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Getting Started

Welcome to Comaney! This chapter will get you up and running in about ten minutes. No prior experience needed.

Step 1: Record your first expense

Everything in Comaney is an expense - whether it is money you spent, money you received, or a transfer to savings. Start by recording something simple: a coffee, a grocery shop, whatever you bought today.

  1. Click Expenses in the navigation.
  2. Click the + button (bottom-right corner of the page).
  3. Fill in a title (e.g. Coffee), set the type to Expense, and enter the amount.
  4. Click Save.

That is it. You will see it appear in the expense list.

Got a receipt? Skip the typing.

Use AI Express Creation to take a photo of a receipt or describe your purchase in plain language. Comaney fills in the details for you. You just review and save.

Step 2: Enter your salary and fixed costs

Now make Comaney useful. Enter your monthly income and your regular bills so Comaney knows what you are working with.

Your salary:

  1. Create a new expense.
  2. Set the type to Income.
  3. Enter the title (e.g. January salary) and the amount.
  4. Set a due date matching when the money arrives.
  5. Save.

Fixed costs - rent, insurance, subscriptions:

For a one-off bill, add it as a regular Expense. For something that repeats every month, use a Recurring Expense instead: you set it up once and Comaney immediately generates records for the entire current year - past dates included - respecting any start and end date you set. Find this under Recurring Expenses in the navigation.

Once you have your income and main bills entered, the dashboard will already show you useful numbers.

Step 3: Understand categories and tags

Comaney gives you two ways to label expenses. They serve different purposes.

Categories answer "what kind of expense is this?"

Each expense belongs to one category. Categories describe the nature of an expense, and Comaney gives you a sensible set to start with: Must-have, Nice-to-have, Regular bill, One-off, Investment for spending, and Salary, Gifted Money, Sales, Miscellaneous for income. The pie chart on your dashboard uses categories to show the breakdown at a glance.

Tags answer "what is this money for?"

An expense can have as many tags as you like. Tags are the topical labels: Food, Housing, Transport, Entertainment, Travel. One grocery delivery can be in the Must-have category and also carry the tags Food and Housing at the same time.

In practice: leave the default categories as they are to start. Use tags to describe what the money was actually for.

Create and manage both from Categories & Tags in the navigation.

Step 4: See what the dashboard tells you

Open Dashboard from the navigation. You will see a grid of cards, each showing a summary of your finances for the current period.

The default cards give you the essentials at a glance:

  • Total spending this month
  • Money left to spend (income minus spending)
  • Unsettled bills - things you have recorded but not yet paid
  • A pie chart of spending by category
  • A bar chart of spending by tag

You do not need to configure anything. The cards work from the data you have already entered.

Choosing a time period

The date range bar at the top of the dashboard controls what period all cards show. Quick preset buttons let you jump to:

  • The previous, current, or next financial month (adjusted to your pay-cycle start date)
  • A full year or a specific quarter

For a custom range, use the Start and End date pickers. All cards update immediately. Your chosen range is remembered as you move between pages.

Step 5: Track costs for a specific goal with Projects

Sometimes you want to see all the expenses for one goal in one place. A summer holiday with friends. A kitchen renovation. That is what Projects are for.

A project groups a set of expenses under one name so you can see the total at a glance, track a breakdown per person, and see who owes who.

Creating a project

  1. Click Projects in the navigation.
  2. Enter a name, e.g. Beach trip 2025 or Kitchen renovation.
  3. Click Create.

Logging expenses in a project

Create a new expense as usual and set Expense assignment to Project, then pick the project from the dropdown. Or, on the project page itself, use the + button as a shortcut.

Solo projects: track costs for yourself

A solo project is simply a project with you as the only member. It's the default case. They work like a tag you can archive: group expenses under one name, see the total at a glance, and close it off when the goal is done.

Archive when it is done.

Once the renovation is finished, archive the project from the project page. The record stays available for reference, and the project disappears from the expense form dropdown.

Group projects: share costs with others

Invite other Comaney users by email from the project page. Once they accept, you can each log expenses and mark who paid upfront. The project page shows the debt diagram: a clear view of who owes who, and by how much.

Comaney also shows a simplified version: the minimum number of payments to settle everything. For example, if three people owe each other in a chain, it collapses that into one direct payment.

If your flatmates do not have a Comaney account, you can also track them as an "offline member". If they create an account later on, you can link them retroactively.

Step 6: Settle up with your group

When the trip is over and it is time to pay each other back:

  1. On the project page, find Pay someone back.
  2. Select who you are paying. The amount is pre-filled with what you owe.
  3. Click Submit.

The other person gets an email and sees a review request. When they confirm receipt, the debt is cleared for both of you and the balance updates.

The project admin can also clear everything at once with Settle entire project. The big advantage: Comaney chains debts together and works out the minimum number of transfers needed, so each person has to make far fewer payments to settle with everyone. For mathematical reasons, this only works if all settle with each other at once. Because of this, the admin as to invoke it.

Step 7: Keep categories and tags in sync with a partner

If you regularly split expenses with the same person - a partner, a flatmate - it helps if you both use the same category and tag names. Catalog Partnerships make that automatic.

Once you are in a partnership, any tag or category either of you creates, renames, or deletes is instantly reflected in both accounts.

To start, you must already be connected (either as buddies or as project members). Then go to Manage Buddies or into a projects management page, find the person, open the ··· menu, and choose Invite as partner. If the option does not appear, the person is either an offline member or already part of a different partnership.

The person you invited goes through a short setup wizard to align your existing labels. After that, everything stays in sync automatically.

Partnerships can grow to include as many users as you like, each in exactly one partnership at a time.

What next?

You now know the core of Comaney. From here, explore at your own pace:

I want to... Go here
Set up bills that repeat automatically Recurring Expenses
Get email reminders before bills are due Notifications
Search and filter my expense list Search & Filters
Customise my dashboard cards Dashboard
Split costs with a single friend (no project needed) Buddies