MCP Server

Connecting your AI assistant to PocketSmith via the Model Context Protocol (MCP), will give it direct access to your financial data, budgets, and forecasts. It can provide insights and information, as well as perform a number of actions for you.

What it does

The PocketSmith MCP server lets AI assistants read and manage your PocketSmith data on your behalf. Instead of switching between your AI assistant and PocketSmith, you can ask questions and take actions in natural language:

Review your spending, budgets, and net worth
Search and categorise transactions
Create and update budget events
Analyse trends and compare spending across periods
Check bank feed sync status and trigger refreshes

Two access modes are available:

Mode	Description
Full access	All 57 tools - read, create, update, and delete
Read-only	38 read-only tools - view and analyse, no changes

Choose read-only if you only want to ask questions about your finances. Choose full access if you also want the assistant to make changes (e.g. categorise transactions, create budget events).

Connecting

Server URLs

Mode	URL
Full access	`https://mcp.pocketsmith.com/mcp`
Read-only	`https://mcp-readonly.pocketsmith.com/mcp`

Any MCP client that supports HTTP transport and OAuth can connect using these URLs. The server supports OAuth 2.0 with PKCE and publishes discovery metadata at /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server and /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.

Claude.ai

Open a conversation on claude.ai
Click the Add icon (plus symbol) in the message composer
Navigate to Add > Manage connectors
Click the Add icon (plus symbol) at the top and choose Add custom connectors
Enter the name and URL for your chosen access mode
Select the name of the connector on the left and click the Connect button
You'll be redirected to PocketSmith to authorize access
Once authorized, Claude can use your PocketSmith data across all conversations

Claude Desktop

Open Settings > Connectors
Click Add custom connector and enter the URL for your chosen access mode
From the connectors list, click the Connect button
Claude Desktop will walk you through the OAuth authorization flow

Claude Code

# Full access
claude mcp add pocketsmith --transport http https://mcp.pocketsmith.com/mcp

# Read-only
claude mcp add pocketsmith-readonly --transport http https://mcp.pocketsmith.com/mcp-readonly

Claude Code will prompt you to authorize via OAuth on first use.

Authentication

Authentication is handled automatically through OAuth. When you connect for the first time, you'll be redirected to PocketSmith to log in and grant access. The AI assistant receives a token scoped to your chosen access mode (full or read-only) and never sees your PocketSmith password.

Tokens are encrypted and stateless - nothing is stored on the MCP server. You can revoke access at any time from your PocketSmith authorized applications page.

Usage examples

"How am I tracking this month?"

Ask for a financial health check to get an at-a-glance summary:

You: How am I doing financially this month? Am I on track with my budget?

Uses the financial_health_snapshot tool to return your net worth, current month spending pace vs budget, per-category budget traffic lights, and any action items like uncategorised transactions.

"What subscriptions am I paying for?"

Find recurring charges you might have forgotten about:

You: Can you find all my recurring expenses and subscriptions? I want to see what I'm paying for each month and the total annual cost.

Uses the find_recurring_expenses tool to scan your transaction history, identify regular charges by payee, classify their frequency, and total up the annual cost.

"Compare my spending to last month"

See where your money went differently:

You: Compare my spending this month vs last month. Which categories went up or down?

Uses the spending_comparison tool to break down both periods by category and payee, highlighting what changed and any new or disappeared payees.

"Review my March finances"

Get a comprehensive end-of-month review:

You: Give me a full review of March 2025 - income, expenses, savings rate, and how I did against my budget.

Uses the month_end_review tool to produce a detailed report with income/expense summary, savings rate, per-category budget variance, top payees, notable transactions, and net worth snapshot.

"Categorise my recent transactions"

Clean up uncategorised transactions:

You: I have a bunch of uncategorised transactions from the last week. Can you look at them and categorise them for me?

Uses list_transactions to find recent uncategorised transactions, then list_categories to see your category tree, and update_transaction to assign appropriate categories based on the payee names. (Requires full access mode.)

"Where will my savings account be in 6 months?"

Project your account balances forward:

You: What does my savings account balance look like over the next 6 months based on my budget?

