Moneywiz - iOS Personal Finance
Is Moneywiz worth it? I’d say so. There we are, simple answer to a simple question.
However, those that don’t know what Moneywiz is might be scratching their heads at this point. What is it and why is it worth whatever it is?
Intro
Moneywiz is an iPad and iPhone app from Silverwiz 
. It’s a personal finance app designed to be powerful but yet easy to use. Since I’ve got my iPad (and Mac), I’ve played with various personal finance apps but never found one I liked until now. I’ve clung onto using GNUCash on the Mac until now. I’ve tried a few others, such as YNAB and Money but never found one that was as powerful or as flexible as GNUCash. Which is a shame because lets face it, GNUCash is ugly and at times, cumbersome. Data entry is a faff but to be fair, it gets the job done (yes, some of us still do manual data entry! – Though YNAB recommends this approach (as do I for the same reasons) because it keeps you keeping a closer eye on where you’re monies going.)
However, I thought I’d take a risk for the £2.99 that Moneywiz is on the app store and I’m impressed. Enough to probably say it will be my sole account method next tax year…
First Impressions
First impressions of the app are good. The interface is clearly laid out and responds well in portrait and landscape mode. The picture above shows the design in landscape mode which allows easy access to the Accounts, Budgets, Reports tabs etc. In portrait mode, these are nicely hidden away but easily access as dropdown (is that the correct phrase for the boxes that appear on iOS?) menus to allow you to change.
You’re first asked if you want to setup a syncing account – no dropbox syncing here unfortunately, a feature the developers won’t be adding. I had seen an explanation why somewhere but I cant seem to find it for you now! I believe it was for how the data is stored – as the screenshot above shows, date and times are added to each transaction. I therefore think that to avoid duplication or overwriting of the file, the files are merged, similar in style to using Git or another DVCS and which by having the time makes it a lot harder to duplicate transactions across different devices. (Dropbox would overwrite the file with the new version and if a conflict was detected, a new file would be created.) For those interested in reading about Dropbox and database syncing, the Silverwiz post I saw referred to this article for further reading. Anyhow, needless to say this isn’t to much of an issue as it still works fine and you don’t have to sync if you don’t want to.
Pros
The app is very nicely laid out, adding new transactions is quick and it records your payee’s so if you do a lot of payments to certain payee’s, it makes it much quicker to enter transactions (for example, I start typeing Sainsburys into the payee box and it gives a dropdown list of payees starting with S then Sa then Sai as I type. Selecting it also fills in the description of the transaction as well, which makes it ideal when I’m entering regular grocery shopping).
Accounts can be nested which works extremely well – I’m a fan of nested accounts as it means I can keep track of all car expenses in one main account etc.
As far as the reports go, I’ve not found another iPad app that offers the range and custimisation of reports. I’m able to set months, between two dates, this year, last year and more! It means I can easily keep track of my details as I go. It’s quick to calcualte as well, though this could depend entirely on the number of transactions.
Cons
Whilst Moneywiz is an excellent money tracking tool, it falls a bit short for those that also have shares, stocks or mutual funds (or non-UK equivalents). The available account options are as shown below.
As can be seen, there’s no shares option there. However, I got around this limitation by using Google Finance to check my portfolio. Using this, it gives me the value of each share and my index fund so I just correct my “shares” account with adjustments every time I update it, using the value from Google. Not ideal but it works.
Also, deleting an account deletes all transactions – GNUCash allows you to move them to a new account if you wanted. This might not be an issue for some people but I change bank accounts (normally savings) each year to get the best interest. In GNUCash it wasn’t an issue, I started a new file for each year but I can’t do that in Moneywiz. So I find that I’m unable to remove accounts without deleting it’s entire transaction history. There’s no option to hide accounts from view either (which I wouldn’t mind and could potentially be the best option).
Lastly, the app doesn’t allow exporting of the financial data – QIF and QFX files are able to be imported but currently you can’t export your own. Hopefully this might appear on the Mac app but in the meantime if you need to export the data, you’re stuck with it on the iPad in whatever form Silverwiz use for storing the data.
Overall
Overall Moneywiz is a fantastic app. If you want to use your iPad to track your personal finances, you can’t go wrong with it. For the money, it offers excellent usability and news of the Mac app being released in April is good news for those that use the Mac for finance tracking. It’ll be good to see how the program ports over but if it’s as good as the iPad app, it’ll be a very serious competitor for any of the current Mac apps.
It’s certainly worth looking at and at £2.99 is a bargain.
Zombies, Run!
So I followed this app since I saw the Kickstarter page – I didn’t donate but I was quite happy to wait until the app arrived. I’m glad I did, it adds a bit of fun to my runs!
I tried it out today and got this as my first run.
Nothing fantastic but now I know how the app works, I’ll be turning on the Zombie Chases (basically HITT intervals!) just to mix up the runs a bit!
