Budgets Again!

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Budgets Again!

Postby cppwood » Thu Jan 17, 2013 2:58 pm

Hello!

As per subject line I am again asking about the plans for what seems to be a low priority for you guys but important for a lot of people who purchase personal finance software? Why the low priority?

If you look around at any of the other finance programs out there, they all have basic budgeting included bolstering my point of importance vs. a nice to have option, why, because people want to gage real world spending against a real world budget they can afford. Reasonable yes?

Your product has a lot to offer and have been following it for years on these 60 day trials whenever I get a new machine - I have quite a few machines at home which helps so I know this issue has appeared before with no results. Disappointing to say the least. I know you have been working on your web app which I have tried, sorry to say it's not there yet for me, but I'm not sure I would use it all that much anyways, so, the importance of keeping your desktop up to par (budgeting) is ultimately more important to me.

I'm sorry if I sound so angry/bitter about this, but I guess I just don't understand your reluctance to act on it when every other personal finance program I've looked at has had budgeting in their product for years?

This time I'm hoping for a more positive response to this with a real intention to get this done!

Here's hoping for the best. You build it I will buy it, it's just that simple.

Kindest regards
Christopher
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Re: Budgets Again!

Postby mthadm » Fri Jan 18, 2013 11:15 am

So let us ask you a question:

When we studied the issue we couldn't find something that was practical enough to use, most of the examples we have seen to date were borderline useless.

What are the good software packages that have budgeting that works for you? either on mac, pc or online?


Thanks
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Re: Budgets Again!

Postby cppwood » Fri Jan 18, 2013 12:56 pm

Sure that's easy!

1) AceMoney - PC
2) Moneydance - PC
3) Mint - Online

AceMoney, Moneydance and Mint they all work, as in they provide clear (budget vs. actuals = difference) per sub-cat. Total produced overall for Budgeted column, Actuals column and Difference. These sub-totals were produced for the income, expense and overall so that you could see where you stood financially whether it be by month or year, whatever date parameters you set.

AceMoney in particular, offers the ability to select any given month(s) for special budgeted items e.g., Lawn care which only occurs between March and September that you may include an expense which will show up in it's entirety say 35.00 per month without it affecting any other months budget limit, i.e., it is not divided evenly into say 12 months it's limited to the month(s) you choose - which is good. Moneydance can do this but you need a separate line entry for every month you require and I believe they call it "non-pro-rated" so the system would not take the budgeted amount and spread it out mathematically throughout the entire year. I don't want to see Lawn Care outside of the months specified above!

I am currently looking at Mint and I find their budgeting tool pretty good their graphic representation of how much I'm spending as the month goes by is actually very revealing and for example if my grocery/gas bills start to climb higher than I would expect mid month I can take action on this and be much more aggressive in my spending cuts. This works for me as I haven't been over budget on these categories in 2 years - before it was money out the door and before you know it you've redlined!

The one software package for windows I didn't mention was Fortora Fresh simply because their support is simply not there - to bad as the program actually has the best laid out budget reporting but it does only show items that contain a budgeted amount, it doesn't also show non-budgeted items like Ace or Moneydance - I prefer to be shown non-budgeted items as well.

The combination of your good looking reporting and a good budget would give me the best of both worlds, 1) I don't have to be online like Mint, 2) I don't like grid style reporting especially when having to print off a budget report - sometimes that's required, it's like using a hammer to drive a point across.

I hope I've given you some helpful information but now I have a couple of questions for you.

You say quote:
"When we studied the issue we couldn't find something that was practical enough to use, most of the examples we have seen to date were borderline useless"!

Question 1: What examples did you look at?
Question 2: How did you determine what was practical enough to use, definition of "practical", would be helpful so I know what it is that you think is borderline useless?

I am not asking for envelope budgeting and I know there are many that like that but I am fine with standard budgeting tools that the above mentioned provide.

I would be more than happy to look at and provide feedback at anything you could do here, I've got lots of data and I run a couple of different packages that I can compare it with once there is a report to look at. I can assist you when designing the input side I'm assuming you do it in the categories section or provide a separate interface no big deal here, I've seen them all.

What's important to me is that I get the quality reporting you are known for, your reports look fantastic!

Anyways thanks for listening and yes I will give your online app another go when it goes live.

Kindest regards
Christopher
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Re: Budgets Again!

Postby kmitch » Sun May 19, 2013 7:50 pm

A budget function is very important to me as a new user testing this software. Is there any priority on including a budget function in future builds?
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Re: Budgets Again!

Postby mthadm » Sun May 19, 2013 9:17 pm

Hello,


We are evaluating budget functionality at this point,


Thanks
---
MTH Software

Reminder: MTH Software employees will never ask for the username and password for any of your banking or credit card accounts.
Please do not provide this information when using our contact form.

My Money download page: http://www.mthbuilt.com/download.html
My Money manual: http://wiki.mthbuilt.com/My_Money_2.0_Manual
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Re: Budgets Again!

Postby PeteLucas » Mon May 20, 2013 9:41 am

Hi
I'm new to My Money but its seamlessly imported all my MS Money data quite effortlessly.
Having searched endlessly for over a year due to the non support offered I used Quicken but no UK support which is really BAD! and at last found this which seems very like MS Money. As for budgets - Well very subjective. MS Money budget very poorly designed. YNAB is good on budgeting but doesn't track investments which is not good. I think a budgeting tool would be of use in the My Money software but please make it a SIMPLE envelope system whereby you can roll over underspends and move allocated sums around. Flexibility a must. MS Money was not flexible enough on a budget... Just a thought from a newbie :-)
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