PocketSmith Forecasts Your Financial Future
We’ve seen plenty of personal finance tools designed to help you track what you’re spending, but web site PocketSmith is an impressive new web-based personal finance tool for forecasting your financial future.
You’re responsible for manually adding your financial transactions to PocketSmith. You can upload your transactions in OFX, QIF, or CSV format to PocketSmith, so it’s not as though you have to enter in every line item manually (though you can create manual accounts to do just that if you prefer).
PocketSmith even integrates with Google Calendar so your important cash flow events (bills and deposits) are laid out for you.
When you set your spending goals, PocketSmith helps you track your actual spending versus your projected spending.
The thing we like most about PocketSmith is its emphasis on projections and forecasts, letting you see what you’re aiming for financially.
We haven’t spent enough time with PocketSmith to really make a full judgment call on the application’s effectiveness as a whole (that’s always a difficulty when checking out personal finance apps), but we know one thing for sure: It looks great, and we do like the app’s emphasis on future financial goals (dangling the carrot is a very good thing). If you’ve spent more time with it than we have, let’s hear what you think about it in the comments.
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
I'm going to give this a shot as well. I've been watching these programs come and go here on Lifehacker for months and this one finally caught my eye. My only hope now is that it works with Canada as well. The last 2 I tried were US only apps =/
@onesourlemon, I'll give your xpenser.com suggestion a look as well =D
KORHAL
Slicker looking than Rudder.com, but Rudder downloads transactions for you.
ZolaAsteria
I'm not sure it is fair to characterize Wesabe as favoring manually added transactions - it has quite a few automated connections to institutions these days. I only manually add cash transactions to Wesabe these days - it pulls the rest automatically.
Chris Brooks
Trying it. Looks very nice and it's fun to see the money you have each day of the week. It's also fun that I don't have to link it to an bank account.
TheMugs
Import expenses from [xpenser.com] into this site and your good to go! Xpenser makes it super easy to track expenses via almost any method.
onesourlemon
Looks impressive... I might have to try this one out.
achoke
Been looking for something this slick for my finances. I know, I'm a sucker for graphics. :)
@TheMugs: I'm with you TheMugs. Giving PocketSmith a bit of patience (as Lifehacker has taught me to have about projects) and it is paying off quite nicely. Once I do a bit of finance tweaking I'll be giving PocketSmith's "Goals" section a go for my new PC build at the end of the year.
@Jason Leong: :) I hope you like the 1st feedback I sent in about the Calendar page ^_^
@Martin Clifford: Hey Martin, we're in the process of moving to production servers, which will stabilise app performance in short order :-)
Jason Leong
@KORHAL: That's great, thanks :-) Warm fuzzies are what we're all about <3
Jason Leong
@CapitalC: They are moving from beta to release, and add to that the Lifehacker and you got a bit pile of poop. I was able to set so stuff before and it looked nice.
TheMugs
@crabbygeek: Not really a lot of work to setup, it really depend of how many regular income/expense you have. I just hope I will the willpower to keep it up to date.
TheMugs
@Dr. Vrein: Ha, that got me to laugh out loud, literally.
I entered my information into and the website burst into flames. That can't be good.
Seems like a lot of work to setup...
crabbygeek
Will have to try it later. If it can mimic envelope style budgeting, that would be great!
David Lim
@KORHAL: Whoops, I posted about the wrong app >_< So sorry. I am using PocketSmith and trying Xpenser at the moment, the audio comment above was about Xpenser. As for PocketSmith, I have all the same great warm and fuzzy feelings about it ^_^
How messed up am I if I thought the title said "PocketSmith Forecasts Your Financial Failure"?
@Jason Leong: ^_^ The co-founder you say? I am liking the app so far. The only thing I think could be improved on just now is the audio quality for the voice over of the tour video. Other than that, I am happy with it so far ^_^ Thank you for the app! <3
After using it for a few minutes, it's going to do exactly what I want a web app for finance to do: track simple transactions, and give me a day-by-day balance based on my forecast and actuals.
That being said, I'm afraid it must be either suffering from the Lifehacker effect, or their servers just aren't up to par, but I continually get a 503 Unavailable error. Given my statement above though, I'll stick with it and see if it becomes more responsive.
Martin Clifford
If PocketSmith pulled my data automatically like Mint or Wesabe, I'd be all over it. Until then it will have to sit in the "Misc" folder of my Bookmarks, or maybe just in my browser History.
