ANZ is now providing cutting edge text alerts! You send an SMS to a number and get back your account balance. This is amazing!
No… I’m not that easily impressed.
Anyone with even a slight interest in the evolution of the power and utility of web apps has a duty to check out ANZ MoneyManager.
On the alert front, it provides a much better offering:
- Net worth change (% or $)
- Deposit exceeds $ threshold
- Withdrawal exceeds $ threshold
- Balance falls below $ threshold (Win!)
I used to be a major tight arse until I realised it was just making me a major bastard. Now, I still like to know exactly what’s happening with my money. Not out of tight-arsedness, but more out of my innate desire to optimise everything in my life… And to prove wrong the stereotype that Gen Y are hopeless at managing their finances. I’ve never understood this generalisation as I am personally petrified of debt.
So these next two features of MoneyManager are worth their own bolded paragraphs.
You can pull transaction history from most bank accounts – even if you’re not with ANZ.
You can categorise every single transaction automatically using filters.
- Filter on transaction text
- Filter on amount (with error margins)
- Add/edit categories
- Nested categories (max 5)
- Manually classify transactions
- Classify both income and expenses
- CHARTS! OMG the charts.
- Budget stuff (haven’t used yet)
The filtering defaults are crap, e.g. my rent was categorised as “Home Improvement” and CityLink was “Postage and Shipping” – WTF? Creating rules is slightly tedious but fun for the control freaks. The only thing it’s missing is a “filter transactions like this” option.
I will definitely be playing with this for the next few weeks.
Oh and you can flag transactions as “Tax Deductible” and “Reimbursable” separate to what category they are in.