Visual Budget: Expense Tracking & Finance App Reviews

I have a spreadsheet to track my expenses. It is cumbersome to use so I tried this application hoping to save some time. The import feature requires manual reformating of my credit card download into the cvs format required by the app. This saved me no time. The app does not track the payees for each expense, only the categories. How is this useful? I will list the money I spent on this app in my spreadsheet under the category “lost money”.

EASY TO BACK UP YOUR DATA. HELPFUL.

Holy Cow! I thought this software would be wonderful after reading the description and the reviews. Boy, was I disappointed. This app is so hard to navigate. There is no tutorial and you’re stuck trying to customize an already set up example account to your needs. I just got frustrated and quit. I couldn’t find any help besides a one page website that only has premade questions. Period. There is no contact information and no way to look up additional help. If you’re looking for user friendly software to get your accounting together, this is NOT it.

This is very good and stable app! It has a lot of very useful graphics and is very straightforward. It is much more reliable than Cashculator and other apps I’ve tried. However, there’s 1 small issue. Sometimes when I have a lot of transactions with cents (0,03; 4,88 etc.) , second digit in fraction part of the “total amount” gets wrong by +1 or -1 cent.

Easy to use - easy to make changes. Lots of different options to view the data and make comparisons with different date windows. Well worth the $5!!!

Great sample is shown.

Limited importing options make it useless for me. Rude support staff. Waste of money.

The all the graphs are great but the import features are terrible. Transfers are not automatically completed nor do they have the option to complete when when importing files. Reoccuring transactions also do not give you the option of a alternate account to offset the transaction making a so called “easy” application very cumbersome. If you don’t mind a ton of extra work inputting transactions, this is for you.

This might be just cause I have an older Mac (from 2011) but as soon as I updated to Yosemite, the iCloud import/export functions got greyed out! Any idea what’s up? Otherwise, killer app!! I’ve used it for a year and LOVED it :)

Maybe it is a ggod product but it is not easy to use and there is no correct help. For instance, no way to find a way to remove the sample group with the sample account and the associated transaction. The help into the software is totally useless T_T

Per differenziare l’applicazione dalle altre, prego aggiornare la grafica. Snellire le procedure, inserire procedure automatiche, inserire una overview. Possibilità di rintracciare direttamente dalla overview le specifiche della voce di spesa. You asked for a feedback, here’s a slice of my time. To differentiate from the other application, please update the graphics. Streamline procedures, enter automatic procedures, insert a comprehensive overview that let’s you know the specific item of expenditure. [automatic translate]

Shuold be amazing have the possibility to create an export as excel file! I suggested to make this emplemantation at the next update, that I hope will be very soon! Sarebbe fantastico avere la possibilità di creare un export in formato excel! Suggerisco di introdurre questo miglioramento al prossimo update, che spero sarà molto presto! Jacky

Great start but missing some critical features in transaction entry, need a memo field and the ability to transfer from one account to another when scheduling reocurring transactions. The addition of a true cloud sync and the ability to download financial data from account webistes would be nice. A better reconciling process needed as well, but I am going to use this for a bit and see if I like it enough to stay with it. Looking forward to future updates and hope they are timely and not too many months apart.

so far its okay. I am hoping that this program will do what the iPhone/ipad app does not, show categories across all accounts and not just one account at a time. I was deeply disappointed in the iphone version because it doesnt matter to me what I spend in each catagory per account, it matters across all accounts. I bought the desktop version on sale figuring at least it syncs via an import/export function via icloud so that alone puts in a good light. Hopefully the developers will see the light. I will update once I am using for a month or two to let you know its true usability. Plus if I recall setting up the iphone app correctly, you need to add your catagories individually into each account. It is not a master database of catagories, which implies that a major coding rewrite would be needed to view catagories across all accounts collectively. So I doubt it will happen. Reading other reviews of the iphone app, others feel the same disappointment. I have tried about every other app in the app store for finances and budgeting. When not even MINT can handle a transfer correctly between accounts (though they claim since it shows up as both a debit and a credit it washes, but that is not true and the balances are not accurate) I leaves me with little hope but I keep trying. It seems I can get one feature but not another. Envelope style budgeting is OLD FASHIONED, its not complicated. Our grandparents during the war used a actual envelopes, ask them…it seems that the budgeting skill was not handed down as it should have been. And so far every developer gets it close but not hitting the mark. I am looking for the best of the bunch and hoping they figure it out. UPDATE June 3, 2013 I cannot upload csv files from my banking website. The software says you can but it has not worked. I have emailed customer support but my past experience with customer support has been anything but pleasant so I have little hope. I was actually "yelled" at because they didnt like my question. They were extremely rude and I called them on it. Anyway, I am glad I bought this on sale. I am not impressed, though I keep trying. I have decided to solve my budgeting problems to use my credit card for ALL PURCHASES and then use the budget catagory feature only on that one account. Since it wll not view budgets across accts collectively. Makes set up easier, I dont have to do each account. just one. further update June 3, 2013 After much searching (though I could have found it sooner, it wasnt really hidden, it was just me) I found the format for uploading a CSV file. Its completely useless. The field for the date is impossible to easily fix. the format accepts only five columns, nothing like what the software exports as a CSV file. Here are the file columns (pasted from the help section) : 1. Create an “transactions.csv” file formatted as follows (one row for each transaction, 5 different fields per row): category name (if this category doesnt exist, it will be automatically created) date (YYYYMMDD format) short description amount of money, signed (negative for an expense, positive for an income) means of payment (cash, check, etc., will be automatically created if doesnt exist) Check out the DATE (YYYYMMDD) No one in the USA that I have dealt with personally or professional writes the date like that and Excel does not have that as a formula that could be run to update each date. So if you download a CSV file from your bank, be prepared to do a lot of heavy editing. If you are gettng this hoping to download your bank info, its not probably the app you desire.

I think this is a great app, but Id like there to be some sort of automatic mobile syncing. Sure, you can export and import data manually, but Id like it to be already there if I open the mobile app. Speaking of the mobile app, why did I have to buy this app for both the computer and the phone? I feel like they should be one purchase. Finally, I like that you can make custom categories, but Id like custom sub-categories. Dont let me steer you away from this program however, definitely the best out there. Im a visual guy, so I love all the pie charts and graphs this app offers and its great to keep a college guys budget like mine on track, theres just room for improvement.

I love everything abou this app. it keeps track of all my credit cards and all my debit accounts and different funds. I would be lost without this app. Great job

Easy to use, tons of features, looks great. Perfect way to keep track of your expenses, I recommend it highly!

This app makes budgeting easy and I am continually finding new features.

I use this program several times each day. It helps me to keep track of my spending and budgets. I wish that it would allow me to transfer my girlfriend’s files to my computer so that I could have both her data and mine. As it is, if I transfer her data it will erase mine. As a work-around I’ll have to manually enter all of her data onto my computer.

Well, I suppose if you’re managing your money a great place to start would be saving the ten bucks you would have wasted on this dog. Glitchy, hard to use, non intuitive, help files are of course written in pidgen english and are both inaccurate and of little help. Bottom line- avoid, it’s a waste of time and money.