
Ask HN: Why aren't there any good personal finance apps? - aml183
I am planning on buying software to track my expenses and income. I realized the only two realistic choices are mint.com and Quicken. Seems like a big market. Why aren&#x27;t there more competitors?
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bobfirestone
One of the big problems with financial data is there is no standard API to get
data out of the financial institutions. Mint is a glorified site scraper. As a
user you are giving mint your username and password to login and trust that
they won't do anything malicious and that they will protect your data.

~~~
zhte415
There are standard APIs, and in some countries they're coming into law to be
offered this year.

Mint itself, like a lot of personal/SME finance apps, started out as a layer
on top of Yodlee, or a similar service, at the time providing a
technology/data layer for other apps to work with, so it was less giving
passwords to apps, but having them pass-through to a heavy lifter. I agree
giving passwords away is not wise, however.

I could talk for hours on on changes in APIs happening over the next couple of
years here if you fancied. If you'd like to know more, just reply saying so
and I can drop you a mail.

~~~
Jtsummers
I'd actually be curious to know some of this stuff. Email is my handle at
gmail.

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ng-user
I'm pretty happy with YNAB, have been using it since September. People
complain about having to manually add transactions but I find it helps keep
you disciplined to a further extent.

~~~
laughfactory
My wife and I have been using YNAB (You Need A Budget) for years now and
absolutely LOVE it. It's truly been a game changer for us. Before we found
YNAB I would've agreed with you, but now I point everyone to it.

I hated Mint, and Quicken, and Microsoft Money (back in the day), but for us
YNAB really nails the sweet spot. It empowers you with your money without
bogging you down.

~~~
lastofus
How many hours a month do you spend on data entry of expenses? This has always
been the biggest deterrent for me.

~~~
Jtsummers
My time commitment varies, early on it's high, but then it's gone down to
saner levels as I've used it more.

For purchases, I put in less than one minute per transaction (for data entry).
For bills, I set them up as recurring scheduled transactions on the same day
of each month. I then verify them when they become current, shifting the date
or the amount as needed, takes a few seconds for each one. I've done the same
with my income (reliable, salaried, paid bi-weekly).

I _only_ track cash assets and CCs. My investments, retirement accounts, and
other assets don't get tracked because I don't consider them part of my budget
(though contributions to them are). So once a week (more early on, getting the
hang of things), I go to my bank and CC websites and make sure I haven't
missed any transactions, clear all the ones they show as cleared, and
reconcile all accounts. This takes less than 5 minutes per account if done
this frequently.

All told, I'm probably spending less than an hour a week in YNAB, and half of
it is updating the budget itself as income comes in and needs to be allocated,
or verifying that I have the money before making a purchase.

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flukus
Have you looked at Gnu Cash
([http://www.gnucash.org/features.phtml](http://www.gnucash.org/features.phtml))?
I'm not recommending it because I don't use it, but I've heard good things
about it.

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willhallonline
I am running QuickBooks business for my personal finances. I realise that it
has some parts that are not needed, but it is good that I don't have to learn
anything new. Also my accountant can directly see my finances to do a return
if required.

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c-pack
I've had the same dilemma - the options right now are either to give a service
access to your bank accounts, or manually track expenses in a spreadsheet.

I've been working on a POC type of project where instead of connecting to your
bank account, the service would just parse the email alert that gets sent out
any time your card/account is used.

There's more up-front work with setting up alerts for your accounts, but this
way you get the benefits of automatic expense tracking without worrying about
your bank credentials.

~~~
zhte415
Reconciliation should be done at some point.

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mcgrath_sh
I use Beancount, but there are several Plain Text alternatives here.
[http://plaintextaccounting.org](http://plaintextaccounting.org)

I have found this to be the best way for me to track my finances. I can easily
get information from CSVs that I download and am able to use plain text and
tools surrounding that (snippets, python scripts) in quite an effective
manner.

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spoonie
Ledger (ledger-cli.org) is very flexible and powerful. It doesn't have a UI,
though, which could be why it's not as popular.

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dsacco
I thought about this a lot, and I have worked for and with a variety of
consumer finance companies.

I would say the number one reason most consumer finance software suck
(especially mobile apps for budgeting or aggregation) is because they try to
tackle social problems with technical solutions.

My experience of developing, securing and working with these apps is that, for
the most part, they quickly reach a cap on how effective they can be without
becoming _very_ opinionated. Most apps could use more opinionated money
management features. Instead, you have a hundred apps in a very crowded space,
all of which try to solve your inability to budget your money effectively with
a polished UI and more information than you'll reasonably use.

~~~
mbrock
I'd love to hear some ideas about almost excessively opinionated designs for
this stuff.

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nnn1234
There is an access to data issue. This is a trust issue from the user side and
a competition/regulation issue on the banking provider side.

Ideally the gap shouldn't exist because enough people are clamoring for these
services, Asset Management the umbrella term is a high touch activity and the
banks and managers make a killing by going after high net worth individuals.

A lot of startups especially after the chatbot and AI craze are working on
this issue.

Let's say a startup comes up with a solution, would you trust them with access
to your bank account?

~~~
nnn1234
Let's face it , the decentralized ledger folks have a nice moat on these
ideas. Blockchain tech would default enable this kind of thing

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michalpt
I personally love using [http://www.spendee.com/](http://www.spendee.com/). It
is simple (maybe too much for someone though), fast and has a sleek UI. They
recently launched bank accounts syncing but I haven’t tested it yet since I
prefer to add my expenses manually :)

~~~
aml183
It looks like it can be very good, but doesn't integrate with Simple and
Robinhood. :(

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jlizzle30
I've been toying around with the idea for an app that allows you to create
virtual bank accounts on top of your traditional bank accounts. This way you
could organize your money/investments according to its use (eg. Travel
savings, house down payment, pizza money, etc). Anyone think this would be
useful?

~~~
madamelic
The issue with banking apps isn't the app itself, it is getting the data and
connecting to banks.

If you are serious about this, I would look into Plaid but I would probably
recommend VC funding because I am sure integration isn't cheap (if other
providers are anything to go off; they cost thousands per month)

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bbcbasic
You can get gnucash for free.

That aside there are hundreds of competitors. It has to be the most saturated
software market.

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zazpowered
There are actually many such as Albert, Penny, Clarity Money and Level Money

