

CashFlow forecasting for small businesses and freelancers - jaimeiniesta
https://www.wisecashhq.com/

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thibaut_barrere
Hi there - I'm the guy behind WiseCash (SaaS service, in beta since July).

The homepage is not yet ready for the general public, nor for a "Show HN"!

I'll happily answer questions though.

Here's an internal newsletter archive if you want to have an quick look inside
though:

[https://www.wisecashhq.com/newsletters/acquiring-more-
financ...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/newsletters/acquiring-more-financial-
freedom)

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Here are a couple more screenshots:

[https://img.skitch.com/20121016-bjwqug4i7kymcaakc843y8b1kx.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20121016-bjwqug4i7kymcaakc843y8b1kx.jpg)

[https://img.skitch.com/20120722-rwkkn37g2p53stndgttbxsgqma.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20120722-rwkkn37g2p53stndgttbxsgqma.jpg)

~~~
reitzensteinm
Looks like a cool product!

If I could make one suggestion; if possible, you shouldn't be showing
screenshots forecasting loss/deficit. It might not be rational, but finance is
so important that even fictional losses are not pleasant to look at. It's sort
of the equivalent of having unhappy faces in your stock art.

There's a reason the Google finance favicon is steadily increasing graph!

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Thanks! WiseCash is a labor of love for sure - glad you like it!

It's a very good suggestion and it has deep ramifications.

Mostly: the divide between people without a recurring income, and the others.

Most freelancers I've talked to have planned expenses, but planned income, not
so much.

This results in this typical graph :)

I'd like to encourage people to think about creating more recurring income
over time. The time-wealth WiseCash computes is a good way to spare some time
to build a SaaS product, for instance.

So thanks a ton for this comment, it really got me thinking!

I will very likely use more positive screenshots in the end, and will work on
encouraging people to reach that situation where they have a growing chart.

------
chime
The screenshots look great. I like that you support Euro (and will hopefully
do dollar and other currencies too) - just make sure you get the commas and
periods localized well (
[http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/06/10/jquery-
glo...](http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/06/10/jquery-
globalization-plugin-from-microsoft.aspx) ). The bootstrap UI looks sleek but
I recommend styling the buttons to make it look slightly more customized than
the default bootstrap CSS.

Also, you should check out my free app: <https://zetabee.com/cashflow/> (see
the demo and update the dates/amounts to play around). It has similar features
and is very much like the original spreadsheet I used myself. It has burn rate
(balance), monthly (income vs. expense), and many other views/lists.

My biggest feature request has been multiple simulations/forecasts so users
can do what-if scenarios. Also the ability to easily ignore/disable rules with
one-click to help with this. Either I get the new car or don't. Check/uncheck
to see how it impacts the future. I've been very busy with my other projects
and have not updated this app in over two years. I hope you guys can
incorporate these features into your app so I can forward the heavy users to
you. Good luck!

~~~
davidw
> The bootstrap UI looks sleek but I recommend styling the buttons to make it
> look slightly more customized than the default bootstrap CSS.

I'd think it'd be a much better use of their time to improve the product,
especially seeing as how they don't think it's ready to be released.

The number of people who have any idea what bootstrap is or looks like is
dwarfed, by orders of magnitude, by people involved with small businesses and
freelancing. So unless you're targeting snooty design folks who get offended
that someone would sully their site with bootstrap, get on with the features!

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Given that I bootstrapped the service on my own saved time, bootstrap was an
easy choice, just like knockout.js, dotcloud (hosting), recurly (billing).

I really wanted to avoid a born-dead app, and leveraging bootstrap and these
other tools was very encouraging.

On the couple hundred of beta-testers, nobody complained about bootstrap,
unsurprisingly :)

------
Aidan
This looks fantastic! Cash flow has been a major pain point for me, and quite
an unexpected one with a rapidly growing apparel company
(<https://www.kigu.me>).

We've been managing this using a spreadsheet but tracking loan repayments,
stock purchases, postage, cost of sale and salaries as well as picking a
useful scale (daily vs weekly) has been a real challenge.

I can't wait for an invite.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Hey - I'm inviting you this afternoon! Thanks.

------
lleims
Looks really interesting. As a freelancer/writer I sometimes don't know how
much to charge and I've never found it easy to manage my cashflow.

Looking forward to receiving an invite to the beta :)

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Will invite you this afternoon so you get an idea! Cheers.

------
typicalrunt
The splash page is leaving a lot of questions in my mind, and the invitation
to give my email address (just to find out more) is a bit of a speedbump.
Reading the comments in HN I can see other people asking how your service
works.

My suggestion is to take your answers to those questions and use them on the
front page to provide a bit more information to hook potential customers like
myself.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
I totally understand and do agree! This wasn't meant to be posted on HN as is
(although the app is up and running since July at least, with people using it
daily).

The splash page is a placeholder I put in place a long while back and it does
not explain at all what you'll get inside the app (and what you won't get).

A proper home page (with detailing benefits, features, privacy policy,
pricing, and a screencast) is on its way.

Thanks for taking the time to underline this :)

------
saturnflyer
I'm glad to see this here. I've been a beta user and it's really helped me get
a good view of how far into the future money will take me.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Glad it helped :)

------
ericboggs
I didn't look closely, but if this product builds a direct-method cash flow
statement from a balance sheet - then you've got a winner. Quickbooks - the
default small business accounting product - does a HORRIBLE job with the cash
flow statement.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Once WiseCash becomes profitable, I plan to work on automating data extraction
from various tools (like QuickBooks, FreshBooks etc most likely), either as a
first time setup or a full sync process.

I think WiseCash will complement those tools nicely.

Thanks for the suggestion!

------
jaimeiniesta
I'm using it as a beta user, and I find it really helpful.

I used to do this kind of things with a spreadsheet, but this tool automates
it and gives you nice charts.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Glad you like WiseCash!

We (my wife and I, co-founders) also used a spreadsheet a long while back and
it got fairly hairy.

We built WiseCash both to create a secondary income apart from freelancing and
to help out people get more freedom like we managed to.

------
codegeek
sorry i have not signed up yet but how do you get the required data to create
the forecast ? I mean are you using an automated aggregrator (like yodlee
etc.) to pull bank details, credit card info etc ?

~~~
thibaut_barrere
WiseCash (currently) requires that you input the planned expenses and income
(using recurrence rules).

It makes no attempt (for now at least) to pull existing data from sources.

I will work on that topic once we are profitable though.

------
bluewater
hard to tell from the screenshots but do you or would you consider adding a
weekly look at cash flow vs. only monthly? looks like a nice product in the
making though :)

~~~
thibaut_barrere
I will work on choosing different scales on all charts, including:

\- weekly vs monthly on the "breakdown" chart
[https://img.skitch.com/20120722-rwkkn37g2p53stndgttbxsgqma.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20120722-rwkkn37g2p53stndgttbxsgqma.jpg)

\- 12 weeks view instead of yearly view on the "burn down" chart
[https://www.wisecashhq.com/newsletters/20121013-mjckb43qgm6k...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/newsletters/20121013-mjckb43qgm6k5ihu3k13cetei2.jpg)

It's definitely a "baby product" in the making - I want to make it grow a lot
:) Thanks for the suggestion!

------
ar4s
If you're still giving some priority to HN users… /raises hand

~~~
thibaut_barrere
I'm working on an "onboarding screencast" to avoid blowing up under support,
then I'll invite pretty much everyone who left their mail (so 487 people, so
far :-).

