If we’ve been a little quieter than usual here, it’s probably because that past few months have been more about polish than big announcements. Once iBank Mobile hit the streets and we made it through the release of Snow Leopard, we spent the fall making minor improvements to the iPhone app (the next update will include French localization) and some updates to iBank and iBiz largely centered around bug fixes.
One of the areas where we’ve made great headway is in resolving issues in iBank data import. Most users have been successful in transferring their Quicken data since the early days of iBank 3. Occasionally someone with really complex accounts, or many, many accounts, or decades of transactions presents us with a serious challenge. But every time we untangle one of those knots, it makes the process even smoother for everyday users. This became even more critical early in the year when Microsoft announced it was throwing in the towel on MS Money. Many more Money users than ever came looking a new finance solution in iBank, and we’re happy with the way their data is porting as well.
All in all we’ve had a great year at IGG. Even with many new voices in the mix, we still welcome your comments. iBank is your software as much as it is ours, so let us hear where you want it to go next.
Thanks,
James
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Hi, great news. When is the next release of ibank Mobile due?
Im ready for iBank 4.0…. When will we see that?
I am all about going paperless. Receipt images using iPhone anyone.
Hey I didn’t say that LOL…. But im for it!
Okay, so I’m facing the end of Microsoft Money in 2011. The account balance forecasting feature of this very nice program has been my financial security blanket for many years. It allows me to see on a DAILY basis my account balance and I use the lowest balance that it clearly shows as my gauge to how much I can spend. I hesitate to go into detail here about how it works because I have commented on it in the suggestions forum many times and get the standard, “Thanks for your comment. We’ll add your comment to our list” type of reply. With MS Money I can edit individual instances of reoccurring transaction. I can also see that my lowest account balance no matter how far in the future it may be.
I would buy your iBank product and your iBank mobile product if you would just spend some time on the forecasting feature and the reoccurring transactions feature. I think that is the direction you should go. If you don’t do it, I am going to brush up on my own Cocoa programming skills and be your competition.
Bryan I don’t get it? “Forecasting Feature” I can solve this for you… ” OK today I have $100.00, Tomorrow I get paid and my paycheck on average is $600.00. Therefore I forecast I will have $700.00″
I hope iBank does not implement this… Just budget and you will know what is going to happen in the future.
Oh ok Jacob, let’s just all go back to ledger pads and pencils then. Your brilliant!
As a relatively new iBank user, and a (former) longstanding Quicken user, I’d like to thank iBank for the responsiveness, the commitment to creating and evolving a great product, the interaction with the customer. You guys are great. Top of my wishlist for future features: direct bill pay.
Happy 2010. and thanks again for not taking your customer base for granted.
I have been using iBank for about 16 months and I am generally pleased with the the software. The most important thing any developer can do with this kind of app is make it simple to use. The core functions of any personal financial software are: Transaction Entry; Budgets; Scheduled Transactions; and Reporting (Charts).
Here are my suggestion for improvement of the core functions:
Transaction Entry: The register needs to have an additional column to separate credits and debits. Sometimes it is difficult to see a transaction when the only thing that separates the two is a minus sign.
Budgets: The Budget Monitor should have an additional column called “Remaining”. The red and green bars are a useless feature in my opinion. For instance if I need to know what I have left in the “Grocery” category, I have to get out a calculator and figure it out. Also separate income and expenses in the Budget Monitor just like in the budget master file.
Scheduled Transactions: This feature has a strange bug that Jon has tried to fix. Editing scheduled transactions such as a paycheck that has category amounts (deductions) that change month-to-month will not save properly. I think I have found a work-around for now, but it still needs some debugging. Also, adding a Paycheck transaction to the transaction type drop down menu would eliminate the need to use minus signs to separate gross pay from deductions. This could be done by having a field/column for gross pay and the same for the deductions.
Reporting (Charts): I would suggest simple charts that provide a “portrait view” of income vs. expense for a user defined categories. The current charts are all “landscape” and very confusing and unattractive. Maybe hire a graphic designer to help with the appearance issue. iBank has a nice clean on screen appearance, the same should be true of any chart it produces. I can’t put into words what I see in my head, but a talented graphic designer should be able to design several reporting formats that are functional as well as pleasing in appearance.
I look forward to the new release!
Well, after spending too much time on a head-to-head comparison & simultaneous use of Moneywell and iBank, the iBank folks will be pleased to know I’ve decided on iBank as my new personal finance management software.
It was a tough decision… there’s one feature in Moneywell that is soooo compelling to me that it almost beat out iBank… the ability to attach receipts. I know in iBank it is possible to use any image or PDF for the thumbnail of a transaction, but that’s all it is… just a thumbnail. In Moneywell, I can click on a thumbnail of the receipt, which opens in a larger view within the app, and I can then click to view the raw/original file via Finder. This one awesome feature of Moneywell couldn’t top the combination of cover flow, iCal integration, iPhone app availability, widget-based entry and investment tracking capability that iBank has.
Given that iBank IS a financial app, and just about any financial transaction has a receipt/statement/confirmation associated with it, I think it is vitally important that iBank have the ability to store this info, or reference an external source, whether it be a file or something within another popular app, like Evernote. Of course, what would REALLY put iBank over Moneywell with this feature is if the receipt could be OCR’d and searched so when I need to find a receipt for say a shirt to go back to the store, I can easily search and find it.
I’ve completed an eval of iBank vs MoneyDance vs MoneyWell vs YNAB vs iFinance vs what I expect of Quicken Essentials 2010 and I think I’m going to purchase iBank. It really came down to iBank and MoneyDance. MoneyWell was in a solid third place.
I just want to say good job and point out a couple things I’m looking for in a 4.0 version.
In case you use Agile development, this is a REALLY easy one. In MoneyWell and YNAB you can quickly see how you are doing in each budget category (envelope) on the sidebar. Very slick… and probably very easy to duplicate.
I really got used to Bill Pay but I have to say that it comes second as a feature to budgeting.. I would love to see a feature that shows your monthly spending (by envelope/category) when you click on the category on the left side. Again, pretty easy. Take a look at MoneyWell to know what I mean.
Bill Pay.. Please just set a target date. I think the only thing that really held me back from buying iBank once I heard about MS dropping Money is that I really don’t know IF you will ever have Bill Pay. MoneyWell’s development team issued a statement that said the next version WILL have Bill Pay. This would cause it to jump past both iBank and MoneyDance in my chart.
Please do away with the black backgrounds in your charts.. My eyes hurt. 🙂
Coverflow? Ugh.. I keep thinking this idea came from a Agile iteration planning meeting where someone said to the Product Owner, wouldn’t it be cool if … 🙂 It’s a bit silly. Less glitz, more guts please.
Sorry to seem scathing, but I’m a Product Manager and Agile Product Owner and I know how it all goes. Good luck in 2010. I hope to see that I made a good choice with iBank. Prove me right be getting 4.0 out there with better budgeting and Bill Pay.
Bill pay is critical. I just did an evaluation of iBank and MoneyDance since Quicken is gone when Lion comes out. The only must-have feature that stopped me from getting iBank is online Bill Pay. It is critical.
Otherwise, I would have purchased iBank in a heartbeat.