1. cloud based/harvesting as much data as possible and/or 2. subscriptions
I prefer apps like for example Omnifocus [1], that give you:
1. the ability to client-side encrypt your data so your data won't be sold/misused, and 2. instead of making profit of selling your data, simply let you pay a larger amount upfront for it instead. Thus, you also know exactly what features you're paying for - as opposed to subscriptions...
[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/omnifocus-3/id1346190318?mt=...
I'd also prefer that service be the one "mining" my data (to provide a better service to me) than being a middleman ferrying my data off to advertisers and third parties. Honestly, if the app/service can really make use of my data, I'd usually prefer handing it all over to them so they can do their job better over having some kind of offline experience for the misguided sake of trying to protect my privacy. Give me the option to give you data and show/tell me what you're going to do with it, and I'll happily give it to you 9 out of 10 times.
My ideal price is somewhere between a subscription and a one-off payment for something for most things, with no ads in either and some kind of cloud-based storage/backup/assistance in both. Obviously there's a lot of context left out here like how one-off payments don't work when you're paying server fees each month, etc.
My SO and I used Wunderlist for a number of years. After my wife noticed a very unexpected advertisement on Facebook, I read the privacy policy. At that point, I didn't feel comfortable putting even basic groceries in anymore.
You basically can't format notes at all on mobile and changing a note on mobile for me just borked the desktop formatting.
Will be great all-rounder when that is sorted though.
my webapp is cloud (old style webapp, not that much cloud if you ask me) but for the simple reason that I allow users to cooperate (couples, families). I'm going for the subscriptions model because I'd like my customers to be those who actually use the app and not some effing corporation leeching more profits from my users.
I did wonder though about the hyper-sensitive users who prefer running the app and data themselves. To be honest, the answer is to use a different, ideally open source, software like gnucash, ledger/hledger, or beancount (I used the first two myself). which all come with their own limitations.
Would there be a market for me to offer my rails/mongodb/... app as a docker container that you deploy wherever you like? I'd not even bother about DRM.
For all the emphasis we put on design principles and naming conventions, we collectively suck at naming our products.
Then again, maybe that name is genius.
The description is accurate. Putz is the simplest of budget trackers. Categories / Expenses and a progress bar. Nice. Fun to play with but won't unseat my current toolset.
I'm starting to feel I've "outgrown" it, but it's been literally my hub since 2012.
I also use Personal Capital, but Simple's new protected goal isn't exposed there, so I just... stopped using it.
Few suggestions I have from playing around with it:
1. It's not clear when I click the "add a budget" what it's for. There's the top-level "November 1-15" type of budget and then those budgets have categories, but the terminology could maybe use some work here. The term "budget" to me is usually synonymous with how you're using "categories" - e.g. we have a grocery budget.
2. I wasn't really expecting the ellipsis button to be a delete. I usually expect it to be like a context menu. In general it seems like the ellipsis button does different things in different locations, which is a bit of a bad pattern IMO.
3. There's a few spelling errors, e.g. "ammount" in the "add a budget" overlay
4. It's a bit weird that when you start a new budget it's immediately in the red (color-wise, at least). I feel like $0.00 left to spend should still be in the black.
5. "Track Spending" is only available for the first budget, but you can imagine that I might make next week's budget before this week is over, so it's a bit annoying that there's no "Track Spending" button on the previous budgets. I realize you can still click into the old budget, but still.
6. There's no way to edit expenses in the budget if I mistakenly add a wrong number, or if there is it's very unclear to me.
7. Negative numbers aren't allowed but you can imagine that this would be pretty useful for things like rebates or if I get a refund on something (though this is pretty related to the last item).
Anyway, love the idea for sure! Short-term budgets are pretty helpful and not something that Mint really provides, so excellent idea.
The homepage doesn't provide enough information to convince the user to register.
I saw a registration form without knowing anything about the service/app/features/prices/benefits.
Website: "You want new clothes, an iced coffee, but does it fit your budget?"
Oh the irony if the user were to get ads for new clothes and iced coffee...
I've come to realize that for the gainfully employed, above-average computer user, Excel/Numbers/LibreOffce (but mostly Excel because of PivotTables) is probably the way to go for a few reasons:
- You're looking for a post-mortem/retrospective on your spending as a way to adjust habits accordingly, not a way to pay off huge debts (YNAB is actually quite good for this latter part, but that's not what I'm looking to do)
- You don't want some program's buggy workflows getting in your way when the data is /right there/ and basically just a table of CSV values
- You want custom reports, charts, and other things
- It's just really not that hard. Any bank will allow you to export financial data in CSV or a similar format.
I just export my data every month and do a post-mortem. Easy enough. No extra cost.
I agree with you that the CSV the primary valuable artifact. Most of the pie charts and such don't add any value. The real opportunity to improve lies in the thought process I face at each individual spending decision.
- a default set of categories would be useful
- I don't always add expenses immediately, so being able to change the date would useful.
- the ... in the overview window prompts you to delete a budget! seems dangerous
- ditto on another comment, there's no way to edit an expense.
- It might be interesting to setup Income and then allocate budgets based on % of income to automatically calculate budget targets.
Nice work.
* no way to copy a budget (it's the same categories every month!) * colour scheme isn't that great (lack of contrast, but that might be me) * only $, no € or ¥. currency is a text-field! * no date on the stuff I spent, sure I could use the Note field but it's cool enough * can't "end" a budget prematurely. sure, there's "custom" but no big phat arrow pointing me at the same default which is "1st of this month to the end of this month". * can't do negative amounts. yes, I'd like to do that * having upcoming or past budgets feels weird, the blue (why blue?) "Track spending" button only shows for the oldest one. * no reports at all
About your website: I would have liked to get info without registering. The explanation is short, and the only links are to sign up or sign in.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.helloexpen...
Revolut already does it, so does my bank.
