HomeBudget with Sync App Reviews

I am very happy I stumbled onto this App. I was a long-time user of Quicken 2007, but that app (lwhich I thought was perfect) is no longer supported on the Mac, and its current version’s budget has no ability to forecast a budget on the Mac. I really think detailed budgeting is important for any family, and overall am glad I chose this App. I am a long-time budgeter and believe budgeting software should at a minimum be able to show the user at a glance what a paper spreadsheet would show. Unfortunately, this App does not include a basic screenshot of a detailed, annual income/expense budget spreadsheet which includes all categories and subcategories by month. If that one change were added, this App would certainly be the besat on the market. My initial suggestions for improvments to HomeBudget include: 1. Please, please, please add a screen where the user can view the Annual Budget its entirety in one screen (Income and Expenses) so the user can see each category and subcategory by month and easily compare each against every calendar month in one viewing. Think spreadsheet: Twelve months across the top of the screen and the categories and subcategories down the left-hand side. To me this is the one critical feature of home udgeting that no app seems to provide. This should provide the user the ability to make changes to each category/subcatgegory as needed by simply clicking on the budgeted entry for any given month. So if the user, say, has a monthly grocery expense of $500, but knows that say in November the expense will be greater due to Thanksgiving, and say in May when the user is on vacation the expense will be less, the user could identify that by looking at the whole year in one screen, click on that budget entries as needed for editing, and make quick changes for the months as needed. Also, heating and electrical expenses change each month, so this type of screen and editing capability would allow the user to be much more precise in planning for the future. 2. Clicking on the “Forecast” button does not appear to provide that much detail, it seems the forecast button should jump the user to the detailed information in a annual overview screen, the sort of which I detail in #1 above. 3. Please consider subcategories for subcategories in the budget. For example, most annual budgets include vacation(s). If the user knows that he/she will be going out of town either for long weekends or the classic family vacation multiple times a year, it would be nice to have a category for “Vacation”, several subcatgories identifying each vacation, (Vegas, Florida, camping, etc.) then subcategories for each for lodging, travel, dining, entertainment, etc. 4. Many “Icons” are duplicative - two dogs, etc. This is something that should be cleaned up, although as a new user I’m not sure the icons really serve a purpose anyway. 5. Please consider providing the ability to drag each window’s corner to expand the size of each window as necessary. As it stands now, if the cateogry name is too long, the “button”to add subcategories is eliminated. The ability to enloarge the windows would also eliminate unecessary scrolling. 6. Please add the ability to alphabetize the categories and subcategories. Right now, each stays in the order for which it was added, which makes it less organized and more cumbersome to use. Budgeting is about getting organized, and its frustrating that the user canoot orgainize the order of cateogries and subcategories. 7. There does not appear to be a way to edit subcategories. For instance, if there is a mispelling in a subcategorys title, or the user neglected to add an Icon, there is no way to change it other than to delete the subcategory and add it as a new subcateory which is very time-consuming and alters the order of the subcategories (becuase there is no alphabetization of titles. 8. In selecting the budget cycle for each budgeted expense, surprisingly the user must choose from "monthly, yearly, etc." There should be a choice among those for “Once.” For instance, if the user has a category for “Home Improvement” he/she may want to add some subcategories for revolving expenses (like lawn care, pool care, pest control, etc.) but may also have one time expenses as subcateogires such as “New Refrigerator” or “Install Carpets” etc. Another example would be if you had a category for “Education”. Repeating subcategories may include a monthly expense for PTO dues, while there may be several one-time expense to budget, like a class field trip or a particluar donation for a school fundraiser. 9. It would be great if the instructions for setting up a budget were more precise with step by steps. I’m familiar with setting up family budgets but found this process frustrating. For someone unfamiliar with this format, it is difficult to navigate. The App kind of treats the budget as an afterthought, encouraging users to get used to tracking their expenses before setting up a budget, and then fails to provide a working set of instructions. 10. Please provide an explanation as to when/how to use the buttons: “Set Budget” and “One Budget” and “Forecast".

My wife and I have been using HomeBudget with Sync for 6 weeks now and are very pleased. it keeps track of our expenses, it allows both of us to make separate entries on various devices (iPhone, iPad, and laptop) and it keeps those entries updated. It has a learning curve, and it takes quite a bit of conversation between us to agree on conventions (setting up categories and subcategories, do we want to track each spouses car and related expenses together or separately, etc.) but HomeBudget is flexible enough to handle whatever we want to do. Highly recommend.

I purchased homebudget and ibank, and after looking at the two I returned ibank. Homebudget was intuitive to use, but they also have a very helpful user manual that provides strategies for using the app to its fullest potential. I use the app for managing my budget, tracking my expenses, and paying bills and I love it. I have emailed Anishu (the app developers) numerous times with questions and they responded quickly to try and assist me each time. The reason this app gets 4 stars instead of 5 is two-fold: 1) There are a number of expenses that I have monthly that cover future expenses. What I mean is that in my monthly budget in the app I want to budget for future things (or non-monthly expenses) like registration for my car, christmas gifts, oil changes etc. In my bank I take the total of all of those non-monthly items in my budget and transfer them over to a separate account that I use to pay for these items when they come up. I include them in my budget in the app bc they are part of my budget, but it doesnt work well bc there is no way to "pay myself" as an expense. I can pay it as an expense, but then the money doesnt actually go anywhere. I can do it as a transfer but then it doesnt show up on my expenses, so it looks like it hasnt been deducted from my budget. I have used the feature that spreads out a payment over a period of time, but that doesnt seem to solve the problem of paying myself. I’ve spoke to Anishu about this and as of now there is no way to have a transfer reflect in the budget. I may be expecting something that is impossible. 2) The budget override feature doesnt work well for me. Anishu tried to help me solve the problem, but I did not send them my app data so they could look into the issue more. All in all a great purchase!