Reports is where you go to answer "where did it all go this month".

Whose spending you're seeing

The same three-way switch as your dashboard sits at the top:

• My Spending: your own spending plus your share of everything shared.
• Shared: only what the two of you share.
• Personal: only your own private spending.

Everything on the page follows this, including anything you export, so set it before you download.

Changing the period

Pick the month or date range you want. The breakdown, the totals and the charts all move with it.

Asking Penny

The sparkle button beside the title opens Penny with your report data already loaded, so you can ask things like "what did we spend most on last month" in plain language.

Downloading it

See Downloading your data: CSV and PDF.

Cash Flow answers one question: of the money that came in, where did it go?

Three ways to look at it

The icons at the top right switch between them. They all show the same numbers, just differently:

• Chart: your income at the top, flowing down into boxes. Tap any box to see what is inside it.
• Flow: the same thing as a river diagram, with the width of each stream showing how much went that way.
• P&L: a plain statement of income, expenses and what is left.

Invested and Savings are not the same thing

This is the part worth reading twice, because most apps roll them together.

• Invested is money you deliberately moved into an investment account, such as Betterment, Robinhood, a brokerage or an IRA. It is a decision you made.
• Savings is everything else that was left over. Money still sitting in checking, and money you moved to a savings account. It is what remained, not something you chose.

We separate them because "we invested $2,000" and "we have $1,000 spare" are different facts that lead to different conversations. Most apps would show you $3,000 of "savings" and leave you to guess.

We do not try to guess whether moving money to a savings account was deliberate saving or just parking it. That looks identical in the data, and plenty of people do both. Investing is the one signal that is never ambiguous.

Your savings rate

On the P&L you will see a savings rate under the Remaining line. It is the share of your income you did not spend, which includes what you invested. That is the standard definition, so it lines up with what you would see anywhere else.

When a month does not add up

Sometimes more went out than came in. The Chart and Flow views say so rather than hiding it, and the wording tells you why:

• Overspent means your spending alone was more than your income.
• Drew from savings means your spending was fine, but investing on top of it went past what you earned that month. That is not overspending. It is funding investments from money you already had.

Transfers to savings and investments

At the bottom of the P&L you will find these listed separately. They sit below the Remaining line because that money is already counted in it. This is a breakdown of where some of your remainder went, not another subtraction.

Whose money you are looking at

The same three-way switch as your dashboard sits at the top. In My Spending, shared costs are counted at your share of the split, not the full amount, so a $200 shared grocery bill on a 50/50 split shows as $100.

If you've tried to create a budget for money you're investing and couldn't find a category for it, that's deliberate. Here's how it works and why.

The short version

Budgets are for money you spend. Goals are for money you keep. Saving and investing go in Goals, and your goal contributions count toward your budget just like a budget line does.

Why investing isn't a budget category

Buying $500 of gold or moving $1,000 into a brokerage isn't spending. You still have the money, it has just changed form. If that were a budget category, it would show up in your spending reports and make it look like you spent money you actually still own, which would quietly ruin every report you have.

For the same reason, transfers into savings and investment accounts are left out of spending totals. That's why you'll see Investment and Savings Transfer in your categories but can't budget against them.

How this still adds up to zero

Zero-based budgeting means every dollar has a job, and saving is a job. On your Budgets page the maths is:

Income − budgets − goal contributions − spending outside budgets = what's left to allocate.

So your goal contributions are already subtracted for you. When that figure reaches zero, every dollar is assigned. Money going into goals is assigned money, not leftover money.

Setting it up

Go to Goals, add a goal, and choose a contribution mode:

• Auto: you set a target amount and a target date, and we work out the monthly amount. Good for "$6,000 emergency fund by next June". This is the one mode that needs a date, because the date is what the monthly figure comes from.
• Manual: you set the monthly amount and no date is needed. This is the one for ongoing investing, like "$1,000 a month into my brokerage" with no end in sight.
• Maintain: keep a balance topped up to a set amount, adjusting automatically when you dip below it. Good for an emergency fund you actually draw on.

A target date is optional. Only Auto mode needs one.

What the templates do

The Zero-Based and 50/30/20 templates both set aside 20% for saving and investing as its own line. That line isn't a spending category, it's the amount to put into goals. Adjust it to whatever fits your plan.

A worked example

You earn $10,000 a month. You budget $6,000 across your spending categories and set up a $2,000 monthly investing goal. Your Budgets page shows $2,000 left to allocate, and your spending reports show $6,000, not $8,000, because the $2,000 you invested isn't spending. Assign the last $2,000 to more goals or more categories and you're at zero.

Forecasting takes what Halfway already knows, meaning your accounts, your income and your last twelve months of spending, and projects it forward year by year. You can then change things and watch the line move.

Getting started

1. Go to Forecasting and tap Build my forecast.
2. Choose whether the forecast covers just you, you and your shared life, or both of you together.
3. Confirm your birth year and when you'd like to retire.
4. Check the figures we've filled in, such as take-home income, living costs and what you own and owe, then change any that look wrong.