Uses cash_flow_forecast to project balances forward using PocketSmith's forecasting engine, showing where each account is heading and flagging any points where balances might drop below a safe threshold.

Available tools

Insights (compound analysis tools)

These tools combine multiple API calls to produce rich, ready-to-use analysis:

Tool	What it does
`financial_health_snapshot`	Net worth, spending pace, budget traffic lights, action items
`month_end_review`	Full period review with income/expenses, savings rate, budget variance, top payees
`spending_comparison`	Side-by-side comparison of two date periods by category and payee
`find_recurring_expenses`	Detect subscriptions and recurring bills with annual cost totals
`cash_flow_forecast`	Forward-looking account balance projections with danger-zone alerts
`net_worth_forecast`	Net worth trajectory with historical trend, forecast, and milestone projections
`forecast_accuracy`	Compare actual vs forecast balances to evaluate budget reliability

Budgeting

Tool	What it does
`get_budget`	Budget analysis per category for the forecast period
`get_budget_summary`	Expense/income actuals vs budgeted for a date range
`get_trend_analysis`	Spending trends over time by category
`delete_forecast_cache`	Force budget recalculation after bulk edits

Transactions

Tool	What it does
`list_transactions`	Search and filter transactions by date, category, keyword, status
`get_transaction`	Get a single transaction's full details
`create_transaction`	Add a new transaction
`update_transaction`	Edit a transaction (payee, category, labels, notes, splits)
`delete_transaction`	Remove a transaction

Accounts & Institutions

Tool	What it does
`list_accounts`	List all accounts by user or institution
`get_account`	Get account details including balance and child accounts
`create_account` / `update_account` / `delete_account`	Manage accounts
`update_account_display_order`	Reorder accounts
`list_institutions` / `get_institution`	View financial institutions
`create_institution` / `update_institution` / `delete_institution`	Manage institutions
`list_transaction_accounts` / `get_transaction_account` / `update_transaction_account`	View and update transaction accounts

Categories & Rules

Tool	What it does
`list_categories` / `get_category`	View your category hierarchy
`create_category` / `update_category` / `delete_category`	Manage categories
`list_category_rules` / `create_category_rule`	View and create auto-categorisation rules

Budget Events

Tool	What it does
`list_events` / `get_event`	View budget forecast events
`create_event` / `update_event` / `delete_event`	Manage recurring and one-off budget events

Attachments

Tool	What it does
`list_attachments` / `get_attachment`	View receipt and document attachments
`create_attachment` / `update_attachment` / `delete_attachment`	Manage attachments
`assign_transaction_attachment` / `unassign_transaction_attachment`	Link/unlink attachments to transactions

Data Feeds

Tool	What it does
`get_data_feeds_connection_status`	Check bank feed sync status and provider details
`refresh_data_feeds_connection`	Trigger a sync for one or all bank feed connections

Other

Tool	What it does
`get_current_user` / `update_user`	View and update user profile and settings
`list_labels`	View all transaction labels
`list_saved_searches`	View saved transaction search filters
`list_currencies` / `get_currency`	Currency reference data
`list_time_zones`	Time zone reference data

PocketSmith data model

Understanding PocketSmith's hierarchy helps when asking questions:

Institution (e.g. "Sample Bank")
  → Account (container/group, e.g. "Everyday Credit Card")
      → Transaction Account (where transactions live)
      → Scenario (where budget forecast events live)

Institutions represent banks or financial providers
Accounts group one or more transaction accounts and scenarios
Transaction accounts hold the actual transaction records
Scenarios hold budget events that drive PocketSmith's forecasting engine
Categories are hierarchical (parent/child) and shared across all accounts
Labels are tags you can add to transactions for flexible grouping

Privacy & security

PocketSmith's privacy policy: https://www.pocketsmith.com/legal/privacy-policy/
Your PocketSmith credentials are never shared with the AI assistant
OAuth tokens are encrypted with AES-256-GCM and stateless (nothing stored server-side)
All API communication uses TLS encryption
You can revoke access at any time from PocketSmith authorised applications