
Truffle: Finds business deductions in your personal spending history - tyre
https://www.gotruffle.com/
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woogiewonka
Is it just me or is anyone else bothered by Plaid privacy policy on the
information they collect? I want to use this app but reading through that
privacy policy is the stuff of potential nightmares. "collect information
including: account numbers, routing numbers, names, balances, history, loan
info etc etc..." pretty much everything. Umm no thank you.

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exolymph
Don't they need that info to perform the basic functions of the service? Or
are you concerned about it being stored long-term?

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callmeal
>Don't they need that info to perform the basic functions of the service?

That is a limitation of the OFX version 1 protocol that is used by banks to
exchange that data. OFX v2 does away with real account numbers in the api in
exchange for account identifiers. The problem is that not all banks have
switched to the new api, which was only finalized back in 2006, so give the
big FIs a little time to get with the program.

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simonebrunozzi
Great idea. I personally just hate the stereotypical "customer" (in this case,
Karen T.) with a quote that is probably fake. Even if it's not fake, I hate
the "category" so much that I end up disliking the service on that front. Note
that I might be rather peculiar in my hate for these "business quotes", and
please take this feedback with a grain of salt :)

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ryanwaggoner
Can you elaborate here? Testimonials, case studies, reviews, and other forms
of social proof definitely have a huge impact on conversions, so I’m curious
about how it can be done better in your view, or if the entire idea is
anathema to you.

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simonebrunozzi
For me personally (and probably NOT for customers in general), seeing a
$FIRSTNAME $LASTNAME.charAt(0) is a negative (e.g. Laura T., Tom B., Frank S.,
etc), and seeing something that looks like a stock photo is also a negative.

These two things combined together make me doubt that the customer reference
might be fake (and nobody is ever going to challenge it!).

Instead, tell me something like "$RealFirstName $RealLastName, VP Product,
$RealCompany", and I immediately believe you.

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seanwilson
Great idea. Any hints on what a typical freelancer is forgetting to expense?
$13K sounds crazy high.

I'm a freelance software consultant working remotely and there isn't much I
can expense as far as I know (working from home costs, hardware, software,
insurance, accountancy fees, mobile bill).

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warent
Agree with this. Unless you're frequently traveling for business or making big
work-related purchases, I'm finding it hard to believe that you could provide
a compelling argument to the IRS that you have $13k in expenses. "Meals" is
not a deductible expense, that's a personal expense and the IRS will nail you
for it.

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DeusExMachina
I guess that depends on the country.

I live in NL and (I checked with my accountant), I can deduct the cost of
coffee I get at the cafe where I work, provided that I drink it while working.

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seanwilson
In the UK, it's along the lines of you can only expense food and drink if it's
an expense that occurs while traveling away from your normal place of work for
business purposes.

Without travel expenses, purchasing lots of hardware or online service costs
for running a project, I'd be interested in what people are expensing if their
expenses are above say £5K a year.

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zallarak
I helped make Truffle. Here to answer any questions and thanks for stopping
by!

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welder
Don't people normally just use separate credit cards / bank accounts for
business vs personal expenses?

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JumpCrisscross
> _Don 't people normally just use separate credit cards / bank accounts for
> business vs personal expenses?_

Every year my accountant tells me to do this. And every year I lose cards and
get distracted by promos.

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bryanrasmussen
right I have two cards, but hey I misplaced one card whatever am I to do with
this necessary expense right now?!

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cm2012
Already did my taxes this year but saving this link for next year. I spent a
good amount of time this week categorizing expenses for my taxes.

Unfortunately, I also used HSBC last year which sucks at integrating with
places, but I just switched to Azlo which is supported well.

FWIW, my feedback - I need a way to filter larger amounts of transactions at a
time. I just connected all my credit cards. 100% of my uber and hotel usage is
personal - it looks like as is I'd have to select each one instead of being
able to search "uber" and check all to remove them.

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zallarak
Thanks for the kind words, friend.

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kissickas
Your site looks just as beautiful with NoScript on! Thanks.