Adding life events

Tap Add event and pick what's coming: retiring, buying a home, having a child, an income change, a big one-off expense, or a state pension. Each one changes the projection from the year you give it.

Retirement income matters more than people expect. If you add a retirement event and nothing to replace the salary, the forecast assumes you have no income at all from that year, which makes it look far worse than reality. Add your state pension or Social Security so the picture is honest.

What the numbers mean

• Spendable at retirement is the money you could actually draw on. It deliberately leaves out your home and your car, because you can't spend those on groceries. It will be lower than your total net worth, and that's the point.
• Money runs out only appears if the projection depletes. It tracks spendable money, so a house can't hide a shortfall.
• Amounts show in today's money by default, so you can compare them with what things cost now. You can switch to future money under Adjust.

Changing the assumptions

Tap Adjust to change investment growth, inflation, your income and spending baselines, the ages, how much of today's spending continues once you stop working, and where money you don't spend goes. That last one moves the projection more than anything else on the screen, because it decides whether decades of saving compound or just pile up.

The Accounts tab shows everything the forecast is built from. Switch off anything that shouldn't count, like a business account or a card you clear every month.

Trying a different plan

Use the + beside the scenario name to duplicate your forecast or start a fresh one, then change one thing and compare the two. Your baseline can be reset but never deleted, so you can always get back to where you started.

A word on accuracy

This is a projection, not a prediction. Small changes in the assumptions lead to very different answers decades out, which is why every one of them is visible and editable. It's for exploring decisions, not for planning around a specific number, and it isn't financial advice.

Goals are for the things you're putting money aside for, like a holiday, a house deposit or an emergency fund, and for debt you're paying down.

Creating one

1. Go to Goals and tap Add goal.
2. Pick a template or start from scratch, and give it a name and an icon.
3. Choose Shared or Personal. Shared goals are visible to both of you; personal ones are yours alone.
4. Set the target amount, and a target date if you have one.

Saving up vs paying down

A goal can go in either direction. Save up counts towards a target, like a $5,000 holiday fund. Pay down counts a balance towards zero, like clearing a credit card. The maths is the same, but the wording and the progress bar follow what you're actually doing.

How much per month

Three options:

• Automatic: Halfway works out the monthly amount from your target and your target date. If you haven't set a date, add one so it has something to calculate from.
• Set my own: you choose the monthly figure and Halfway tells you when you'll get there.
• Maintain balance: for something you want to keep topped up rather than finish, like an emergency fund. No target date needed.

Shared goals and who contributes what

On a shared goal you can split the contributions the same way you split expenses, evenly or by income. Each of you sees your own share of the monthly amount.

Recording progress

Open a goal and add a contribution when you move money towards it. Goal progress is separate from your budgets, so putting $200 into a goal doesn't come out of a spending category unless you also record it as a transaction.

Budgets work the same way whether they cover the household or just you. The toggle at the top of the Budgets page decides which.

A shared budget

Keeps your household spending on track:

1. Go to the Budgets page.
2. Ensure the toggle at the top is set to Shared.
3. Click Set a Budget.
4. Choose a category and enter the monthly limit.

We'll track all "Shared" transactions in that category against this limit.

A personal budget

For your own money:

1. Go to the Budgets page.
2. Switch the toggle to Personal.
3. Click Set a Budget.

These budgets only track transactions marked as Personal, and they are private to you. Your partner cannot see them or the spending behind them.

"Left to Spend" is simply your Budget Limit minus Actual Spending.

If you have a $500 Grocery budget and have spent $300 so far, you have $200 Left to Spend. If you go over, this number will turn negative and red to alert you.

Currently, Halfway budgets reset on the 1st of every month. We do not automatically roll over unspent amounts or deficits to the next month.

This ensures you start every month with a clean slate. If you want to save for a larger expense, consider using the Goals feature instead.

A shared budget helps you and your partner agree on spending limits for household categories. Here is how to set one up in Halfway:

Step 1: Set your incomes

Go to Settings > Household and make sure both partners have entered their monthly income. This determines your split ratio for shared expenses.

Step 2: Identify shared categories

Think about which spending categories you share: groceries, dining out, rent or mortgage, utilities, transportation, entertainment. You do not need to budget for everything at once. Start with 3 to 5 categories that matter most.

Step 3: Create your first budget

1. Go to the Budgets page.
2. Make sure the toggle is set to Shared.
3. Click Set a Budget.
4. Choose a category (for example, Groceries) and enter a monthly limit.
5. Repeat for each category you want to track.

Step 4: Track spending together

As you and your partner mark transactions as shared, they automatically count against the relevant budget. Both partners can see spending progress in real time.

Tips

• Start with realistic limits based on your recent spending. Check the last 2 to 3 months of transactions for a baseline.
• Review your budgets together at the end of each month and adjust as needed.
• Use the Halfway Couples Budget Calculator at /calculators/couples-budget to help determine good starting amounts.