Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 2:55 am Post subject: Community review and response on Budgeting Tool
Hi Friends,
We have launched the "Personal Budgeting Tool" that will help us in managing our budget and finances. You can download the tool from our Spreadsheet Tools section.
This is the beta version and with time, we will be launching the upgraded versions.
I have downloaded it, the screenshots are giving me a good impression. I have seen it though but would like to explore it more before writting anything about it.
Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:45 pm Post subject: Great Job
Great Job
It's really a good tool for the people who are facing problem with their budgeting. It looks joke to me that yesterday I suggest one of our community members to go for various budgeting tool from different site, and today am seeing such a good tool in this site only.
But I think there are lots of scope for improving and make it best tool in the world.
Thanks so much for letting me evaluate your budget spreadsheet.
I have been using an Excel spreadsheet for our budget that we put together back in 1998 and it's what keeps our finance straight, with the help of Quicken. Here are my suggestions for improvements. I like to be much more specific with my different budget line items. I know that you mentioned you wanted to keep this simple, but I believe the more specific you can get the better picture you'll have of where you're spending your money. For instance under Housing Exp. I would add a line for Second Mortgage.
I would also make sub-categories for utilities. I list all of mine separately: electricity, trash, gas, water, etc. I could go on and on as far as the different ways I like to be more specific. If you like to see more of what I mean, this link will let you download the very budget spreadsheet I use: "http://www.filelodge.com/files/room16/406299/budget.xls"
Besides having more line items, or allowing a user to add some and not mess everything up, I like what you have done.
Thanks again for letting me check it out. I will visit your site.
Thank you for letting me review the budgeting tool. I just downloaded the budgeting tool excel spreadsheet and it looks good. I can see that a lot of work was put into the spreadsheet and I think it is a great tool. Keep up the good work.
As for suggestions, it is difficult for people to input their daily expenses into a spreadsheet. After looking at the spreadsheet for the daily expense, I think there should be a field on the top of the spreadsheet shows the common expenses people have everyday such as food, gas, and entertainment.
2a food b gas
35c entertainmentd other daily expensestransportationgas link to cell above...b2
Then have the respective fields below link to their these cells. I think this would make it easier for people to enter in the data. Or have a link in the main page that lets user enter their daily expense in one cell. Each day the date changes and it links to the current date so users would only need to enter in data one place. Entering in the daily expense everyday is what keeps people from using budgeting tools. I think trying to find a fast easy way to enter in data quickly would make using the tool more convenient.
Another feature that would be really nice in the budgeting tool would be a net worth tracker. It would be easy to keep track of a person's networth with all the data available. There is already a section that has savings, stocks, bonds, others. Then the networth can also be graphed out like the expenses. The networth can also be compared every month, quarter and year like expenses. It will show users their progress and be a more complete tool for them to use. Tracking investments such as stocks and mutual funds on the spreadsheet would be very useful for people keeping track of their networth.
I currently use MSN money add-on that updates stock and mutual fund prices when I press the update button. It is a really useful tool that helps me keep track of my investments. You can download the add-on from microsoft.
"http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=485FCCD8-930 5-4535-B939-3BF0A740A9B1&displaylang=EN"
The width of the "budgeting" spreadsheet is slightly wider than screen. It would be easier to view if the width fit on one page.
I appreciate your focus on providing free tools that help individuals take control of their personal finances!
I have reviewed the spreadsheet. Here are my observations.
Good formatting - I like the fact that it already has each month included for an entire year.
I was unable to trial the functions as it was in complete write protection in all fields (including gray areas), but I assume that they are all linked together to deliver a nice snapshot of day-to-day expenses.
The chart of expenses is helpful - pictures are powerful .
I am a large proponent of budgeting every single month BEFORE the month begins to ensure that every dollar has a name. I would emphasize the importance of budgeting MONTHLY and that the quarterly and annual budget forms are for big picture planning.
Nice job! I appreciate the opportunity to look at the tool you are preparing. Let me know when it is completed.
Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:30 pm Post subject: RE
Hi Friends
We have posted the above comments for their behalf. They are the industry experts. They have reviewed our budgeting tools. We have received their reviews through email
We want to share these comments with the community and our marketing department so that together we can work on its improvement.
Thanks for sending for review. I had a few moments to review the spreadsheet.
Here are my initial impressions:
1. There were typos and grammatical errors.
2. An input screen would be helpful, perhaps in place of the tutorial. Paint by numbers always works best.
3. The look and feel of the spreadsheet was ok, not great.
Let me know how things progress and good luck rolling it out.
Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:04 pm Post subject: RE
Hi Jeff
Thanks for your comments. We have corrected those small mistakes. I have forwarded your feedback to our marketing department and they will try to improve the tool.
We will update you once the updated version is released.
Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:44 am Post subject: Cool tool
I liked the tool, the look is simple and its very easy to work with. But I want few more things on it so that it will become perfect - we should have the option to add few items and also we can customize the given options. Over all rating is 4.5/5
Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:52 am Post subject: RE - Thanks for the review
Hi, Jooney
I really appreciate your comments and we will try to implement these changes for all. We are in process of its next version. We can expect that to be on the site by the end of september.
Sam
