The two-minute guide
How Augustine Equity works
A personal finance tool, net worth tracker, calendar and organization system, built for individuals and households. This page is everything you need to go from an invitation to a dashboard that means something — about ten minutes of work, most of it optional.
Your first ten minutes
In order. Steps 3 and 4 can wait until whenever you feel like them — the app is useful after step 2.
Create your account1 minute
Use the address the invitation was sent to — that address is what carries you into the household you were invited to, or into a workspace of your own. Google sign-in is one click and needs no password; the email route sends a verification link that expires in 24 hours.
Answer the setup questions3 minutes
Who you are, what you want the app to do, what you own and what you do for work — then what is allowed to interrupt you. The answers shape the app: which parts are switched on, which tools sit in your sidebar, what may reach your phone, and what the assistant knows about you before you ask it anything. Every field can be skipped and everything is changeable later in Settings.
Connect what you want carried2 minutes
A bank connection (read-only, through Plaid) keeps balances and spending current on its own. Google gives you your real mail and calendar inside the app. Both are optional and both can be disconnected in one click — the app works fully without either.
Put the first numbers in5 minutes
Add a property or an asset, add the mortgage or note against it, or upload a bill. Net worth is simply what you own minus what you owe, so the first asset is where the page stops being empty. Statement PDFs are worth uploading: each one backfills that month's history.
Ask it something1 minute
“What's due in the next 30 days?” “What did the Elm St roof cost me last year?” “Which loan should I pay down first?” The assistant reads your own figures and answers in plain English. It never moves money.
What each part is for
You will not see all of it. The setup questions switch off whatever does not apply to you, and Settings → Tools & sidebar changes that decision whenever you like.
Net worth
One number, recomputed nightly, with the history behind every move. Assets, property, loans and balances all feed it.
Portfolio
Properties, deals, renovation projects and everything else you own — equity, returns and what is owed against each one.
Money
Transactions, cashflow, budgets, subscriptions and insights, held against the real ledger rather than a guess.
Documents
Photograph a bill, a policy or a closing packet. It is read, filed against the right property or loan, and turned into a reminder before the due date.
Reminders
The deadlines nobody writes to you about — a passport, estimated tax, an insurance renewal, the water heater's twelfth birthday.
Mail & calendar
Your real Gmail and Google calendar in the same place as the numbers they concern, so booking or answering does not mean leaving.
The assistant
It has read your balance sheet, your profile and your reminders. Ask in plain English; it answers with your figures, not generic advice.
Strategy
Entity structure and asset protection, walked through step by step — for anyone holding property in more than their own name.
Who sees what
Your invitation said which of these you are getting. It is the whole of the access model — there is no fourth kind.
Your own workspace
The default for an invited person. A private workspace nobody else can see — not even whoever invited you. You own it, you name it, and you can invite your own people into it later.
A household member
Shares one balance sheet with the household that invited you: the same accounts, property, documents and reminders, and you can edit them. Members and billing stay with the owner. Your profile, your mailbox and your calendar stay yours alone.
A private lender
Sees their own paper and nothing else — the loans they funded, what those earn, and what secures them. Never the balance sheet around it.
What it can and cannot do
- Bank access is read-only. Plaid holds your credentials — this app never sees them — and there is no payment rail here at all. Nothing in it can move a dollar.
- Mail and calendar are yours. Your Google grant belongs to your user account, not to the household. Nobody else reads your inbox, and disconnecting takes one click.
- Every query is scoped to your workspace. A separate workspace shares nothing at all; a lender sees only their own loans.
- You can take it with you. Settings → Export writes everything you have put in to CSV, whenever you want it.
Questions people actually ask
Can anything here move my money?
No. Bank connections are read-only through Plaid, which holds the credentials — this app never sees them and has no payment rail at all.
Do I have to connect a bank?
No. Every balance can be typed in and updated whenever you like. Connecting a bank only means you stop doing it by hand.
What if I hide a tool and want it back?
Settings → Tools & sidebar. Nothing is ever deleted by hiding it — the page keeps working, search still finds it, and ticking the box brings it back.
Can I change the answers I gave at setup?
All of them. Your profile lives in Settings → Profile, the sidebar and modules in Settings → Tools & sidebar, what may interrupt you in Settings → Notifications, and “run setup again” restarts the whole wizard.
Who can see my documents?
Only people in your household. A separate workspace shares nothing at all, and a private lender sees only their own loans.
Will it email me all the time?
Only if you ask it to. Setup asks what may interrupt you and the default is almost nothing — anomalies and deadlines. Everything else is logged silently, and Settings → Notifications changes any of it in one screen.
My invitation expired.
They lapse after 14 days. Ask whoever invited you to send another — re-inviting the same address just refreshes it.
That is the whole thing.
Set it up once and it carries the rest. If something in the app is unclear, the ? beside any field says what belongs in it.
Redeem an invitation