I am back once again to talk about the new reporting engine in iBank. But before I do that I want to recap where we have been, and to give you a preview of were we are going. In “Too Many Secrets,” I started to describe why we wanted better reporting within iBank and what our overall goals for reporting were. I outlined four things that we wanted to achieve:
- Combine charts and reports so that you do not have to create a chart to get a report.
- Offer more options for specifying what accounts, categories and dates to include in a report.
- Open up the black box of “Where did this data come from?”
- Create more report types.
In my last post, “Image Is Everything,” I talked about how the new reporting engine lays out graphs, pie charts, text and tables to make beautiful, readable reports. Some of the feedback from those blog posts made me realize that I had neglected to mention two overarching design goals: simplicity and speed.
At IGG, we are not focusing on simplicity and speed solely for reports; we have made those goals a part of everything we’ve been doing, starting with the development and launch of iBank Mobile, and in iBiz 4 as well. We are constantly looking at how new features, or changes to existing features, affect the simplicity and speed of the product. iBank for the Mac has not seen as much of this yet, but that is changing. As I am talking about reports and the changes that are coming, please be assured that they will be simpler and faster.
So on to today’s topic: how to set up reports. Reports are all about answering people’s questions about their finances. We’re doing this in a way that offers more options to specify what accounts, categories and dates to include in a given report.
Let’s take a typical question that my wife asks: “What did we spend our money on last month?” (By this my wife is making the point that I spend too much on coffee.)
In the current version of iBank (3.5.5), I would create a new “Quick Summary Chart” and then select “Last Month” from the date pop-up, iBank would then fill in the dates 2-1-2010 to 2-28-2010 (PS3 thinks this is a leap year, but I digress). I would then name my chart and press “OK.” Now I have a new chart with the data I wanted — not too bad. But there are some problems. First, what happens when time passes? Next month when I want to know where we spent our money, I will look at this report and it will still have the date range for February… not what I want. So now I have to delete the report and create a new one so that iBank can apply the new date range for March… not practical.
But now with the new reporting engine we have smart dates. If you choose “Last Month” then the report will always be the past month relative to today. We have also added a new set of smart dates so that you really can have the data you want at your fingertips (you can also select “Custom Dates” if you want to have dates that are fixed and not relative to today). Here is the current working set of smart dates:
As I look at this report for last month’s expenses, it shows me taxes deducted from my paycheck, my mortgage payments and other expense that are fixed month over month. In fact, these expenses dominate the pie chart in iBank since they are by far my biggest expenses. But these are not really expenses I am interested in. For the most part, I can’t change these month to month, and from my wife’s point of view they make the coffee look insignificant. So I want to remove these expenses and just track my discretionary spending (and coffee, which some view as non-discretionary).
In iBank 3 this is fairly easy: I just delete them. The issue arises when I add a new category to my data file. For example, my son just started T-ball. If I add a category for T-ball expenses, any existing report would not have this new category in it. This is because iBank 3.5 uses a model where you have to specify all of the categories and accounts that you want to include in each report. It is like having a guest list for your categories — if a category is not on the list, it can’t come in.
With this new reporting engine we offer three ways to include categories and accounts. The first way is the one iBank 3.5 uses. The second way is an open door policy with an exclusion list: with this approach we include all the categories and/or accounts by default, and you can specify which ones to exclude. This would be like a bouncer at a bar were you let everyone in except for the people who are on the “do not serve” list. This is the method that I use most often.
The final method is for more advanced users: the rules method. This lets you specify which categories and/or accounts to use based on rules; for example “only taxable accounts” or “only expense categories”. This is like telling the bouncer at the bar to only let in nice looking, rich people. All of this sounds complex, but I assure you that it is a very simple interface. First, we have pulled all of these options out of the main reporting view and put them in a pop-up window. You access this window by double-clicking on the report. This is the report settings, and from it you can change the date range, currency, name, and accounts and categories to include. Here is an example for the spending report.
I hope you can see that we have added a ton of options on how you can configure your reports and at the same time, simplified the UI for doing so. Next time I will be taking about another consistently requested feature: the ability to drill down into the data, get more detail, and even edit it. In the meantime, we hope to hear more of your feedback.
