As promised, we’ve spent the past 2 weeks reviewing features, adding them to “The List” (and checking it twice) to figure out what’s essential for the beta release of the application. Although this exercise is intended to narrow down scope and get the product released sooner, I can tell you that it was exciting to hear all the ideas put forth by the Budget Beacon team. I think we have a good base to start from and an exciting road map to follow after the initial launch.
Here’s what we see as the “must haves” for the first release:
- Upload CSV file of transactions
- Manually add transactions
- Mark transactions by type (Credit Card vs. Bank)
- Categorize, tag and add semantic vendor names to transactions
- Split a single transaction into multiples (Eg. Cash withdrawls)
- Mark transactions as “variable expense” (McDonald’s, Blockbuster etc.) or “fixed expenses” (rent, car payments etc.)
- Manage categories and tags
- Intelligent categorization based on your transaction history
- Pretty reports
- Mobile version to add cash notes
- Search for transactions
And that just about covers it! I’m sure this will change slightly, but this is what we figure we need to have in order for the app to be of any practical use. We’ll be putting specs to all of these next week and will post a follow up with more details.
On another note, I expect to have a first mock-up of the user interface ready by the end of the week!