More details on Zombies, Run! can be found on their webpage
iPad Experiement - The Results
Early Morning
So the day didn’t get off to a good start really. Friday sees me paying some regular bills and moving some money around. Not an issue, I can easily check the payments using the Santander iPad/iPhone app. Easy. However, the problem comes in when I try and add it to my financial records. I keep these in GNUCash and with no iPad app, I’m stuck having to use the main desktop to enter the details in.
Easily done using the iSSH app which let me log into my home Mac, open up GNUCash and enter the details. I found the bluetooth keyboard to actually be a hinderace at this point – using the onboard keyboard was much easier. Once that was done, it was time to log off and head to work.
Work
So getting into work, it was pretty amazing to just get out the iPad, stand and keyboard – the whole affair was small and tidy, compared to my usual Macbook, mouse, hard drives, cables everywhere and paper and pen. This seemed much tidier than normal, possibly due to the fact the keyboard was the only accessory I had out and that’s wireless (bluetooth), compared to my mouse and charging cables.
Once that was all sorted, I started the Textastic app and got down to work. Textastic is a great app, with Dropbox and FTP functionality built in, meaning that I could easily connect to Dropbox, and download my LaTeX code to get working on my thesis. I prefer Textastc over other apps because it has this functionality built in and it support LaTeX syntax highlighting which is a great help (it also supports TextExpander snippets which I use on the Mac and therefore makes it fairly similar to working on my Mac). I found the ability to portrait layout the iPad to be a nice change from working widescreen across (which I’ve found to be a pain sometimes on the smaller laptop screen – certainly it’s not so nice for displaying PDF documents which tend to be portrait aligned).
I’m a big music fan (if you head over to my Last.fm page linked in the sidebar to the left), you’ll see that I’m a big fan of music (and Last.fm!). However, I only have the 16GB iPad and most of the used space on my iPad is used for apps. I have plenty of space for some music but not all of it. That’s where Audiogalaxy comes in. Install the help application on your home PC, set it find music and it’ll find it and stream it to your iPad or iPhone with the free app. No faffing with portforwarding or anything like that. It also supports on the fly Last.fm streaming so I don’t have to worry about connecting the iPad to iTunes to upload my listens! The app performed fantastically and also has a iTunes Genius style feature (called Genie…) that works fairly well.
Browsing was done using either the Tapatalk app or using Mercury Browser which performs nicer than Safari and allows me to set the default search engine and looks more like Firefox or Safari on the Mac.
I have it setup to use the excellent Duck Duck Go web search, rather than the default Google client as I’m no longer a fan of Google’s privacy policy and ability to track everything, even when they shouldn’t .
Afternoon
The afternoon saw me take an early trip home to do some work from the comfort of my sofa. Easily down when the combined weight of the iPad and keyboard is under the weight of a Macbook Pro. (The keyboard and stand weigh more than the iPad! The iPad 2 is 601g according to Apple and the Logitech Keyboard is 771g!)
Setting up, I was easily able to use it for a Skype conference call for a LSU Airsoft committee meeting where it performed fantastically.
I also took some notes on a book, noting them down in Writing Kit so that they sync automatically to Dropbox, ready for me to use on the Mac. This point is somewhere where the iPad falls down. I take notes in Markdown and then I copy and paste the output Markdown into Evernote on the Mac. For some reason, Evernote doesn’t remember (and sync) the copy and paste formatting unless I copy and paste in from Chrome (and only Chrome). Also, I attach the Markdown file to the note in case I need to edit it at a later date – this I cant do on the iPad.
Last thing before bed was to update my Day One journal. The easy sync between the iPad, Dropbox and my Mac means that it’ll remain in sync when I move back to the Mac tomorrow.
Overall
Overall the day was fairly successful in using just the iPad. However, I should point out there were a few instances where I needed to VNC to my home PC to sort out some work – this demonstrates that the iPad isn’t suitable for replacing a laptop completely (as a researcher, I have to use data analysis tools as well which aren’t iPad compatible).
However, as far as today went, the experiment went pretty well. It’s something I’ll be doing more often I think as I move from less research and more writing in regards to my thesis.
The main problem I found was app switching – it would be nice to have an easy method of switching apps on the keyboard (such as ⌘ + Tab on the Mac). In the mean time, it was best to double press the home button the Logitech keyboard and select the app I wanted from the recently used apps bar along the bottom. A bit annoying as it means I have to take my hands off the keyboard to do so but not the end of the world.
As far as the iPad goes, it’s not just a content consumer, it’s also incredibly productive. The instant on programs were great – something that some of the Mac programs could learn from!
5 Online Services I Cant Live Without
Those that are members of UKAPU will know that one of newsletters monthly articles is a 5 Items You Cant Airsoft Without. I thought I’d add a similar feature to my site.
I toyed with what software but decided to make the first one an article on online services I cant live without. So without further ado, I give you my list of services in no particular order. You might be able to argue that some of these are software services as well, which may well be the case but I’ll class them as online services here!
