If yours isn’t on, or you’d rather check every choice yourself, an assistant can do the same job. It runs on your own Claude, ChatGPT or other subscription.

“Categorise my uncategorised transactions. Show me what you’d do before you change anything, and make rules for the ones that will keep turning up.”

The assistant gets everything without a category, grouped by merchant with the busiest first. Transfers are left out. It picks a category for each merchant from your list, shows you, then files them.

Each choice is remembered for that merchant, the same as categorising by hand. Any rules it makes apply to future imports too. So it only has to happen once per merchant.

Tips#

• If you’re in more than one pool, say which one: “In the business pool, …”.
• Reports cover your personal accounts unless you ask for a business or “all accounts”.
• Ask the assistant to show you what it plans to change before it does. Nothing can be deleted through an assistant, but it’s easier to check first than fix later.