

What I do like is that I can create separate budgets which allowed me to compare budget plans. The envelope budgeting option is functional but still feels a bit awkward. That’s not bad but set your expectations correctly. I like the reporting options but most of them are just text. It’s also available for multiple platforms and has a direct purchase option.
#Moneydance vs ynab 2016 password#
It’s also open enough to allow third party plugins, provide password protected Dropbox syncing and has a ton of reports. What a pretty application (minus a few visual glitches). Given that the first of the year is a key time for budgeting that’s a little surprising. 3 Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to get the envelope budgeting to work and there’s been no response from their support email or forum. It’s easy to use but lacks some of the nice YNAB 4 reports. The envelope budgeting is very similar to the YNAB system. This application would be perfect if it worked. The reporting options are sparse and slow. It feels like it was bolted on to something designed as a traditional retrospective budgeting application. The envelope budgeting is too opaque and awkward. I also really liked the way the envelope budgeting is represented as a comparison with typical retrospective budgeting.įeature complete can also be a euphemism for “a lot of damn controls.” iBank is not an enjoyable app to use. IBank has a robust import and transaction categorization option, direct account syncing for many banks, and integration with Reminders for Mac. They offer plenty of online subscription options to make account syncing easier, but that’s not what I want. IBank is probably the most feature complete stand-alone application. I’d need at least 6 months to do a complete review. Here’s what I’ve tried in the very brief time since the YNAB 5 announcement. If that was what I was in the market for, I’d have plenty of options. It’s a highly competitive market out there for hosted finance tracking services. So if you implicitly trust Finicity (and think a modern Web site should be Flash-based), there’s another option. For that matter, Finicity offers their own similar service called Mvelopes. They are using one of the standard providers for banking API access, Finicity. However, as we learned from Ashley Maddison, it doesn’t much matter if the master keys are also stored in the same environment. They state that data at rest is encrypted. The YNAB security page is moderately informative but doesn’t really provide the detail I’d want when handing over all of my financial information and account logins. I try hard to avoid single points of compromise and I’d certainly not choose a brand new cloud service to hold my entire identity. Not even my accountant gets as much information as I put into my finance software. Now, I know some people will ask “what’s the big deal?” Not syncing all of my fully annotated financial data, aspirational projects, family burdens, and poor life choices was one of the best features of YNAB 4. With YNAB 5, I see no end-user benefit for the added vulnerability. I see no information about master key controls. 1 I see no information about employee access standards. I’ve reviewed all of the publicly available information about YNAB 5 and I see no 2-Factor Authentication. I left Mint because I didn’t want to share my data, no matter how buzz-full their security policy sounded. For some, the convenience may be worth the risk. YNAB 5 is a completely hosted solution, with a future desktop application to interact with the service. All data stayed on my laptop and I was not required to share it with anyone. I could sync through Dropbox but I was also in control of that decision. All previous versions of YNAB gave me sole control over the software. YNAB has replaced their desktop application with a Mint-like cloud service and in doing so undermined the very reason I felt secure with their software. This week they released YNAB 5 and it’s clearly not aimed at me. I’ve discussed this at length on Nerds on Draft episode 19.
#Moneydance vs ynab 2016 software#
The YNAB implementation is unique in the finance management software market but it’s based on a simple model called “envelope budgeting.” YNAB preaches “give every dollar a job” and the desktop app does a good job encouraging proper budgeting. I’ve been using You Need a Budget (YNAB) for over a year and I’ve been very happy with it.
