Why I created personal finance app

I created a new personal finance app. I know, I know … why another personal finance app? Quicken has been around since the 80s. Mint came out in 2006. YNAB in 2004. The list goes on. So why create a new one in 2022? Well, a few reasons …

Sync-ready, local-first, and privacy conscious

I’ve been using a personal finance app since the late ’90s. In fact, I recently found some floppy disks that contained my Quicken backups from the early 2000’s (?). I (obviously?) can’t open those files now, but I was laughing at myself starting the backup process, putting in floppy after floppy to get everything backed up on to a “safe medium,” hearing the little click when I inserted a new disk and the whirr when Quicken was writing to it. I moved away from Quicken sometime in the 2000’s. My password manager says that I created my Mint.com account in 2008, so it may have been around that time. I’m not sure how long I used Mint, but I do know that it’s one of the few regrets I have in my life. And I’m not a regretful person. I continue to live near Philadelphia despite having the means to live somewhere else. No regrets.

Anyway, I eventually turned to YNAB and was quite happy for a while. I could store my data in Dropbox, budgeting was kind of fun, they had an app for my iPhone, etc. Life was good. Then YNAB decided they didn’t want to sell me a piece of software that I “owned” anymore; I needed to buy a subscription. And I needed to store my data with them as part of that subscription. I felt like I did after I lost the election for eight grade student body president. This felt wrong for so many reasons. Why do I need to pay them for upgrades that I may not want? Shouldn’t that be my decision? Point in case: one of the first “features” of the new software is to store all my data on their servers, which I didn’t want!

So I wanted something that was local first, privacy conscious, but was built with syncing in mind. I wanted to store my data on my machine, but be able to sync it to my other machines without having to store it on someone else’s server. Storing my data on a centralized server may be convenient, but it should not be a requirement. That’s why Add Rabbit stores everything in a local file. It will work if you are online or offline, no questions asked. And it knows you will eventually want to sync it with other devices, so it is built with syncing in mind. And all the syncing happens between your approved devices. The only thing you use our server for is to connect your devices. Learn more about Add Rabbit syncing by reading the security article in our docs.

Better functionality

If the only thing I wanted was a local-first tool, there are a few options out there. But I also wanted features tailor-made for a local-first workflow:

Searching. Finding your keys when you wake up to go to the gym at 5 am is a lot easier than finding your keys when you wake up at a stranger’s house after a long night at the bar. Searching for a transaction with Add Rabbit is a lot like the former.
Easy imports. I do not plan on giving out my banking credentials to some rando. But I also need to make sure I record every transaction, so importing needs to be easy. The current desktop tool can import OFX files (CSVs are next) and matching them to transactions you’ve already recorded is usually a five-minute exercise. We can usually auto-match most of your transactions which takes less than 30 seconds (including your review time). You may have to manually match a few more which could take another 2 or 3 minutes. Then you simply record the rest.
Easy reconciling. If you’ve imported your transactions, reconciling will likely be a 2 minute exercise (since you’ve basically already done it!). But it’s nice to lock everything in so you can’t accidentally change something. You’ll also have a record of the last date you know your balance matched your bank’s balance exactly. And if something is off, you can use our powerful search tool to figure out why it doesn’t match.
Simple reports. We don’t have all the reports built that we want, but the most important ones are there. And they are easy to use.
True envelope budgeting. I don’t know why, but I always had a little bit of trouble understanding YNAB’s budgeting functionality. It was easy enough to understand “giving every dollar a job,” but I didn’t understand how it all worked exactly. Add Rabbit budgeting is still a bit of work-in-progress, but I tried to build in true envelope budgeting. This means that your budget is based on how much money you have — that’s it. If you have $100 in your checking account, that’s what you can spend. If you spend it on credit card bills or food, that’s up to you. If you don’t have enough money in your checking account, you can increase your credit card debt (not advised, but possible). There is no complicated formula, so you know exactly what’s happening.
Multiple budgets. The other thing I didn’t like about YNAB’s budgeting was that there was only one budget. This may seem like not that big of a deal, but I found it to be a major PITA to deal with my health savings account. My HSA funds can only be spent on medical expenses, but there was no way for me to “isolate” these funds from the rest of my budget. Add Rabbit can deal with multiple budgets so you can segregate these funds, but still try to track them in a budget.

There are other minor things (like shortcut keys, etc.), but nothing major. And you can see that most of the improvements are more of a mindset change than anything else. Add Rabbit is built to make the do-it-yourself type’s life easier.

Personal Goals

This is probably less relevant to you, but I’ve always wanted to start a business. I was recently a CEO of a private-equity backed financial services company that was sold in 2021. I liked my job, but I feel like a lot of “Corporate America” is too focused on “the bottom-line.” I want to build a company with a culture like Zappos’s. If you are not happy, that’s our fault — not yours! That’s why:

The desktop app is free. We want everyone to be able to manage their money. Especially if you can’t afford to buy a tool right now — you probably need it more than most!
Syncing with other devices is affordable. You should only pay for something if you feel like you are getting a great value. Purchasing a subscription supports the development of the desktop app, the syncing technology, and the mobile apps (iPhone is almost ready for launch and Android will be next).

I believe that if you build a great product and manage costs appropriately, you won’t need to worry about “how do we extract more money from the customer.” The money will take care of itself.

Roadmap

Here are a few items that are on the roadmap:

Release iOS app.
Recurring transactions.
Better reports.
Different currencies (right now only handles one currency, whatever that may be).
Build and release Android app.
Improve app performance.

The iOS app should be available in January, 2022.

Conclusion

If any of this sounds interesting to you, please download Add Rabbit and try it out! If you want to be notified of news or new releases, sign up for our newsletter below or follow us on Twitter.