Getting started

Create your account

1. Go to qlife.money and choose Start Free, or go straight to qlife.money/onboarding/.
2. The first three steps of the wizard (Welcome, About you, What are you working toward) run before you sign in. What you type is kept in your browser until you do.
3. On About you, enter the name you want to be called and, if you like, your pronouns. Your legal name is stored separately and used only where a bank or the IRS requires it.
4. On What are you working toward, pick any of the suggested goals or add your own. You can change them later on the Goals page.
5. On Connect your accounts, sign in with Apple, Google or Facebook. You see Apple's or Google's own screen, never a password form of ours, and there is no password to create.
6. Your account is created the first time you sign in, and the Early Bird trial starts at the same moment.

Result: You are signed in and the Connect step is showing.

Link your first bank or card

1. On the Connect step, or later on the Accounts page, choose Link a Bank or Card.
2. Plaid Link opens. Search for your bank or card issuer and sign in on the bank's own screen. QLife Money never sees or stores your bank password, and the access we receive is read-only.
3. Choose the accounts to share. A checking account and a credit card together give the best first picture.
4. If you are asked, say whether each new account is Personal or belongs to one of your businesses. Personal is right for almost everyone at first; an account can be moved to a business later from its row on the Accounts page.
5. Watch the SYNC chip on the new account's row. About two years of history arrives within a minute or two, and the page refreshes when it is done.

Result: Your transactions are on the Transactions page, already categorised, and Home shows your net worth.

Take your first look

1. Open Home. If a Needs you card appears, it lists the only decisions waiting on you. If it is absent, nothing is.
2. Open Transactions and spot-check a few categories. Change one if it is wrong. The app remembers that merchant from then on.
3. If Home says transactions need a category, open Catch-Up. They are grouped by merchant, so one decision clears every row for that merchant.
4. Drop a statement or a receipt into the Shoebox, or forward one to shoebox@qlife.money from the address you signed in with, to see the paper side work.