I have been working on some cool, secret stuff down in the research kitchen that I would like to share with you. Before we start I have to say, as nicely as possible: “I cannot answer any questions about when this will be done and/or shipping, so PLEASE don’t ask.” We’re not close enough to a new product, or even a feature announcement, to talk about releasing this. But I would, however, love your feedback on what it does. Now, if you have the strength of will to live with the unknowns… please read on.
About a year ago I mentioned in a post that we thought we could do better with the reporting features of iBank. Over the last few months (since the release of iBank Mobile 1.1) we have been work on some new things. One of those “things” is a new reporting engine. With this new reporting engine we wanted to achieve several things:
- Combine charts and reports so that you do not have to create a chart to get a report.
- Offer more options for specifying what accounts, categories and dates to include in a report.
- Open up the black box of “Where did this data come from?”
- Create more report types.
Each of these items has a lot more detail behind it. In fact as I read this list it does not sound too exciting, but I assure you that this stuff is turning out really cool. Over the next few blog entries I will be fleshing out what these are in more detail.
You may have seen a tweet from IGG this week, quoting writer John Hagel: “There are far more smart people outside any one organization than inside.” We couldn’t agree more. So one final note: this reporting engine has been driven by the comments that you have made. These might come from this blog, our forums, emails to tech support or feature requests. We also look at what people are saying about us on other sites. Please keep that feedback coming, as it is how we all make better products.
And a “hats off” to anyone that can name the movie that the title of this post came from.
Thanks,
James
Chief Software Architect at IGG Software, Inc.
The head of IGG's technology team, James Gillespie has been a Mac developer for some two decades. He spent much of that time with Intuit, where he created consumer financial software for projects ranging from tax software and mortgage qualification applications to high-volume websites for businesses and consumers. Based in San Diego, James is married, with one son, and the brother of IGG's founder, Ian Gillespie.
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Sneakers!
Can’t wait to see some pictures.
“The Manhattan Project” – John Lithgow say it at the end.
I don’t mind the “generate the chart to get the report” but what would be very useful is more interaction and reporting from the budgeting side. The ability to clone budget would save me much typing and the ability to print reports on budget v actuals nice (so I can explain to my wife that, no, we’re not over because I went to the pub).
Any ability to access the “black box” data through AppleScript would be a double-bonus.
But I very much like your software. Keep up the good work.
Basic financial and expense reports, please!!! It’s tax time, and I can’t even generate a simple income and expense report, or determine which contractors I need to file 1099s for. Can you confirm if this is coming in the next release or not? To be honest, if not, I need to switch to a package where I can do these basic reports.
Awesome news! I’m excited. The ability to export the register WITH check numbers. That’s what I need more than anything. Keep up the good work!
Daily interval of forecasting PLEASE!
That would be GREAT!
Love iBank but the reporting and loan implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
Thanks for the heads-up peek into the future of the reporting part.
important for me would be seamless navigation between modes of data display. contextual menu (ctrl-click dropdown) to display various sorting options from any type of display.
eg when in category list, there is a total under each category. right from that list i’d like to be able to display all transactions in that category, with a ctrl-click option selection. this is more like an “internal” report, but a greatly enhanced ability to display any desired groups of entries / data would be a powerful bonus i think.
I’ll be glad to see this. The lack of decent reports is the only thing keeping me from using iBank.
It came from Sneakers. 🙂
I’m looking forward to iBank 4. I hope some of the reporting features will help with budget reporting.
Count me in with reporting improvements. As another poster said, it’s tax time in the US, and it’s way too difficult to retrieve needed tax information.
Also, contextual menus please. For example, if I search all accounts for a transaction and find it, I have no way to tell the source of the transaction (which account it is from).
Keep up the good work. No idea on the quote..
David
I am most interested in Memorized Custom Reports. For example, each year at tax time I use a Memorized Custom Report generated using Quicken Deluxe 98 (for Windows which itemizes all transactions in selected categories and sub-categories (both income and expense) which occurred during the previous year (Last Year). The report provides sub-totals for each sub-category and each category and totals or grand totals as appropriate. I call the report “Tax Deductible and Tax Related Items”. It is important to sum all sub-categories but avoid double-summing if or when the main category is also selected. Custom Report “Help” should indicate how categories and sub-categories should be selected (for inclusion) to avoid duplication.
I am hopeful that IBank 4.0 will have this capability. I would appreciate a response from iBank Tech Support or Software Developers.
I replied once already but since that time I have been more seriously considering Moneydance.. One thing that really shocked me is that iBank 3.5 does not have the ability to graph account balance over time.. For example, if I created an account to save up money for something, I cannot see my progression over time. This is really important to me because it motivates me to save more.
Also, I love MoneyDance’s homepage.. It’s not as good as the on I configured for MS Money a while back but it is .. familiar. Also the calendar really helps keep me organized. Now, I have left another post where you could potentially show or link to iCal for that functionality. Another good example of what to put on the homepage would be the budget monitor. Why make this a separate window??
Now maybe I don’t fully understand memorized transactions but iBank doesn’t seem to have a way to reminding me when bills are due.
I really like iBank’s interface. I know it is silly but I love the transaction thumbnails. Even though Moneydance has won when I weighed it against iBank on a feature-to-feature basis, I would rather use iBank.
