Era vs Punchcard (formerly Agentive)

Era links your bank accounts, cards, and investments to AI assistants through a personal MCP server called Context. You connect accounts once, then ask Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex, or any MCP client about balances, spending, and goals without uploading spreadsheets or leaving the chat window.

Most budgeting apps keep your data inside their own dashboard. Era takes the opposite path: it exposes typed financial tools over the open Model Context Protocol, with shared memory that carries goals and preferences when you switch assistants. Context is read-write, so an agent can categorize transactions, set rules, and move money between your own accounts only after you approve each transfer.

Era also ships Agency, a native app for proactive alerts and automations, and Thesis, a research-grade investing product. The free Basic plan covers two connected accounts with 250 daily MCP tool calls. Paid tiers add faster sync, edit access, higher MCP limits, and more connected accounts. Era Financial Advisors LLC is SEC-registered, and the company states it never sells user financial data.

Punchcard (formerly Agentive) is audit assurance software that runs engagements as structured units called punchcards: client evidence requests, substantive tests, and review steps that trace back to source documents. The goagentive.com URL redirects to punchcard.com, where the product is marketed as "the assurance system of action" for CPA firms, risk consultants, and their clients. CoAudit is the flagship punchcard for substantive testing, while Workpaper and Financial Statement Review handle spreadsheet testing and FS tie-outs.

Generic audit software tracks tasks and folders; Punchcard pairs each test with an agent that reads invoices, contracts, bank statements, and payroll files, then outputs workpapers with page-level citations auditors can validate. A Richey May case study on the site cites revenue testing across 41 selections and 123 documents in 30 minutes. That narrow focus on cited audit evidence is the trade-off: it is built for assurance workflows, not general document chat.

External audit teams at firms like RSM, Richey May, and JLK Rosenberger use it for client PBC requests, detail testing, and SOX control work. Internal audit groups get standardized procedure templates in the same workspace. Access is demo-led; the homepage highlights SOC 2 certification and GDPR compliance but does not list self-serve pricing.