How to share your finances with a partner

Most couples run their money from two phones, a group chat and a spreadsheet that one of them keeps up to date out of loyalty. A shared space in Era replaces all three with one place where you both see the same accounts, the same spending and the same bills, while each of you keeps the assistant you already like and the accounts you would rather keep to yourself.

Can you share your finances with a partner without sharing everything?

Yes. In a shared space, each person chooses what goes in, either account by account or by category, and everything else stays private. You can see exactly what you are sharing at any time, and one control stops all of it at once. Your partner sees what you chose to show and nothing more.

That choice is the heart of it. A joint grocery budget and a private birthday-present fund can live side by side, because sharing is something each person decides for their own accounts, never something the space does to them.

How do you invite a partner to a shared space?

You create a space, name it, and invite your partner by their Era handle or by email. They accept, pick what they want to share, and appear in the space as a member. If you are setting up a household of three or four, you can invite several people at once by handle.

Each person gets a role: owner, admin, contributor or viewer. Most couples make both partners owners or admins. A parent might make a teenager a viewer, so they can see how the household budget works without changing anything.

What can each person see?

Each member shares transactions, balances and documents, chosen by account or by category. If you share your joint checking account and your groceries category, your partner sees those and nothing else. A "What I share" view lists everything you have put in, so there is no guessing.

A single "stop everything" control withdraws all of it in one step. People tend to share more freely when they know the way out is that easy, which is why the control sits where you can find it.

How do you build a view the two of you actually use?

A view is a page of widgets, organised as tabs. You start from a template, such as a household overview or a bills page, and Era previews it with your own figures before you commit, so you choose from something that looks like your money. Then you drag the widgets into the order you like.

Many couples end up with three tabs: one for the month's spending, one for bills and one for what is owed between them. Each of you can change the layout without breaking the other's.

Who owes whom, and how do you settle it?

The space keeps a running ledger of who has covered what. You can see who owes whom at a glance, mark an amount as paid when it has been settled, undo it if you tapped too soon, and split a transaction between you in any proportion, such as sixty-forty for rent. There is no separate app and no spreadsheet.

The full walk-through is in splitting bills and seeing who owes whom.

What do your assistants do in a shared space?

Every member's assistant can help. You might ask Claude "what did we spend on groceries this month?" while your partner asks ChatGPT the same thing, and both answers draw on the same shared figures. That is the point of sharing: in a space, everyone sees the same numbers, so nobody has to ask whose version is right.

Your private accounts stay out of those answers unless you chose to share them, and each person keeps whichever assistant they prefer. The household does not have to agree on an app.

If you have seen Claude's Personal Finance launch and wondered how it works for a couple with a joint account, this is the answer: connect your accounts to Era, put the joint ones in a shared space, and Claude reads the shared figures alongside your partner's assistant.

What does your household's financial health look like?

Era turns the shared figures into a picture of how the household is doing: your savings, your spending against what comes in, your debts and the trend over time, each with the numbers behind it. You can ask any assistant to explain a figure or to look for what moved it.

A view with a financial health tab gives you a monthly conversation to have over dinner, with the figures already on the table. Advice generation, where Era suggests what to change, is coming soon.

Where do documents go?

A lease, an insurance renewal or a tax form can live in your own space or in the shared one, and you decide which when you file it. Documents you put in the shared space are there for both of you, so the mortgage paperwork is never in the wrong inbox. Your own documents stay yours until you share them.

Getting started

Connect your bank accounts first, which how to connect AI to your bank account walks through, then create a space and invite your partner. If you want the dashboard side next, read building a household money dashboard with AI, and if you are choosing between apps, the best budgeting apps for couples in 2026 compares the options fairly.