Built from a simple question: where does my money actually stand?

WHY I STARTED MONITRAK

I wanted to understand my complete financial picture.

I started thinking about MoniTrak because managing my own financial picture was more difficult than it should have been.

My accounts, credit cards, expenses and budgets were all in different places. I could see individual balances and transactions, but I could not easily answer a much simpler question: where do I actually stand financially?

Tracking expenses was another challenge. Some months, my expenses could come much closer to my income than I expected, and at times I found myself spending more than I had planned. It was difficult to see how much of my income I was really saving, whether my budget reflected what I actually spent, and whether the way I was managing money today would allow me to achieve the goals I had for tomorrow.

That made me think about what I actually wanted from a personal-finance tool.

I didn't just want somewhere to record transactions. I wanted one place where I could understand my accounts, cards and spending together. I wanted to compare my budget with my actual expenses, see how much of my income I was saving, understand where my cash might be heading and track whether I was making progress toward my financial goals.

That idea became MoniTrak.