James
- Direct Access 2 and Open Banking Support in the UK and EU - February 17, 2021
- A chunk of sync update - June 27, 2014
- 2013 In Review - December 17, 2013
thanks for the update. I appreciated both the care and thought that goes into iBank and also the behind the scenes looks at your development process. Keep them coming!
It looks like things are coming along and heading in the right direction. So glad reports are getting some love. Thanks for the update.
Looks good Keep us informed!!!!!!
Thanks for this. I was hoping the fix would be in by tax season, but I guess not…. 😉
Looks good… I am really excited… please allow easy comparison between actual expenses and budgeted expenses in the reports.
Is “Last Year” one of the selectable Smart Dates?
You need any Beta testers? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Will I be able to track three years of data for a church organization?Budget vs actual
I downloaded the update and can no longer generate any reports whatsoever. The data is in my accounts, but trying to generate a report gives me the error message, “No Data.” This was not a problem in the previous version of iBank – have the processes changed in some significant way? Support has been no help up to this point.
Support should be able to help you Lara. We haven’t made any changes to reports in the current version of iBank.
Are you including ACH (Automatic Clearing House) and/or EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer) type transactions in the pop-up list of transaction types for Bank Checking Accounts and Savings Accounts? Many of my transactions are ACH or EFT transactions (manually entered), and it would be most helpful if iBank could recognize and remember these types and autofill. Patiently waiting for the new reports engine!
What you have showed us in your update looks good. However, I did not see anything in the description about comparing the reported numbers to any benchmarks, i.e., budget to actuals. I think this should not be overlooked.
I am happy to see reporting is moving along. Will there be a way to customize headings and columns used in the reports? Also would like to see a year end archiving function. Looking forward to all these changes any estimate of when the next version will be available?
In the budget period you must include “once”, i don’t want buy quicken essentials, but… i’m waiting for ibank update
I had just written to Jon regarding reports… I am trying to prepare an ‘end of year statement’ for my small company and I cannot find an easy way to generate a report, limited to 2009, with totals for all my categories, including expenses and income. I might want to see only the totals, OR I might want to see the details, by category, to show my business partners. It is not a ‘balance sheet’ and it is not a ‘cash flow’ report (by month). It should simply allow me to create a report of the years activity, with ability to generate various levels of detail.
ALSO, in looking at a report, I may note an erroneous transaction. I WOULD LOVE TO BE ABLE TO CLICK ON THE ITEM AND BE BROUGHT STRAIGHT TO THAT TRANSACTION so I can edit/alter and get the item back where it is supposed to be! Can you do that, please? (is that what you mean by ‘drilling down?’
Does iBank (existing and under development) provide the ability to hide accounts with zero balances (such as inactive or closed bank accounts) but include transactions associated with those accounts, when appropriate, in standard and customized reports?
This look great – these are definitely the main issues with reporting. The one that’s missing is the inability to summarise by main category level – ie. when sorting by amount it would show the high-level categories sorted by amount, which can then be expanded to show the sub-level categories. Send me a mail if you want an example.
The updates all look really great – can’t wait to try them out!
Along the lines of simplifying the display and getting to the data you’re interested in faster, a feature I’d love to see for the normal transactions lists is the ability to hide reconciled and/or cleared transactions addition to of the last N days. It would be especially great if I could set my selections per account without going into iBank preferences.
Keep up the great work!
Please also add “All dates” to the selection list for report dates. This saves having to remember the initial date that data was entered, and then do a custom date entry. I use this type of search frequently.
This all sounds good. Are you planning to enable reporting on accounts in different currencies put into one currency. At the moment I cannot put together a report on the whole of my finances because some accounts are in GBP and some in Euro. And can Budget Monitor be adapted to do the same thing.
I’ve just spent the past 5 days entering all of my data for 2009 (and 2010) only to find the reports seriously lacking. I’ve been using Money for years, and it was easy to print a a category report with detailed transactions. It would give me a total for each category (i.e. Medical) and subcategory, as well as the individual transactions for those categories, if needed. Needless to say I was upset when I could not find anything remotely like this in iBank. Even if I could get a category summary for the previous year to print would be better than what I have. I did print a transaction report (40 pages) that I put in order by category, but no totals, and I’m concerned that there are a number of blank payees on the report (which are not blank in the register). In going to the category folder, of course I cannot specify a date range for the totals. Very frustrating!
