mcpField
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spending-review

spending-review

github.com/openaccountantData & databases103478 installsUpdated 29w ago
Repository

About spending-review

spending-review is a financial analysis skill for reviewing category-level spending across two months. It flags notable increases and uses transaction details to explain them.

Key features

  1. 01Monthly category spending comparison
  2. 02Dollar and percentage change calculations
  3. 03Flags increases over 20% or $100
  4. 04Transaction-level review of flagged categories
  5. 05Spending summary table and narrative

Use cases

  1. 01Reviewing this month against last month
  2. 02Investigating categories with sharp increases
  3. 03Spotting leading categories by spending or growth

MCP support

The skill uses Wilson's `spending_summary` and `transaction_search` tools to compare spending and inspect transactions.

Install

Copy the command and run it in a terminal.

$npx skills add https://github.com/openaccountant/skills --skill spending-review

After installing, type/spending-reviewin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.

Details

From the project README

Spending Review

Overview

Produces a categorized breakdown of your spending for a given period, compares it against prior months to show trends, and highlights categories where spending increased or decreased significantly.

Wilson Tools Used

  • spending_summary — get total spending grouped by category for any date range
  • transaction_search — drill into specific categories for transaction-level detail

Workflow

  1. Run spending_summary for the current month to get category-level totals.
  2. Run spending_summary for the previous month to establish a comparison baseline.
  3. Calculate the dollar change and percentage change for each category between the two months.
  4. Flag any category where spending increased by more than 20% or more than $100.
  5. For each flagged category, run transaction_search with category: "<flagged_category>" and months: 1 to pull the individual transactions driving the increase.
  6. Present results as a summary table with columns: Category, This Month, Last Month, Change ($), Change (%), Trend Arrow.
  7. Below the table, list the top 3 categories by absolute spending and the top 3 by percentage increase.
  8. Provide a one-paragraph narrative summary describing the overall spending pattern and notable changes.

Without Wilson

  1. Export your last two months of transactions as CSV files from your bank (most banks: Account > Statements > Download > CSV format).
  2. Open both CSVs in Google Sheets. Combine them into one sheet with a "Month" column added.
  3. If your bank doesn't categorize transactions, manually add a "Category" column. Common categories: Groceries, Dining, Transportation, Utilities, Entertainment, Shopping, Health, Subscriptions.
  4. Create a pivot table: Rows = Category, Columns = Month, Values = SUM of Amount.
  5. Add a calculated column for change: =B2-C2 (this month minus last month).
  6. Add a percentage change column: =IF(C2<>0, (B2-C2)/ABS(C2)*100, "New").
  7. Conditional format the change column: red for increases, green for decreases (since spending is negative, reverse the logic or use absolute values).
  8. Sort by absolute change descending to see your biggest movers.
  9. For a quick visual, insert a bar chart from the pivot table showing this month vs. last month by category.

Important Notes

  • Category accuracy depends on your bank's auto-categorization or Wilson's categorization rules. Run the categorize tool first if many transactions are uncategorized.
  • One-time large purchases (appliances, travel, medical) can skew month-over-month comparisons. Consider whether a spike is a true trend or an outlier.
  • For a more meaningful view, compare against a 3-month rolling average rather than just the prior month.

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