Status of Financier development

[Billy_McSkintos]

That looks like CNN livery, must be fake news.

[Mike]

I urge you to use Financier for what it is (and not what it will become). Otherwise, I'm afraid you might be disappointed since I cannot please everyone.

This is a wise statement. Unfortunately, what Financier is today will not work for me. I need several key features, primarily scheduled transactions and a mobile app. Estimating that each of these features will take several months of development time, it is probably best if I cancel my Financier subscription, continue with my YNAB subscription, then check back in a few months to see how things are going with Financier. Good luck everyone!

[ColinG]

Likewise (well similar) Mike. And Alex you have Scheduled Transactions as under development but appear to be saying that this functionality (along with other) might not make it to to release any time soon or at all. Sorry, but that really does render the software unsafe for my consumption. I need reliability in terms of performance, development and bug fixes. You really should get some help or open source the code imho.

Fortunately I did not subscribe or invest heavily in the learning curve so I just stop here. Shame though - it is a great but under-resourced idea.

[ColinG]

Duplicate deleted

[Paul]

By way of balance @Alex - I am very happy to stick with Financier. Although - yes - I would like scheduled transactions and mobile I'll wait until they are completely ready!

The desktop version is doing most things that I need it to do for now but that's probably due to the manual workflow that I feel safe with i.e:
1) I enter any transactions after getting home most days - either on desktop or iPad
2) I then check my "on budget" accounts via my mobile banking apps and reconcile to the balances shown - picking up anything missed
3) Cross check to my scheduled transaction list and quickly enter anything that is up coming.
It sounds a lot but actually literally only takes 5 minutes a day and becomes a habit.

I totally get that this is not for everybody - so please don't shoot me down in flames!  It's just an alternative perspective and usage scenario.

[Alex]

@Paul I'm glad that strategy is working for you! 👍

@asromzek lol, pretty funny. 99.99% chance Financier will not be sold. It's very much a pet project, something I don't want to get rid of.

@ColinG and @Mike That's totally fair! Use the best tool for the job. If that's YNAB, I totally understand. Everyone has different requirements/use cases. No hard feelings, lol. Feel free to check up every now that then.

Thanks again guys!

[asromzek]

Just a few thoughts on how I see the difference in subscription models between Financier and YNAB...

$50 a year for YNAB is covering a variety of costs such as hosting, paying developers, paying support, advertising, buying Teslas, etc. It's a full fledged business with a lot of customers. $12 a year for Financier is mostly there to cover hosting costs for the website and for the syncing mechanism to work, for a much smaller user base.

I haven't gotten the impression that the $12 is going toward paying for development time, advertising, or anything other than keeping the lights on. If the price were to go up, then my expectations would change, but for now I don't feel as though I'm paying @Alex for any future functionality development. He put out a great product in less than a year (in his free time), and I have no doubt that he'll continue to improve it, understanding that some patience on my part is required.

I know how the side project development cycle goes... sprints of extreme progress jammed in between potentially long periods of life getting in the way.

With that said... @Alex, get to work!

[Paul]

I haven't gotten the impression that the $12 is going toward paying for development time, advertising, or anything other than keeping the lights on. If the price were to go up, then my expectations would change, but for now I don't feel as though I'm paying @Alex for any future functionality development. He put out a great product in less than a year (in his free time), and I have no doubt that he'll continue to improve it, understanding that some patience on my part is required.

I know how the side project development cycle goes... sprints of extreme progress jammed in between potentially long periods of life getting in the way.

With that said... @Alex, get to work!

Yup - that is exactly how I see it - well put. I feel a bit guilty pressing @Alex in anyway on this given the cost and the way he has explicitly positioned the project

[Alex]

I know how the side project development cycle goes... sprints of extreme progress jammed in between potentially long periods of life getting in the way.

Amen! Thanks for the kind words!

@Paul The pushing is totally fine! In fact, it's helped me prioritize development. Split transactions, for example, are something I never use but implemented because you all wanted it.

[ColinG]

We all have differing expectations and I wish you all well. For me, it is very important that I keep my finances in order via a robustly supported piece of software rather than, using Alex's words, a pet project. Periods of inactivity followed by sprints does not work for me even if the quality of the coding is good. I would never go back to YNAB but there are others.

I'll check back in a few months but to be honest it is the philosophy/development model that does not sit comfortably in my world. Have fun guys and stay safe :-)

[Alex]

Thanks @ColinG!

Also, I should mention -- Yes, the $12 should be considered an informal 'guarantee' that Financier will continue to be accessible on the web, will have data durability (I maintain redundant backups, etc), and security. Financier is production ready -- data isn't going to go down the drain.

(Of course, as per other discussion, even if Financier does go offline I will provide you a data dump, it will be open sourced and because of the nature of the web app it can then be modified to be ran in a standalone environment. In other words, you will not lose data and access to Financier one way or another.) Note that this is just a situation I plan for but hope (and intend to the best of my ability) to never happen.

The cherry on top of the subscription, of course, is further development!

[asromzek]

I know how the side project development cycle goes... sprints of extreme progress jammed in between potentially long periods of life getting in the way.

Amen! Thanks for the kind words!

@Paul The pushing is totally fine! In fact, it's helped me prioritize development. Split transactions, for example, are something I never use but implemented because you all wanted it.

Not to mention yellow flags. That nearly took an act of congress.

[Alex]

"The yellow flags guy"

[Joel]

I haven't gotten the impression that the $12 is going toward paying for development time, advertising, or anything other than keeping the lights on. If the price were to go up, then my expectations would change, but for now I don't feel as though I'm paying @Alex for any future functionality development. He put out a great product in less than a year (in his free time), and I have no doubt that he'll continue to improve it, understanding that some patience on my part is required.

I know how the side project development cycle goes... sprints of extreme progress jammed in between potentially long periods of life getting in the way.

With that said... @Alex, get to work!

Yup - that is exactly how I see it - well put. I feel a bit guilty pressing @Alex in anyway on this given the cost and the way he has explicitly positioned the project

This is where I stand as well. In order to switch from YNAB4, I have to accept the software as is (even though I fully support future development and Alex!). I'm not ready to make that jump until a) Financier gets a functioning mobile app or b) YNAB4's mobile app no longer works (which may happen in June/July). Scheduled transactions and OFX import capabilities are pretty important to me as well, so if Financier has a mobile app but no scheduled transactions or OFX import capabilities - I'll have to decide how I want to proceed.

@Alex - You have my full support (and patience). Keep kicking ass!

[machei]

Someone on the YNAB forums is now giving June as the time where mobile sync through Dropbox will stop working based on this article:

https://blogs.dropbox.com/developers/2016/06/api-v1-deprecated/

So I guess mobile app or not, that's when many will move over to Financier, myself included. The only reason I'm still with YNAB at all is the ability to enter transactions on the go. If that doesn't work, then there's no reason to not jump ship.

Hope springs eternal that a Financier mobile app is not far off that mark.