So everyone should have heard of the excellent Dropbox service by now (if not, have you been hiding under a rock?!).
Dropbox is an excellent, simple syncing tool and it just works. No hassle, no problems. In all the time I’ve been using it (probably nigh on over a year), I’ve not had an issue. Conflict with syncing files? It creates a conflicted copy and tells you and lets you choose the conflict. No internet connection? No problem, Dropbox will reconnect when it can and upload the work.
Built into a lot of mobile applications (such as the excellent Writing Kit and Day One now as well, mean that’s it’s use is firmly set in my daily work flow.
I’ve briefly paid for a 50GB account but currently I’ve dropped down to the free account. The price is worth it but at the minute, my referrals and extra space mean I have an account that is currently 8GB and I don’t need to sync my music so much that I’m willing to pay (though if they brought in a smaller service or started charging for the space I’m currently using, I’d happily pay as the software is invaluable)
Spideroak is another online hosting/syncing/backup service (well, mainly backup when compared to Dropbox). Initially I tried to run one service or the other but came to the conclusion that I couldn’t. Why? Various reasons.
- Dropbox is primarily syncing – it does it well. However, to keep changes to files for more than 30 days, you need to pay extra. Spideroak does that in it’s price.
- Spideroak’s syncing is a bit hit and miss. It’s difficult to see what has finished syncing and stay on top of what’s been uploaded etc.
- Spideroak gives a lot more space for the money, double what Dropbox offers.
So after trialling Dropbox and Spideroak together, I came to the conclusion that I’d use Spideroak for the excellent and cheap offsite backup – I backup all my documents and my music, as well as some odds and ends, such as my eBooks that I purchase from the Black Library and my GPS tracks recorded when cycling and running.
The lack of being built into mobile applications isn’t really a concern thanks to Dropbox but it’s nice to know that this is constantly updating my offsite backup of my files. Teamed with Dropbox, I’ve got a tool that will sync all my important documents to all my devices and then back them up to the cloud safely.
Evernote is a note taking program. Any notes added to it are synced to the Evernote servers and then to all your devices, be it PC, Mac or phone so you can have access to the notes anywhere, anytime. You can also add images, files and other items to it (if you have a premium account) and can store items for offline use on your phone.
Very quickly I paid for a premium subscription to this. $5 a month is a small price for the indexing, searching mind space that is Evernote. Dropping a thought into Evernote means I can pick it up at a later date and time. It’s a massive help to my PhD and all my notes are stored within it on the papers I’ve read, my thesis plans and ideas and my research notes. Extremely helpful.
iCloud is a new addition to the list and replaces the Google services. As a Mac user, with iPhone, it made sense to move to Apple’s offering, rather than Googles, especially as the new Google themes and updates have basically killed the service for me (the new theme is utter terrible and trying to use Google Reader without the use of desktop software like Reeder is a painful process). As such, it seemed to easy to move over to iCloud.
Since doing so, I’ve had no issues (other than my documented attempt to try and use Sparrow with iCloud here which is still occurring). Being able to sync all my calendars, contacts, reminders, bookmarks and emails to all my devices is a great help and fits nicely into my workflow.
I’ve yet to pay for the service as the current 5GB seems plenty for my current use (I don’t use photostream or the Pages/Numbers/Keynote storage).
Last.fm may seem like an odd one but over the past year, it’s been a fantastic source of insightful information on the music I listen to (I guess I like VNV Nation a lot!! ) and for finding new music based on what music I already like.
This ability to find more of what I’m interested in is great and the ability to listen to a radio station based on similar artists to what I’ve already scrobbled is great for times I don’t have access to my music but do have access to my Last.fm account.
That rounds up the 5 best online services I cant live without. However, there are a few that probably deserve a mention here that didn’t make the top 5 for some reason.
Imgur
This service is a great phot sharing service. I spent ages considering how I could spend money on some hosting to get a Imgur style site for personal use and decided I’d just pay the Imgur hosting price for the benefits it gives me as it’s so easy to use that I couldn’t replicate it elsewhere. It’s how I host images for this blog!
Tumblr
The host for this blog, Tumblr has been an excellent online service, allowing me to write this drivel and share images of cats. The ease of customisation and the ability to add your own domain name for free is a nice touch. Thanks Tumblr and keep up the awesome work!
Wordpress
Ok, so a competitor to Tumblr that I left for this site. However, it’s main use to me now is that Wordpress acts as my OpenID identifying service. Which I use on a fair few sites (normally, all that allow OpenID!) so I have to give a shout out for that.
So there we go, my top 5 online services. Hopefully that’s given people an idea of what’s out there and of the different services.
Set iPhone to Sleep After a Specific TIme
Didn’t realise the iPhone had this. Not really an issue as I tend to play an album on my Classic and then it shuts down but nice to know for the future should I have to move to an iPod Touch.
I swapped my MacBook for an iPad+Linode
Excellent article on working in the cloud using a VPS and an iPad.
