How do I use Emma Spaces?
Welcome to Emma Ultimate, our top-tier subscription option 🎉
Ultimate contains all features currently available on our Emma Plus and Pro Plans in addition to a number of additional ones - including Spaces!
There are three main reasons why Spaces are a handy feature of Emma.
With Spaces, you and your family can budget together while logging in to your own Emma accounts, separately.
You can share a Space with one or more other person, to add their bank accounts and create a joint budget. They'll also get access to Emma Pro and Plus features for free!
With Spaces, you can create multiple budgets within the same Emma account.
You can have one budget for your personal spending, and a budget for your joint account that you share with your partner or housemates. This means you can keep on track of your spending, and the communal spending, while keeping both separate!
Spaces allow you to keep your personal and business accounts separate.
You can keep tabs on your personal and business expenses, all in the same place, without one affecting the other. You can have multiple Spaces, so no worries if you're a real entrepreneur with multiple businesses 😎
To start off, you'll need to create a Space.
You can name the Space and decide whether you want to share it. You'll need to share your Space if you want to use it with your family, but business Spaces can stay private.
When you set up your Space, it's important that you select all the accounts that you want to show in that Space. If you want absolutely all of your accounts to be in the family Space, please make sure you select them all. If you add new accounts to Emma in the future, and can't see them in the correct Space, you may need to edit your Space to see move the accounts over.
You'll also need to create a budget for that Space. This will be entirely separate to any other Spaces you have and will not have the same Custom Categories, although you can create them again.
Sarah and Jamal are budgeting for their household expenses and their two children. They each have two individual accounts, a current account and credit card, and a joint account.
Sarah has their Emma Ultimate subscription and has created a Family Space for them and shared this with Jamal, who is on the free version of Emma. He is able to add two banks to Emma on the free version, so Sarah adds her two individual accounts and their joint account to the Space.
Because accessing the Space gives Jamal access to Emma Pro features, he creates their budget. Sarah adds in accounts that can't be linked to Emma via Open Banking using the Offline Accounts feature. These accounts include Jamal's pension, Sarah's ISA, and their saving accounts for their children. This allows them to see their financial position more clearly.
Jamal uses the analytics feature to look at their past spending. He has to recategorise a view transactions, and makes use of the transaction splitting feature to allocate one transaction across two or more categories. Jamal looks at how much they spent on Christmas presents and activities last year, so that they can better budget for this year.
Kofi and Max have moved in together and have opened a joint bank account. Kofi is already keeping a track of his budget with Emma, but wants to track their shared expenses separately to his personal ones.
Kofi upgrades to Emma Ultimate and creates a Joint Space which he shares with Max, who is on the free version of Emma. He adds their joint account to the Space, Max doesn't need to add any accounts as they just have the one joint account.
Kofi creates a budget for the Joint Space which includes categories like housing, bills, and groceries. He creates a Custom Category to track the costs for their cat, Pebbles, who is an important member of the household 🐱
Kofi still has his own personal budget in his Space, which includes his own expenses like entertainment, personal care, and eating out. He also uses Emma's autosave feature to save each week, and his Emma Save account remains in his personal Space where it can't be accessed by Max.
Max and Kofi now both get notifications from Emma when their bills are due and when they are or aren't on track with their joint budgeting.
Alina is self-employed and has two business. She wants to set up a budget for each business along with one for her personal finances, so she creates two Spaces in addition to her Personal Space.
Each Space has its own budget associated with it, and its own custom categories to fit the needs of Alina and her businesses. The Recurring Payments section shows her that she has been paying for her gym membership twice, out of two different accounts, so she cancels one membership.
Alina adds Offline Accounts to both her business accounts to show how much she has invested in each one. She can then use the Net Worth feature to track her income, expenses and debt.
Ultimate contains all features currently available on our Emma Plus and Pro Plans in addition to a number of additional ones - including Spaces!
Why do I need a Space?
There are three main reasons why Spaces are a handy feature of Emma.
You're budgeting for the whole family
With Spaces, you and your family can budget together while logging in to your own Emma accounts, separately.
You can share a Space with one or more other person, to add their bank accounts and create a joint budget. They'll also get access to Emma Pro and Plus features for free!
You need a separate budget for your joint account
With Spaces, you can create multiple budgets within the same Emma account.
You can have one budget for your personal spending, and a budget for your joint account that you share with your partner or housemates. This means you can keep on track of your spending, and the communal spending, while keeping both separate!
You're a small business owner
Spaces allow you to keep your personal and business accounts separate.
You can keep tabs on your personal and business expenses, all in the same place, without one affecting the other. You can have multiple Spaces, so no worries if you're a real entrepreneur with multiple businesses 😎
How do I set up a Space?
To start off, you'll need to create a Space.
You can name the Space and decide whether you want to share it. You'll need to share your Space if you want to use it with your family, but business Spaces can stay private.
When you set up your Space, it's important that you select all the accounts that you want to show in that Space. If you want absolutely all of your accounts to be in the family Space, please make sure you select them all. If you add new accounts to Emma in the future, and can't see them in the correct Space, you may need to edit your Space to see move the accounts over.
You'll also need to create a budget for that Space. This will be entirely separate to any other Spaces you have and will not have the same Custom Categories, although you can create them again.
Examples
Family Space
Sarah and Jamal are budgeting for their household expenses and their two children. They each have two individual accounts, a current account and credit card, and a joint account.
Sarah has their Emma Ultimate subscription and has created a Family Space for them and shared this with Jamal, who is on the free version of Emma. He is able to add two banks to Emma on the free version, so Sarah adds her two individual accounts and their joint account to the Space.
Because accessing the Space gives Jamal access to Emma Pro features, he creates their budget. Sarah adds in accounts that can't be linked to Emma via Open Banking using the Offline Accounts feature. These accounts include Jamal's pension, Sarah's ISA, and their saving accounts for their children. This allows them to see their financial position more clearly.
Jamal uses the analytics feature to look at their past spending. He has to recategorise a view transactions, and makes use of the transaction splitting feature to allocate one transaction across two or more categories. Jamal looks at how much they spent on Christmas presents and activities last year, so that they can better budget for this year.
Joint Space
Kofi and Max have moved in together and have opened a joint bank account. Kofi is already keeping a track of his budget with Emma, but wants to track their shared expenses separately to his personal ones.
Kofi upgrades to Emma Ultimate and creates a Joint Space which he shares with Max, who is on the free version of Emma. He adds their joint account to the Space, Max doesn't need to add any accounts as they just have the one joint account.
Kofi creates a budget for the Joint Space which includes categories like housing, bills, and groceries. He creates a Custom Category to track the costs for their cat, Pebbles, who is an important member of the household 🐱
Kofi still has his own personal budget in his Space, which includes his own expenses like entertainment, personal care, and eating out. He also uses Emma's autosave feature to save each week, and his Emma Save account remains in his personal Space where it can't be accessed by Max.
Max and Kofi now both get notifications from Emma when their bills are due and when they are or aren't on track with their joint budgeting.
Business Space
Alina is self-employed and has two business. She wants to set up a budget for each business along with one for her personal finances, so she creates two Spaces in addition to her Personal Space.
Each Space has its own budget associated with it, and its own custom categories to fit the needs of Alina and her businesses. The Recurring Payments section shows her that she has been paying for her gym membership twice, out of two different accounts, so she cancels one membership.
Alina adds Offline Accounts to both her business accounts to show how much she has invested in each one. She can then use the Net Worth feature to track her income, expenses and debt.
Updated on: 19/02/2025
Thank you!