GlidePath Money

Your first 10 minutes with GlidePath

What to do the very first time you open GlidePath. By the end you'll see your accounts, your net worth, and your first real number from the planner.

Beginner 6 min read

You just installed GlidePath. The dashboard is sitting in front of you and you’re not sure where to start. This walks you through the ten minutes that turn a blank app into one that actually shows you something.

What you’ll learn

  • How to add the people in your household
  • How to add your accounts (even if you only have two)
  • How to take your first balance snapshot
  • What you’ll see on the dashboard once that’s done

Before you start

You don’t need anything — not even balances. You can put rough numbers in now and refine them later. Worst case: nothing here breaks anything, and your data lives in plain files on your PC you can edit by hand.

Step 1 — Tell GlidePath who’s in the household (2 min)

The first question the planner needs answered is: are you planning for yourself, or for a couple? Tax brackets, Social Security math, and standard deductions all hinge on this.

Open the Partners page from the left nav (it’s under Setup). Add yourself first — name, birth date, and whether you’re the primary planner. If you have a spouse or partner you’re planning together, add them too.

[Screenshot: /Partners page with two partner rows for the Acme demo family]

Try it: Open /Partners ↗

Step 2 — Add your accounts (4 min)

Now open Accounts from the left nav. This is the list of every place that holds money you care about — checking, savings, 401(k), IRA, brokerage, mortgage, credit cards. Everything that shows up on a statement somewhere.

Click Add account. For each one you’ll enter:

  • Name (anything you want — “Chase Sapphire” or just “Joint Checking”)
  • Type (Checking, Savings, Retirement, Loan, Card, Real Estate, etc.)
  • Owner (you, your partner, or Joint)
  • Current balance (rough is fine — pull from your last statement or your bank’s website)

[Screenshot: Add Account form filled out with demo data for “Acme Joint Checking”]

You don’t need to add every account today. Start with the five biggest — that’s enough to make every other page useful. You can add more later.

Try it: Open /Accounts ↗

Step 3 — Snap your first balance picture (1 min)

Open Monthly Close from the left nav. Click Snapshot all balances.

That’s it. GlidePath just froze today’s account balances as your first historical data point. Next month, when you do it again, the difference becomes the first segment of your net-worth trajectory chart.

[Screenshot: /MonthlyClose page with the “Snapshot all balances” button and the resulting confirmation]

The snapshot is the seed. After two or three monthly closes you’ll have real movement to look at on /NetWorth.

Step 4 — Look at the dashboard (2 min)

Click Overview in the top-left to go to the dashboard at /. You should now see:

  • Net worth — the sum of your assets minus your liabilities
  • This month’s cash flow — estimated from your recurring patterns (we’ll add real transactions later)
  • Setup progress — a checklist showing how far through onboarding you are

Every number on the dashboard has a small (?) button next to it. Click one to see the formula and the assumptions. If you want every explanation open at once, toggle Explain Mode in the top bar.

[Screenshot: Dashboard with net worth visible and Explain Mode toggle highlighted in topbar]

What just happened

You went from a blank app to one that knows your household, your accounts, and your starting balances. Every other page in GlidePath — the planner, the cash flow tracker, the debt views — now has the data it needs to start being useful.

You also took the first balance snapshot. That snapshot is the first dot on a line that will eventually be your net-worth trajectory. Add another one in 30 days and the line starts to draw itself.

Where to next

  • Categorize a month of transactions without losing your mind — once you’ve imported your first CSV, this is the next step
  • Your first Monte Carlo projection — coming soon — if planning depth is the reason you bought GlidePath
  • Use the Explain button — coming soon — the single most useful UI feature, and the easiest to miss

Ask Glide about this

Open the ✨ Ask Glide panel in the top bar and ask: “What’s the difference between net worth and cash flow?” Glide answers concept questions like this without ever seeing your actual numbers.

Common pitfalls

  • Balance numbers don’t have to be exact. Round to the nearest hundred dollars if you want. The monthly close process will refine them automatically over time.
  • Adding every account on day one is overkill. Five is plenty. Add the credit card you forgot about next week — your data isn’t going anywhere.
  • The Setup checklist is friendly, not gating. You can skip steps and come back. The app works with whatever data you’ve given it.