Money you share.
One ledger, the same numbers for everyone.

Why a shared tracker beats a group chat and a spreadsheet

Most couples and flatmates start with a message in a chat (“paid 64 for groceries”) or a spreadsheet that one person keeps up. Both break the same way: one person ends up doing the bookkeeping, the numbers live in three places, and at the end of the month nobody is sure what was included.

A shared expense tracker takes over the boring part. Everyone logs into the same ledger from their own phone, the totals update for all of you, and nobody has to collect receipts from the others.

How a Project works

• A ledger of its own. A project has its own accounts, categories, transactions and budgets. It never mixes with your Personal ledger, and you switch between them in one tap.
• Everyone inside. Each member logs from their own account, on their own phone or computer.
• Signed rows. Every transaction shows who added it and who changed it last. Filter the list by person to see what each of you has paid for.
• The bell. Notifications group what the others did by day — “Anna added 4 transactions” — instead of pinging you for every coffee.

Setting one up takes a sentence. Describe the project in text, by voice or with a photo — “flat renovation, budget 20 000” — and AI suggests categories, subcategories and a budget. Nothing is created until you have checked it. You can also copy your Personal categories or start with an empty project.

Live: see who is here and what changes

Projects update in real time. When two of you have the project open at once, you see each other — no reloading, no “did you add the groceries?”

• Here now. The project shows who else has it open at this moment and on which page. Tap a name to jump to the same page.
• New rows arrive by themselves. Anna saves a receipt on her phone, and seconds later it is in your list, with the totals already updated.
• “Editing” on a row. When someone has a transaction open, the row says so, and the form tells you if someone is changing the same one.
• Cursors. On a computer you see the others’ cursors with their names, like on a shared whiteboard. Anyone can hide their own or the others’ in Settings.

Only where people are goes live: the page, the open form, the cursor. Amounts, notes and whatever someone is typing never do, and your Personal ledger is never live at all.

Roles and invites: who can do what

You invite people with a link. Each link is personal — one link for one person — and carries the role you picked:

• Owner — everything, plus members, invites and the project’s settings.
• Editor — adds and changes transactions, accounts, categories, budgets and recurring payments.
• Read-only — sees everything and changes nothing. Handy for a parent who wants to follow a student’s budget, or a friend who helps with the numbers.

Roles can be changed at any time. If someone leaves or is removed, their access ends at once; the rows they added stay, signed with their name.

Couples, families, flatmates, a trip: four setups

• A couple. One project, “Household”, for the joint card, rent, utilities and groceries. Each of you keeps their own spending in Personal — only joint costs go into the project.
• A family budget. Both parents as editors, a teenager read-only, a monthly budget for groceries and another for the kids’ activities.
• Flatmates. A project “Flat” for rent, internet and cleaning supplies. Everyone logs what they bought, and the person filter shows who has paid how much.
• A trip expense tracker. “Lisbon, 8–14 Oct” with a budget for exactly those dates: the hotel at 420 €, the airport bus, dinners. Snap a supermarket receipt and it becomes drafts by category.

Budgets and debts inside a project

Budgets work in a project just as they do in Personal: a limit for one category or for all expenses, either per month or for the project’s dates. You see what is spent, what is left per day and where the current pace leads. At 80 % and 100 % every member gets a notification.

For “who owes whom”, a project can hold debts: one account per person. “Lent Max 50” is a transfer to Max’s account, “Max paid back 20” is a transfer back, and the balance tells you who owes whom — here, Max still owes 30 €. Lending and paying back are transfers, never spending, so they don’t distort the budget.

What it doesn’t do

• No automatic splitting. It doesn’t divide every bill or work out a settle-up plan. You see who added what, and you record debts yourself.
• No currency conversion. A project shows one currency sign. On a trip abroad, log amounts in the currency you will settle in.
• No bank connection — not for you, not for the others. Everyone logs by voice, receipt photo or by hand. Why we skip the bank.
• The Telegram bot logs into Personal only. In a project, use the app on the web or your phone.

What it costs

Projects come with the AI plan — 5,99 $ a month or 47,88 $ a year — and you can try them for free first. The people you invite need no plan: Free is enough. If the owner’s plan ends, the project becomes read-only; nothing is deleted, and it opens again when the plan is back.

For your own ledger alone, Lifetime is a single payment of 19 $. New to tracking at all? Start with how to track your expenses, then try HonestExpenses on your own before inviting anyone.

Questions

Read next

• Log expenses by voice. One sentence, several transactions.
• Track Apple Pay purchases automatically. Pay in a shop — the expense records itself.
• Automatic expense tracking on Android. Pay with any card — the expense records itself.
• An expense tracker in Telegram. With a full app behind it.
• An expense tracker without a bank link. You log it — in seconds.
• How to track your expenses. And still be doing it in three months.