I’m (still) in the same boat as Amy. It is TAX TIME and I can’t generate a really useful report. Maybe if I export as a QIF file and import it into Excel?? But I don’t know how to use Excel! CAN’T WAIT to receive the NEW IMPROVED iBank with awesome reporting capabilities. When is it coming?? BTW, have I said lately that I MOSTLY LOVE your program and I do appreciate your hard work! Thanks.
Now that I have this 40 page transaction report with lots of blank lines towards the end, I decided I would add up the categories by hand. There are transactions that I know that I put in, but they are not on the transaction report or the cash-flow report; however, they are in the register. Now I don’t trust any of these reports! Will this data transfer over to Quicken so I don’t have to re-enter everything again?
Quick question on the rules, can I put in multiple rules? For example, I have 2 accounts and have transactions in there with categories. Could I create a report that would say:
Exclude category A from account B
Exclude category X from account A
From the screenshot it seems that I can select to include/exclude accounts and/or categories but not state to exclude a category from just 1 specific account.
Also, would be nice to get some information on any changes to subcategories. Currently when one has amounts against a category and subcategories items are being double counted in the reports.
For example,
Category A $20
Category A:2 $40
When I now run a report on that it shows something like:
Category A $60 ($40)
Category A:2 $40
Total: $100 ($40)
Might not have it 100% right but it is something like that, it makes it very confusing and the current advice from iBank is not to combine categories with subcategories.
And lastly, will the reports finally only show the dates selected? Now when I generate the report in PDF it keeps on showing me for a complete year even if I just asked for 1 month. Very annoying.
Thanks.
Is there an iPad app coming soon?
Are there plans to allow iBank users to access all their accounts online, like mint.com ?? Perhaps an iBank subscription service?
Are we getting closer to a release date? It has been over a month with no news… can’t wait for the updates.
“Drill down and edit” is excellent news!
I’m also hoping to see something I may have missed here: a graph and a report of (Portfolio) Balances over time. The ROI Report shows the Percent Net Gain for a requested period, but there’s no way (I’ve found) to get historic balances and plot them.
This looks really good and will go a long way towards making iBank more useful. I’m especially looking forward to smart dates and being able to drill down in the reports. One of the areas where iBank is lacking is reports. I’m glad reports are receiving the attention they need.
Thanks for the good work. I can’t wait to see it implemented.
I like iBank and I have been using it for over 2 years. I noticed a feature that I would like to see implemented in the next version. I would like to see visual alerts when a credit card reaches its credit limit. This also could be used for other accounts, such as savings or checking when they go below a certain amount. I would like to see more money management tools built into the software.
oh do hurry.
I mean don’t hurry.
Stability is more important.
I haven’t been following the new upcoming reports closely so I apologize if this on is already coming. But I would like to see a simple report that shows a line graph of the total value off all my accounts or selected accounts over time. That way I can see what parts of the year my net worth goes up and when it goes down etc.
The New IGG newsletter is out and again it tells us nothing. Money from Jumsoft stated that Money update will come out later this summer. IGG how about you, when is iBank coming out with update?
Thanks for the efforts to improve reports. Agree with the comment above; please support easy comparison of actuals versus budget by category and date.
Reports are looking to have great potential, need to work with them to see how good. I would like a setup section where annual reports can be set for those who work July to June vs January to December, small item but it all helps
When do you plan to release all this new features? reporting is essential.
Custom Dates: In the future will you be able to put in custom dates for reports? From a Date to a Date & Pull the Report? I would also like to see my reports for further back then just last year when entering these custom dates.
Comparison Report: In the future will you be able to pull different periods of time (2 or more Reports Total) & compare them side by side in a report.
These can be both done in Money’07 & will hold off until available in iBank.
Other than that I’m enjoying the trial.
PLease please please can we get actual vs budget – the budget feature is pretty useless without it and without it I’m wondering why to get ibank after the 30 day free session.
@Melissa
There are two views when looking at a budget, the envelope view and the “progress” view. In the latter, you can see budget vs. actual. However, I assume you want something different than that. Can you explain in more detail please?
Thanks!
is there any way to do a report for the last month to compare budgeted expenses/income vs. actual expenses/income. I can’t see any way to do that….