caudron
09-07-2007, 04:58 AM
I use Quicken for my personal finances, and like most people on this forum far prefer the simplicity of the mint interface and methodology. There is one important feature, however, that I'd need to make the switch in full: the ability to set up and view future transactions.
I understand the hands-off approach that mint is taking is a sea change from the way one handles finances in Quicken or MS Money, and so manually adding future transactions may not be something you want to add as a feature, but I have a couple of ideas.
1) You could consider offering a tie into our bank's billpay system, which would let us set up outgoing payments (or at least see payments we've set up with the bank?) that would allow me to see what money is coming out in the short term. Adding to that the ability to establish recurring transactions to enter me to input my paycheck info once.
2) Probably the more "minty" way to handle it would be to do some sophisticated predictive analysis based on previous transaction patterns that gives me a solid guess as to what my accounts will look like in the coming month. You can look for recurring (monthly, quarterly, and annually) bills and income sources, and make educated guesses about what's going to happen. That would be the total hands off approach that might best fit the minty stated goal is simplicity in personal finance management.
In any case, being able to see the upcoming week or month is a fairly important feature for those of us who move money around accounts based on need. I only keep the money in my checking account that I actually need to pay bills the rest gets pushed elsewhere (money markets, laddered CDs, 401k, etc...).
-Tom
I understand the hands-off approach that mint is taking is a sea change from the way one handles finances in Quicken or MS Money, and so manually adding future transactions may not be something you want to add as a feature, but I have a couple of ideas.
1) You could consider offering a tie into our bank's billpay system, which would let us set up outgoing payments (or at least see payments we've set up with the bank?) that would allow me to see what money is coming out in the short term. Adding to that the ability to establish recurring transactions to enter me to input my paycheck info once.
2) Probably the more "minty" way to handle it would be to do some sophisticated predictive analysis based on previous transaction patterns that gives me a solid guess as to what my accounts will look like in the coming month. You can look for recurring (monthly, quarterly, and annually) bills and income sources, and make educated guesses about what's going to happen. That would be the total hands off approach that might best fit the minty stated goal is simplicity in personal finance management.
In any case, being able to see the upcoming week or month is a fairly important feature for those of us who move money around accounts based on need. I only keep the money in my checking account that I actually need to pay bills the rest gets pushed elsewhere (money markets, laddered CDs, 401k, etc...).
-Tom