A note to the developers. I would pay up to $150 for iBank if it had all the features I want. (I’m not kidding)
– Configurable homepage
– Unparalleled reporting capability with easy export to Excel/iWork for remaining needs
– Faster backend database (it’s slower than MoneyDance, iFinance, and MoneyWell)
– Bill Pay
– Improved budgeting capabilities (similar to MoneyWell)
I am one of the MANY, MANY irate long-time Macintosh Quicken users (2007 for me) who are totally fed up with Intuit’s lackluster, insulting way of ignoring our requests and pleas for parity with their Windows product. The Quicken Essentials 2010 product is a joke – it is flatout a major downgrade from 2007. You all probably know this.
I’ve been following the iBank’s progress for over a year. Same for MoneyDance. What I’d like to hear directly from the iBank developer is your passion and strategy for capturing the Mac market. Are you interested in our business enough to share your vision for iBank with us?
iBank is a contender for sure, but so is MoneyDance and a couple of others. Help us out! Neither is the ideal alternative to Quicken… yet! Let us hear what your basic plans are for improving iBank. Sell us on the superiority of iBank over any other “Mac” finance program (aka: user interface, investment transactions, bill pay, accessing a WIDE range of banks & institutions, custom reports, etc.
iBank’s HELP is much much better than Moneydance, as is iBank Technical Support. In addition, I like the simplicity and “Mac-like feel” of iBank.
Memorized custom reports can be created with Moneydance by editing the standard Detailed Income and Expense Report and screening with Tags. But, the procedure is awkward. Tagging each relevant transaction is prone to error and unnecessary.
All that is needed is: (1) the ability to select the Income and Expense categories of interest, (2) the ability to select the accounts types to be included (checking, savings, credit card, etc.) and, (3) the ability to create a Memorized Report and name it once the selections have been made. Of course, the time frame (beginning and end dates) must also be specified, i.e., “Last Year”, This Year”, “Custom Time Frame”, etc.
I’m sure iBank developers are aware of the usefulness of Memorized Custom Reports at tax time. Each user can specify the categories, subcategories, accounts, and time frame to suit his/her needs.
One final thought. It would be useful to include “Uninstall” as a topic in HELP or to include an automatic uninstall feature in iBank.
I like Money from Jumsoft it is a great user interface and is fast. They have custom reports which shows graphs and pie charts for everything, they have smart reports. The Investment section is great. The only bad thing is that there debt section is not so great. I talked to the people in-charge of the program and they made a note and told me that a new version of the whole program will be out within the 1st qtr. So I am watching the website.
I have iBank but it is slow and has a lot of bugs. I also think a home screen would be great.
I have recently shifted from Quicken to iBank, and am very impressed with the support and responsiveness of the company.
One feature that would be helpful for investments, would be to be able to double click (or control click etc) on a particular investment in any of the Portfolio windows and bring up a listing of all the transactions relating to that investment.
So when is this going to be ready? KIDDING, ha ha.
But seriously, I love that I moved to iBank, but the one thing I am missing about Quicken is the ability to report my data in any way I could possibly imagine. If the next major release is going to remedy that, then I think you will have me as a loyal customer for life!
As one who after many many ears of using Quicken for Windows and have not bought an IMAC, I keep asking about 2010 Quicken for the iMAC and don’t get an answer Should I get 2007 and then update-or where do I find info about iBank that some of the above speak about
I’m a new customer to iBank, having used Quicken for many years. iBank is great, except for the glaring lack of a reporting function. I have to generate regular Income / Expense reports for one of my accounts. These are dead easy to set up under Quicken (under Windows, which I run through VM Ware). The old Quicken software allows income and expenses to be grouped by Category and Sub-category, and within that, to list the individual transactions. For now, I continue to run Quicken for the account in question. Please hurry up with implementing a detailed reporting function. I won’t wait for iBank forever! I have no brand loyalty — I’ll use the software that works the best for me! Thanks for setting up a real reporting function.
Any plans to allow iBank to update account transactions via the iPhone app? I travel a lot and would like to have the option to do this. Otherwise I am not able to stay updated on transactions made on my different accounts until I am sitting at the desktop.
Thanks.
As a new user to IBank after months of waiting for the new Quicken for Mac program and ensuing disappointment, I’ve found IBank meeting many of the tasks required: check printing, ability to categorize vigorously, efficient downloading or importing of transactions – important features. However, as IGG self-declares, reporting is cumbersome and inflexible. I would like to encourage rapid development of enhanced reporting features. I agree with Susan and her decision to choose a software program that meets her needs.
Quicken user for 15 years.
Thanks.
The reporting feature and lack of customization is the one thing keeping us from using iBank as our primary package for our church accounting. Any hints on release would be appreciated as we’re in decision mode right now, and our decision may influence a number of others in our faith network to consider iBank.
Quickbooks Pro for Mac 2007 being unsupported in Snow Leopard was our last straw with Intuit. Demo runs fine, but when we try to register it with our serial, it freezes up. They fixed QB 2009 with a patch but refuse to do so with 2007, telling all uses to upgrade (which is $199). We refuse to give Intuit any more of our money.