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Ask HN: Basic Personal Finance/Accounting Application

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Ask HN: Basic Personal Finance/Accounting Application

#1
Hey guys,

A friend and I are trying to put together a very basic finance/accounting app, where anyone will be able to easily record their expenses and income. We were looking for an existing app for personal use, but couldn't really find anything that's very simple in features and usability. We found ledger (http://wiki.github.com/jwiegley/ledger/) to be the closest, but want something that's Web-based. We are looking to build the app exclusively for "tiny enterprises" (i.e. personal use, households, single person businesses, small businesses and early startups).

The most basic feature will be the ability to record (or upload a CSV with) income transactions and expense transactions; and generate a simple summary report at any time.

We'll really appreciate any ideas and suggestions which we can address in our product, mainly:

1. Do you have a use for such an application (basic accounting, no frills, no extra features)? If so, what one feature would you like to have and what one feature you wouldn't want in the app?

2. Should we base it on single-entry or double-entry accounting? Or maybe something altogether different.

3. What sort of report(s) do you envision, if you were to use such an app?

4. How do we deal with data security? Many individuals and small businesses may not be comfortable with us storing their transactional data.

5. If you were to use such an app, where will you primarily access/use it for its full worth - desktop/laptop, smartphone, tablet?

Any guidance, tips or frank opinions are welcome! Thanks in advance.

Re: Ask HN: Basic Personal Finance/Accounting Application

#2
Clickable Ledger link: http://wiki.github.com/jwiegley/ledger/

People who use ledger seem to universally swear by it. It's been on my list of things to play with but I haven't gotten to it yet.

I wonder if you couldn't build a server and web front-end for it, in the same vein as GitHub for git. They even identify the problem begging to be solved:

"Ledger is a powerful, double-entry accounting system that is accessed from the UNIX command-line. This may put off some users, as there is no flashy UI, but for those who want unparalleled reporting access to their data, there really is no alternative."

Re: Ask HN: Basic Personal Finance/Accounting Application

#3
1) Yes!

2) Both, I guess. For users not familiar with GAAP, you could ask them to choose the type of transaction - Receipt, Payment, Bank Transfer etc., and receive the entry in a single-entry form.

Power users would prefer double entry. IMHO, the data should always be internally represented as double entry so that you can extract proper accounting reports.

I'd built a DOS based software 4 years back that followed my idea of what a simple accounting software should look like. I'd thought on building the web version of it many times, but stopped short of taking the plunge.

If you're interested I'll share the code - you can run it on DOSBox. My mail id jasim dot ab at gmail com

Re: Ask HN: Basic Personal Finance/Accounting Application

#5
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Re: Ask HN: Basic Personal Finance/Accounting Application

#6

Clickable Ledger link: http://wiki.github.com/jwiegley/ledger/ People who use ledger seem to universally swear by it. It's been on my list of things to play with but I haven't gotten to it yet. I wonder if you couldn't build a server and web front-end for it, in the same vein as GitHub for git. They even identify the problem begging to be solved: "Ledger is a powerful, double-entry accounting system that is accessed…

I actually learned accounting basics by using ledger. Loving it.

Re: Ask HN: Basic Personal Finance/Accounting Application

#8
I use Moneydance http://moneydance.com/. It's not a web app but runs on java. Uses double-entry accounting.

All though that said I would love a website that didi it. To answer (5) I would use it on both my laptop and my phone. The phone version would be to just enter transactions on the spot while the laptop would be used to reconcile for expenses etc.

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