Evernote Applied to Bank / Checking Account (Evernote Money?!)

[Ryan D 5]

I had a feature request that I wanted to pass along to the Evernote team. I have used a number of different finance tools to manage my family's budgets. Like everyone I have a number of streams of finance data I'm trying to manage... checking accounts, credit cards, student loans, etc. All the available finance management options fall short in my opinion, Mint.com, Learnvest, on and on.

 

A perfect solution for my budget management would be an adaption of Evernote applied to my various financial transactions. If I could aggregate all my accounts in the same way that Mint.com does, but each transaction applied as a note then have the structure of tags and notebooks I would be golden. I wouldn't even want a rules engine, just a structure. I would obviously need some basic reporting on the transactions as applied to the meta data structure I designed with Evernote features. But value is in the flexibility and simplicity of the solution that Evernote already provides with their tools today. 

 

Again, just my opinion, but I think that most folks who use any of the finance tools today after about a year get a good feel for exactly how they want to manage everything and most of the tools are just to rigid. A tear comes to my eye on how cleanly I could manage this stuff if only the Evernote methodologies could be applied to this scenario. 

[gazumped 11,697]

Hi.  That's an awesome idea!  (With a couple of caveats)

 

I totally agree that along with testing out every 'to-do' app under the sun for a depressingly long time,  I've also tried all the 'keep tabs on your cash' systems.  And none of them completely satisfy the way I want to work.  In both cases I use Evernote for part of the task,  and a third party app (which changes over time) for the other.  Evernote already has an open 'pigeonhole' structure for notes and notebooks,  and killer backup,  sharing and search options. 

 

'All' you need to use those features is the mechanism to title and tag each entry consistently as a type of receipt (pay, pension, loan),  the source and destination of the entry,  and -obviously- the date and time.  Same for payments,  similar for bills and budgeting.

 

Everyone has to control money,  whether it's business budgets or home finance;  so the feature should be attractive to all users.  The development costs should be a good investment,  and Evernote aren't going to break their apparent commitment to avoiding specialist features that might only appeal to part of their user base.

 

Caveat 1 though would be:  Are you going to like the way Evernote helps you manage your money any more than you liked all those other apps?  They're going to need some smart people to come up with a minimal system that is acceptable to everyone (even you and me) but allows for further analysis if necessary.  (Though again - the base data would be there in Evernote;  you want finer detail - do a more detailed search..)

 

Caveat 2 is the usual suspect:  security/ confidentiality.  This information includes all my account details,  codes etc etc and is exactly the sort of information I'd fight tooth and nail to keep off the internet.  How can the guys reassure me that my accounts are safe in their hands?

 

Thanks for the first new original feature request I've seen for quite a while - up to Evernote to see if they want to look into it in more detail.  Or maybe an independent developer,  even one of those currently offering a stand-alone app,  might want to get in on the ground floor of a new potential market...

 

[Metrodon 2,184]

Yeah, given the current lack of encryption Evernote is probably the last place I'd put anything strictly confidential.