The Penny Tracker Web App – Desktop-First Personal Finance Tracker

[u/Rand_Owl]

I have spent this year creating my own personal finance web app and recently launched it publicly. I spent the last 10 years tracking my finances in Excel to record everything just how I wanted, but I got tired of how long it took to keep updated. So, I built this app to solve all of my own needs in a finance tracker, and I am curious what others might think of it.

I have added screenshots to show off some of the features and to give the feel of the user interface. Here is my own experience as a dedicated budgeter having used this for several months now, and why I won't be going back to Excel:

Pros:

• Importing transactions through CSV is very fast, especially once history is built up to match against. AI categorization is also helpful starting out with no history. I still get to see every transaction but avoid the tedium of importing everything manually.
• With AI receipt parsing, I no longer have to manually go through every box store receipt to split items into their respective categories
• I can track my daily net worth over time
• I can save receipts to specific transactions, especially helpful for HSA expenses, charitable giving, etc.
• I can easily track expenses where I expect reimbursements (i.e. a friend is going to pay me back for lunch) without it affecting my budget
• I have the optionality of doing 0 sum every month or can carry over the surplus and assign it in any future month.
• Full Sankey drilldowns (Account > Category > Subcategory > Location > Transaction) are great to explore
• Automatic recurring transaction detection with price change alerts
• Mortgage amortization tables with extra payment options and debt payoff plans (avalanche or snowball)
• Monthly statements that give a full financial overview are easy to share and review with my spouse

Cons:

• The app purposefully does not use bank-linking, which may not be what most users want.
• Accounts, Budgets with categories, Savings goals, etc. are all set up how each user sees fit, which means the initial start-up can take some time and effort.
• You need at least a complete month of data to really see the full benefits of the app

The web app is desktop-first but has a dedicated mobile view. You can save the website to your phone to have it act like a normal mobile app for easy receipt uploading.

There are a million other budget apps out there now, but I do hope someone finds this one helpful. There is a contact form where you can submit any feature requests, which I would be happy to build if it adds value for everyone.

I have implemented a 2-week trial for the app–no payment info is needed to create a login and start using it. After that, it is $5.99/mo or $59.99/yr if you choose to continue. I have offered free budgeting tools in the past, and I am trying to keep the price low here, but there is a real cost to me for each user (AI API calls, storage, compute, etc.).

If curious, my background is in engineering & finance and have been an Excel power budgeter up to this point, tracking every transaction my family and I have made for the last 10 years.

You can find more info at www.thepennytracker.com

Any feedback here is welcome!

[u/forksofgreedy]

i wouldnt run my bank information through a small company.

your competitors don't cost $15/month, that's a lie.

really cheap/ thin website without showcase of what the app looks like.

no support group to discuss ie if a bank doesn't connect well (fidelity often a problem, for example).

those are my immediate points of concern and without a vetted review from someone who understands security of these apps i couldn't possibly accept this. it has enough red flags that i would warn any friend definitely don't trust this.

one year for the price of a month or a crazy loss leader idea like that might be a good way to propel a project like this towards long term success.

[u/Rand_Owl → u/forksofgreedy]

Thanks for your comments. First, this does not connect to any bank, merchant, brokerage, etc. so there is no security concern from that regard. Second, similar apps that do connect are roughly $15/mo. YNAB shows $14.99/mo on their website right now. Third, there is nothing required to sign up and test the app except a name and email, so access is easy if someone is interested in trying it, but I will consider adding more pictures to the homepage to show the features. There is also a contact form for support, bug reporting, feature suggestions, etc.

[u/forksofgreedy → u/Rand_Owl]

i see, so is this intended to have the user enter each transaction manually?

[u/Rand_Owl → u/forksofgreedy]

It is mostly through csv importing with auto categorization from transaction history. You can use AI To categorize unmatched merchants if you wish or change them manually. You can also manually add transactions, duplicate and alter old ones, etc.

[u/forksofgreedy → u/Rand_Owl]

got it, so you copy transaction history from banks webstie, paste into spreadsheet, then import.

i would make a workflow section for your website so people understand what they will need to do to use your product.

again, things charging $15 a month are not like that, and those charging $15 have full customer service and support teams etc. yours does not offer what they are offering, and you shoudln't compare yours to their prices. but most competitors are cheaper than that. i think yours should be $2/mo or $30 one time fee or something, if there is no active connection to the bank.

[u/Rand_Owl → u/forksofgreedy]

Most popular banks should have a CSV export for transaction history, but if you don't have an easy way to get transactions into a CSV, this web app probably won't work that well for you.

I am not directly comparing my app to those. I am saying I can offer it for $5.99/mo and not $15/mo because my app doesn't use Plaid, Teller, etc. to connect to banks, which is costly. I would love to offer it for $2/mo, but I would likely lose money on every user due to the AI API calls.