FAQ

Does Tally connect to my bank?

It can, if you want it to. Connecting your bank (a Tally Plus feature, via Stripe Financial Connections) imports your transactions automatically — see Connect your bank. It’s entirely optional: you can just as well enter your bills, income, and starting balance yourself, and nothing about your forecast ever requires a bank connection. Either way, Tally never sees your bank login, account number, or routing number.

What’s the difference between a bill and a transaction?

A bill repeats on a schedule (rent, a subscription, a car payment). A transaction is a one-off entry (a bonus, a refund, an unplanned purchase). See Accounts, Bills, and Transactions for the full picture.

Why does a monthly bill show up in more than one of my pay periods?

A bill’s frequency and your account’s pay period length are independent of each other. If your pay period is biweekly, a monthly bill’s due date can land inside more than one biweekly period over the course of a year — that’s expected, not a bug.

What does “needs reconciliation” mean?

It’s a bill whose pay period has closed without being marked paid — usually because the biller hasn’t charged yet. See Reconcile a bill for how to clear it.

Can I track more than one bank account?

On a paid account, yes — each account you add has its own bills, income sources, transactions, and forecast, independent of any others you’re tracking. Free accounts are limited to one bank account; upgrading removes that limit.

Can I connect Claude or another AI agent to my Tally data?

Yes — see Connect an AI agent. It’s read-only: an agent can see your own bills, transactions, forecast, and past pay periods, but can’t change anything, and connecting logs you in the same way logging into the website does (no separate token to manage).

How does Tally suggest categories for my bills and transactions?

As you type a name, Tally checks it against previously-confirmed categories (yours and, if you’ve opted in, other users’ anonymized ones) and a keyword-based fallback, and shows a suggestion with a confidence badge if it finds a match. See Categorize your spending for how accepting or dismissing one works.

Does confirming a category share my data with other users?

Not unless you turn that on. Categorizing your own bills and transactions always stays on your account. A separate, off-by-default setting on each account’s Settings page (“Help improve category suggestions”) controls whether confirming a category also contributes an anonymized version of the merchant name — never amounts, dates, or account details — to a shared reference used to suggest categories for everyone. See Categorize your spending.

What’s a reserve, and why can’t I create one?

A reserve holds an amount out of your projected balance for spending you know is coming but haven’t itemized yet — “Back to School,” holiday gifts, a vacation fund — instead of a single payment. See Reserves. Creating a reserve, and applying new spending to one, both require Tally Plus and a bank-synced account — a manually-tracked account has no synced transactions to apply against a reserve, so it can’t use them even on Plus. Removing a purchase from a reserve, or releasing/reopening one you already have, works on any plan or account, connected or not.

Why can’t I filter or drill into the Categories report?

Switching between bills/transactions, sorting, filtering to confirmed categories only, and drilling into a category to see its individual entries are part of a paid account. A free account still sees the full chart and total for every category, combined across all your accounts — a paid account’s report is scoped to whichever account you’re currently viewing instead. See Categories.

I don’t see my question here

Check the Glossary for term definitions, or the Core Concepts section for how forecasting works.