I am very interested in the budgeting tools recently created, however, I feel like there is a lot of room for improvement. Some of the improvements require code audit and updates to the code, but some of the updates would be a change in the process.
Here are some of my ideas:
1) The new cash flow is great idea. I use it mainly to track the account that all our household monthly bills come out of, ie mortgage, utilities, payments, etc. Since 95% of the payments out of this account are recurring and auto-pay, I know they are due on one day, but the money isn't extracted from our account until a day or two later (longer if the due date falls on a Sat/Sun). Once the date has past, the cash flow transaction disappears if it remains unpaid. I think an improvement would be to allow a "grace period" for it to be marked as paid and linked to a transaction. I assume linking it to a transaction will "teach" the cash flow to know what to track and start auto linking to entries.
2) Another improvement to the cash flow enhancement, would be to customize when things are due. There are preset intervals, but for example, I have one bill due every other month. It's a utility, so it's not an uncommon bill or interval for people to have. I figured out a work around, but it would be nice to say pick it's due January, March, May, July, September and November.
3) The new goals feature, allow for a sunk cost goal. For example, I know I want to save up $X by Y date, help me know what I have to save each month. Or if I want to have a credit card paid off by a certain date, help me calculate the interest and tell me how much I have to pay on it each month to meet that goal.
4) Allow to pick which goal is a priority. You have preset options again, but it would be helpful to be able to customize the order things are prioritized. And not just within one category. You might have one savings goal as a top priority then a debt payoff goal as a secondary priority.
5) There is a flaw in the "Spending". It will pull transactions that outside the date range, or it will not pull transactions that are within the date range, or both. For example, mortgage is paid the first of the month. When the date range is set from 1st to 10th, it doesn't show mortgage transaction, but will show a restaurant transaction from the 31st. When the date range is set from 31st to 10th, it will show the mortgage transaction (as occuring on the 1st), and will still show the restaurant transaction.
I would really like to make this work perfectly. It's the best budgeting/spending tracking application I've used and I've used them all.
EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY LENDER