Sean Masters
Hey there Lifehackerites, PocketSmith co-founder here, thanks for your interest! You just caught us on the cusp of shifting from our beta to production servers (we launch next week), so if you do get the occasional 503, it'll be the load. We should be super-sweet very shortly.
Have fun with our app, we hope it helps you make a difference. And do let us know what you think, your feedback's vital to us making PocketSmith more relevant to you :-)
Jason Leong
@speedway84: Wait it was Yodlee that I tried, that offered some canadian support -buxfer worked okay but to automate the processes on Buxfer you need the the firebux extension and didn't seem to work with a number of my institutions.
speedway84
I set up a Google cal just called Bills anyway, but I've always wanted to have a way to incorporate it into a financial software / site, like wesabe.com. I might give it a whirl.
anjie_LD
@KORHAL: I'm in the same boat - being a Canadian and all. I signed up for Mint when I first saw it, but alas not Canadian Support. More promising was BUXFER which had Canadian banks and credit cards, but didn't want to work for a number of my financial institutions - even though they were listed. Maybe pocketsmith will be a go!
speedway84
@Martin Clifford: Thanks Martin! We should have it running within the next 12 - 24 hours :-)
Jason Leong
@KORHAL: Received it loud and clear, thank you!
Jason Leong
@Jason Leong: Hi Jason, thanks for the reply. I'm looking forward to it being more stable. Do you have an ETA on when the migration to prod should be complete?
Nice work to you and your team.
Martin Clifford
Are there any online personal finance sites that let you manually enter transactions but then automatically reconcile them online with your bank, credit card, etc.? I prefer to manually track all expenses but then download the transactions from the institution to verify that I did in fact spend that money myself. I'm currently using an offline tool for this, but would be interested in the forecasting ability of PocketSmith.
RonaldCoral
Just tried it and it is EXTREMELY buggy. All kind of error messages when trying to get it setup. I tried to upload my transactions and that didn't work either. I'll stick with Mint for now - I just wish Mint had more of a future focus like this does :(
UlricaChryses
@CalebMedea: We take privacy very seriously (all header rows stripped and the entire application utilises secure connections), however we have also ensured that the application is useful should you decide not to upload your transactions - you can enter them manually, or use the forecasting component exclusively.
Also, we don't require any personal information aside from an email address :)
James Wigglesworth
I could never use something like this without automation/integration. This+ Mint.com would be killer!
Looks very impressive, but the last thing anyone should be doing is trusting on the Internet anything but your bank with personal financial information.
CalebMedea
Hi, James here, another PocketSmith co-founder. Just letting everyone know that while things are still a little sluggish due to the current (beta) server, we have worked out why so many 503 errors were getting served and have solved this issue :)
Thanks again for the review, nothing like LifeHacker to give a beta application a solid thrashing!
James Wigglesworth
Can it link to Mint or something? Why can't Mint get someething like this!!! Very valuable
Meganklikklak
is this better than rudder.com? liked rudder for the cashflow management...
MatildaEpimetheus
I created an Excel template a few years ago with similar functionality (albeit requiring more manual input). It's basically a month-view calendar with a transaction list on the side. I input my bills, they populate the calendar, and I can see my projected balance for any given pay period (or day).
bluejimi
@UlricaChryses: Thanks for trying us out! The issues were load-related, which have been since addressed. Don't hesitate to drop us a line if you'd like us to help you out with your transactions :-)
Jason Leong
@James Wigglesworth: Glad we could be of assistance. And I am completely in love with PocketSmith now. After using it today, I don't think I will use anything else. That might sound over-the-top to some people, but I am dead serious ^_^ What you and Jason (and everyone else there) have going is exactly what I need and want in a financial planning app.
I'm intrigued. I, too, use Mint.com on a daily basis and am very happy with it. But, I also like the Goggle Cal integration. I think I'm just gonna have to give it a test drive.
dustyken1
This site looks very useful, I checked out Mint as well. I was very impressed by Mint, but it only supports US postal codes. Can anyone recommend a good site like this that accepts Canadian postal codes? I need something like this, that is easy to use, and free.
HarleyMarky
Very nice application. This is really as simple as I want such an app to be and still be so very useful. I really like it.
VasinSwallow
I have been using Desktop Budget from http://Spryka.com to manage my personal finances for a few months now. Its the easiest to use free, offline personal finance software I have seen so far.
LucianaTurkey
I dont trust web based financial apps. Next thing you know Bob the programmer will be siphoning your bank accounts and stealing your identity. Or all your info will end up on some guys website demonstrating how easy website XXX was to hack..
bonedog73