QuickBooks

Mint.com is a pretty cool online software that helps individuals manage and track their personal finances.

A friend showed it to me, and there really are some neat things about the software.  There are some drawbacks too, but overall I think I’m liking it.  It’s uber neato.

And it’s free too.  Sweet.

Pros:

1.  when you log in, your data automatically starts pulling from your bank account (after you’ve linked it to your bank), posting it to the memorized accounts that you’ve already assigned and create real pretty graphs to help you know how you are doing.

2.  the user interface is much more enjoyable to look at for non-financial people.  I use QuickBooks to manage my personal finances, and my wife gets a sick feeling when I start discussing actual-to-budget reporting, and comparing our net worth statements to prior years.  But she really liked the mint.com interface.  The graphs really are cool and populate and grow right before your eyes (see the Trends tab).

3.  the makers made “mobile” a focus.  You get cool looking emails, and “over-budget” alerts on your iPhone letting you know when your McDonald’s budget is $1,500 over the allowed expenditure limit.  Again, similar to #2, the alerts on your mobile phone look great.

4.  the “transactions” tab is where you define how your checking account splits things out to the various types of expenses you’ve created.  And this same tab has some really rad detail buttons on the right-hand side letting your quickly see how much you’ve spent in various detail levels of categories.  For example, you can see how much you’ve spent on groceries in total, or at Publix, or you can see your spending at Publix compared to the US Average.

5.  they have a budget feature, but I haven’t tried it yet.  But I’m for anything that helps us pleasure-loving Americans budget our lifestyles and keep us in check (I know I need it).

Cons:

1.  they don’t have every banks listed so if you use a local community bank, then this software basically eliminates you as a patron.

2.  same for #1 above, but insert “credit card,” “mortgage account” or “investment account” in the above sentence.

3.  mint.com uses some kind of service to value your home for you… just put in your address.  I don’t know where they get the data from, but it’s definitely wrong.  And it updates for you periodically, but if you ever change it to what you think your house is actually valued, then it will cease to update that value.  The lack of correct house value skews your whole net worth statement, so you can’t really use it as an official statement of your worth (but my net worth statement in QuickBooks has hip non-realized gains and losses journaled directly into equity, so there, dang it).

4.  they built a “Ways to Save” tab into everyone’s account to read your data and give you personalized ways to save money based upon your information.  But a lot of the savings involve getting a new freakin’ credit card.  Obviously, this is how they keep the software free… they have tons of credit card vendors paying to get in front of all of the mint.com patrons.  But I ain’t buying it (literally).

You should try it.  After all, it’s free, and it takes only a few seconds to get your bank setup.  Let me know how you like it.

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer

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