Over the last several years our team has come to appreciate the many different personal finance tools available.  We have used every major piece of personal finance software on the market and have been impressed with most of them.  However, these tools are all just vacuum cleaners.  They are very effective; we just don’t think most consumers want to push them around.  People seem to like the results but not the effort.   

Most people put in minimal effort towards managing and maintaining their daily finances.  They choose convenience over control and insight.  As a result, their finances suffer.  Bills are paid late, budgets are abandoned, credit scores are wrecked and money is wasted through inefficiencies and not paying enough attention.  It is no wonder that with bad financial habits and a weak economy, the vast majority of Americans list finance as their number one cause of stress.

Personal finance is like dieting, the majority of people know what they need to do but they just don’t do it.  Life gets busy, they get overwhelmed, feel helpless and don’t want to spend the time creating and maintaining the habits needed to sustain healthy finances. 

For many people, maintaining discipline over managing your finances feels like an unsolvable problem.  Similar to how dieting has no silver bullet plan that works for everyone, personal finance has no cure all software programs.  The problem is the consumer, not the technology solutions available.

Do-it-yourself financial software solutions are typically very good but come with their challenges:

• Consumers do not take the time to get setup.  Whether it is the inconvenience of switching banks, configuring personal finance software or creating a budget, consumers are busy and do not want to spend the time.
• Even if consumers do take the time to get setup, they do not actively manage their finances effectively.  This results in money wasted, uninformed financial decisions and stress.
• With so many free products, service and support can be scarce. 

With Balance, our vision is to provide an alternative to do-it-yourself financial tools. 

To help make this vision more tangible, our team likes to envision quotes from future users of our service.  It is pretty simple; you just start with ‘I use Balance because’ and then talk about what the product will do and why this future user loves it.   Here is one that I particularly like. “I use Balance because my Personal Bookkeeper got me all setup and keeps my account organized the way I want it.  With Balance, I know my bookkeeper is watching every payment, keeping my reports up to date and finding ways to save me money.  Ultimately, I use Balance because it does everything I want in one place and my bookkeeper keeps things organized in a way I never would.  As a result, I have less stress and my finances are always up to date and personalized to me.”

It gives us something to shoot for!

Devin