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victor106
Looks like a cool app.

But what is stopping an application like Mint or Truebill to offer this?

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dflock
In the case of Mint, Mint is stopping Mint. They've essentially been on life-
support and have added no new features in that last ~decade, afaik.

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arawde
in terms of the features that are there now, what would you recommend using
which has more active development? Mint's UI is hot garbage, but it does what
I need it to do...

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toomuchtodo
[https://www.personalcapital.com/](https://www.personalcapital.com/)

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kenneth
You can use it as a Mint replacement without any of their Wealth Management
offerings? How do they make money? What are the hidden costs?

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toomuchtodo
The aggregator is a loss leader. You do not need to use their wealth
management offerings. There is no cost.

I’ve tried to give them money just because the aggregator is so good, and they
said no thanks.

Disclaimer: Just a happy user of a financial tool.

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sokoloff
Seems like finding employee expenses that were missed (where you could recover
100% instead of your marginal rate) is another use case here.

If I miss a few Ubers and a few airport meals that I should have filed expense
reports for, that's real savings to me as well. That might be a harder use
case (separating the fly shit from the pepper in terms of personal vs
business).

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nightski
A few Ubers? That's going to make the difference between taking the standard
deduction and itemizing for you? Interesting...

Also for the meals it doesn't really help much unless you already keep every
receipt.

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sokoloff
Scenario I posted was: As a W-2 employee, I may have failed to file an expense
report for a company-related Uber trip (where I need to file an expense report
to get all of it back).

I generally have iPhone snaps of any receipt that is a business expense. I
just don't always get around to doing the paperwork afterwards...

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kenneth
I have my (rather messy) taxes done by a professional accountant every year,
and he saves me a ton of money by doing things like this. I'll have to see if
this report can help him with a more accurate picture of my expenses.

First thought is I wish there was a way to bulk edit transaction.

I also have my rent which it picks up as a "utility," and which should be
partially deductible as a home office. Doesn't seem to be able to handle that
slightly more complex use case yet.

Taxes are complicated…

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zallarak
This is great feedback. We'll add bulk edits soon!

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vadansky
Assuming this doesn’t work for Canadians?

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zallarak
No, it does't yet... Sorry.

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blackdogie
So has anyone used it ? It seems like a great, well thought out idea. I just
want to make sure before I drop $40 and give save a few hours of accountants
costs.

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zallarak
If you’re not satisfied we will refund you.

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sriram_sun
Great idea! However, there wasn't a whole lot in my account's analysis. I
can't seem to find the delete button. How do I delete my account?

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zallarak
Just send us a message on chat.

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jv22222
I've been wondering.... Are bank records like this good enough to replace
receipts? Or do you still need to know how to get the actual receipts?

Great brand BTW

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zallarak
It looks like bank statements are sufficient but I’d check with your
accountant: [https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-
employe...](https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-
employed/what-kind-of-records-should-i-keep)

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fauigerzigerk
No, it doesn't look like that to me at all. Bank statements do not usually
contain nearly enough information on what was purchased. They are proof of
payment. That's why they are listed on that page among other supporting
documents like invoices.

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arosier
Love how readable your Privacy Policy is.

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robot_jackie
The website looks like got ruffle, but this looks cool!

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zallarak
haha that's funny! Now that you say it, I can't unsee.

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mimiii217
This idea is amazing. I always use my personal credit card to make business
purchases. I’ll try this before tax season!

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hacktavist
Definitely using this during tax season this year!

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mtmithani
Love it!!! Saving so much money, as a engineer I pay way too much in taxes!

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hrdwdmrbl
This is why I find Mint so terrible! It had such potential to enable things
like this, but just never did anything after being bought by Intuit. This is
also another reason why I think Bitcoin / crypto will be huge, because a
company like Truffle could get implemented without needing crazy integrations
with every existing financial institution. It could just use open-protocols. I
already use a product in the same space called
[http://cointracker.io/](http://cointracker.io/) which I'm able to give my
public keys to and it can do my taxes.

