Youngblog

This really seems to be the year of personal finance apps. Wesabe was the first out of the gates but it looks like it will shortly gain additional competition from a number of interesting startups, including Mint, Jwaala and Geezeo--admittedly weird product names (except Mint, which I like for its elegance and simplicity), but potentially breakthrough applications.

Back in 2000 I was working on a personal PHP application that connected to my online bank accounts and automatically categorized my transactions, alerting me of any potential budget shortfalls. I even went so far as to write a fairly polished business plan for the idea. Unfortunately the application seems to have been in a nearly perpetual rewrite ever since I got it half working back then. The latest incarnation was going to be in Rails, but it looks like some of these folks might beat me to it. Faced with the fact that I probably won't be able to finish it in any reasonable time frame, I don't mind letting other people see my business plan anymore, if only to be able to say, "It was my idea first!" :-). I should add that the financials in the business plan were pretty much pulled out of a hat, and are the weakest part of it, but the concept and the market research is pretty solid, albeit out-of-date now.

In my opinion, one must-have feature for any online budgeting application is the ability to categorize my transactions and send me customized alerts without having to use an uploader on my own system or be connected to the internet. This is where Wesabe really falls short. I don't mind trusting a company with my online banking passwords, if they are really bringing all this added value. This kind of a system allows my personal finances to be almost on auto-pilot. Another important feature for me is sane budgeting. Most applications, including Money and Quicken, continue to reset your budget amounts every month, even if you overspend in some categories. I need to be able to have balances carry over from month to month, so that I can keep track of my overall performance, and I need to be able to view my budget over a year and not just a month. Here's hoping that one of these new offerings will see the light.