# Monthly summary

A monthly summary is a short report on the month that has just closed: what your
money did, how it compares with the month before, and a few things worth five
minutes. It arrives by email and it stays in the app, and the figures in it are
frozen the day it is written.

## Quick start

1. Wait for the email, a few days after the month ends.
2. Or open your account menu and choose **Monthly summaries** — every report you
   have been sent is there, newest first.
3. Read the headline, the figures, and anything under **Worth five minutes**.
4. Share a card as a picture, or create a public link, if you want to.

## What the report says

![The figures section of a monthly summary: five sentences, each with its numbers in bold — net worth against last month, the three categories that took most of the spending, a category that dropped, investment gains, and budgets met](https://whisper.money/docs/documentation/monthly-summary-report.png)

It opens with the one thing that most describes the month, then one sentence per
figure, each with the numbers picked out. Depending on what the month contained,
that can include:

- Your net worth, and how it moved since the previous month closed.
- What you saved, and your savings rate.
- The three categories that took most of your spending.
- A category that dropped noticeably against last month.
- What your investment accounts are holding in gains.
- How many [budgets](https://whisper.money/documentation/budgets) you met, and which you went over.
- How your [savings goal](https://whisper.money/documentation/savings-goals) moved.

Then **Worth five minutes**: the few things that are actually worth doing, each
with the consequence of leaving it — a bank connection about to expire,
transactions with no category, a budget that has been short for months.

Every figure comes from the same services the rest of the app reads, so the
report cannot quote a number you are unable to find on the
[cashflow](https://whisper.money/documentation/cashflow) screen.

## When it arrives

The report goes out on the 3rd, at nine in the morning wherever you are, not on
the 1st. A month is often still moving on the 1st: a bank syncs overnight, and
the balances of loans and property settle at the turn of the month. Reporting
before all that has landed means reporting figures that change afterwards.

If your month is not ready — nothing has happened in the new month yet, from a
bank or from you — you get a short reminder instead, and it is retried every day
until the 10th. On the 10th the report goes out with whatever is there, and says
in the report itself that some accounts had not reported and the figures may be
short.

A month with nothing in it produces no report at all. A first month gets a
simpler one, since half the report is comparisons and there is nothing yet to
compare against.

## The figures are frozen

A report is written once. What you read in it is what was true on the day it was
written, and it does not change when you go back and recategorize something in
that month.

That is deliberate. A report about a closed month that quietly rewrote itself
afterwards would be worse than no report at all — you could never point at it
and say what happened. The current view of any month is always a click away on
the cashflow screen; this is the version that was sent.

The one exception is a report frozen while the month was still incomplete and
not yet sent: that one is rewritten before it goes out, because by then the
missing bank has reported.

## Why this happened

Paid plans that have granted AI consent get an extra section that reads the
figures and says what drove them — which categories moved, which of them have
been moving for months, and what your goal looks like at the pace you are
keeping.

Both conditions are required. Without an active consent nothing about you is
sent to a model, whatever you pay, and you see the same locked section as
everyone else. The text is written once and stored with the report, so the
analysis you read cannot change later either.

## Sharing your month

![The top of a monthly summary: the headline, and the "Share your month" section with two card thumbnails, a Share button under each, and a "Create a public link" button next to the line "Anyone with the link sees the image and nothing else. No link exists until you make one."](https://whisper.money/docs/documentation/monthly-summary-share.png)

There are two different ways to share a report, and they are worth telling
apart.

### As a picture

Every report can draw a few cards: a streak, a savings rate, a savings goal, a
net worth change, or where the money went. Whisper Money picks the one with most
to say and marks it, and the others stay available beside it.

**Share** on a card opens the same dialog a [medal](https://whisper.money/documentation/achievements)
uses: pick the shape — 4:5 for a feed, 9:16 for a story — and the skin, then
save the picture or hand it to your phone's share sheet. Making the picture
publishes nothing; you get a file, and where it goes is up to you.

### As a public link

**Create a public link** mints an address anybody can open. Until you press it,
no such address exists.

The page behind it carries the card and a link to Whisper Money, and nothing
else: no name, no amounts, no breakdown, no way through to your account. It asks
search engines to leave it alone. It exists for one reason — pasting a link into
WhatsApp or X unfurls the picture, so you do not have to download the image and
upload it again.

**Revoke the link** takes it back. The address stops working from that moment,
and anybody who still has it gets a page that no longer exists.

That is the whole difference between the two. A card is a picture you send: once
it is out, it is out, exactly like any other photo. A link is an address you
hand out, and an address can be withdrawn.

## Putting the notice away

The dashboard shows a notice when a new report is waiting. **Dismiss** puts that
notice away without deleting anything — the report itself stays under **Monthly
summaries** for as long as your account does.

## Turning the email off

Under **Settings → Notifications**, the **Monthly summary** toggle stops the
report email and the reminder that goes with it. Every message also carries an
unsubscribe link that does the same thing. The reports carry on being written
and stay in the app either way.

## FAQ

### I never got a report.

The likely reasons, in order: the month had nothing in it, nothing had happened
in the new month by the 10th, or the email is switched off under **Settings →
Notifications**. Whatever the email did, anything that was written is under
**Monthly summaries**.

### Why does the report not match what the app shows now?

Because it was frozen when it was written and the app is showing the month as it
stands today. Recategorizing a transaction from that month changes the app and
leaves the report alone, on purpose.

### Who can see my report?

Only you, unless you create a public link. Nothing is published by opening the
report, by drawing a card, or by saving a picture.

### Does the public page show my name or my balances?

No. It shows the one card you shared and a link to Whisper Money. There is no
name on it, no breakdown, and no way from it into your account.

### Can I un-share something?

You can revoke a public link at any time, and the address stops working
immediately. A picture you have already saved or posted is a file like any
other — that one is out of our hands, and out of yours.

### How far back do the reports go?

To your first report. They are kept, so **Monthly summaries** is a stack of
every month that has been closed and sent since you started.

### Can I get a report for the current month?

No. A report describes a month that has finished. For the month in progress, use
the [cashflow](https://whisper.money/documentation/cashflow) screen.

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Full documentation index: https://whisper.money/documentation.md?lang=en