Which Bank? (Want detailed reports of activity)

[Mike Lowe]

It seems that Quicken simply does not work with most banks (an amazing discovery really...ugh) and I can certainly vouch for the fact that it does not work with National City Bank.

I've created an ULTRA-detailed Excel spreadsheet which I'm very proud of, but is going to be tedious to keep up with on a daily basis. I began thinking that it would be great if a bank would catalog each transaction, movement of money, etc. but also catalog them the same way Quicken would do. I'd like to literally know, down to the penny, how much I am spending on gasoline, groceries, household items, etc. I'd like it to be automated (even if it meant I had to set things up initially...such as categorize each vendor the first time they appear.)

Anyway, I'll stop there as I'm not sure something like this exists in an actual bank.

Oh, and obviously they'd need to have online banking.

[henry296]

Mike,

I'm not sure it is automated as you would like, but check out Bank of America's online bank. You can categorize all of your transactions split if necessary and then generate reports. The functionality is called My Portfolio. You can even bring in accounts that are not with Bank of America and it will give you an estimate of your home value from Zillow.

[lordscarlet]

Quicken has accepted every bank I have ever used. :)

have you tried Free Personal Finance Software, Online Money Management, Budget Planner and Financial Planning | Mint.com (http://mint.com) ?

[Mike Lowe]

Mint has been awesome...the one thing I'm not seeing as an option is I'd like to see how much money we are left with each month when compared to actual income. It doesn't really track income per say as it just records what is in each account. I'd like to see some sort of Net or even better an anticipated net for each month.

I'm also not seeing any sort of planning options for things like savings (to pay cash) for a car, or other things like that.

I'm hoping to find this software or other which would have some "what if" scenarios built in to determine things like getting a different gym membership, or lawncare for example. As it stands now, I'm given the option to track finances but not much in terms of planning finances. Sort of seems like I'm leaving myself open to surprises at the end of the month.

Is there any (free?) software/website out there that could handle more than what Mint offers?

[lordscarlet]

quickenonline.com will track income the way you're describing (account + income - upcoming bills = projected balance).

[Mike Lowe]

I've been using Mint now for quite a while and have been loving it.

One thing I would love to find, is a site which would allow you to budget a ratio between paychecks and each bill or item you are spending on.

What I mean is, because most bills are always due at the beginning of the month, it seems we're always borrowing a bit out of savings early in the month, only to replenish it, along with the additional savings we've saved, by the middle to end of the month.

I know it's all the same in the end, it just seems to be tight the first week or so of the month and then all of a sudden, we have some extra money to play with after the 15th or whatever.

Anyway, hope that makes sense.

[stevew]

National Shitty is PNC in like 3 weeks. hopefully they don't screw up your spreadsheet

[DanGarion]

Just an FYI, Quicken bought Mint about 1 month ago.

[gstelmack]

Quicken has accepted every bank I have ever used. :)

Same here. Worst case is I go to the web site and select the download activity option. Works with my credit cards, bank, and investment account.

The only one I'm shocked at right now is ADP does not seem to have a download paycheck option on their site.