Are you taking full advantage of cloud-based personal finance tools? With the surge in personal finance technology, how valuable can those tools be if you cannot access them seamlessly across devices? Accessibility is one of the few common threads shared by technology platforms. As populations become more mobile and the number of devices we use to access information grows, universal accessibility will become the norm. The concept of CountAbout came about several years ago, after I had grown increasingly frustrated about not having access to my personal financial information from any device. The purpose of cloud technology was to remove this hurdle, right? And I wanted a system that would update bank, loan, and credit card balances automatically. I started talking with my neighbor, who is a computer programmer, and began creating a system that would allow users to access their personal finance data in the cloud. We developed CountAbout, a personal finance tool offering full and secure access to all user financial accounts across all devices. We wanted users to be able to link checking and savings accounts, or create a manual account. Once the user account is linked, the system retrieves transactions, and gives a current picture of your personal finances with data that syncs directly from the financial institutions.
What Makes CountAbout Unique?
The difference between CountAbout and other personal finance apps is that others merely offer a snapshot of registers of transactions and report bank balances. They fall short in terms of double entry capability. Additionally, CountAbout compares your bank balance to the balance you have listed, and reconciles any differences. This provides a more accurate and comprehensive of a user’s personal finances. More importantly, switching to CountAbout doesn’t sacrifice a user’s financial history as we import data from Quicken or Mint. In addition, we’re able to help you with budgeting and managing bills. We can not only provide you with rich data, like your bank balance, but also can show you information on next payment due dates for your loans, as well as your balance on credit cards. Users have complete control over their transactions. They review and approve all transactions that have been downloaded. Nothing can be entered into CountAbout without the user verifying it, including automatic payments and pre-scheduled deductions. CountAbout memorizes every transaction. If you categorize Starbucks as “Coffee”, the system will automatically categorize it that way in the future, which saves time. Your approval is the only piece that is not automated. But after a week or two, most of the categories are established, and your entry work is dramatically reduced. Our team at CountAbout has been able to aggregate data from over 16,000 financial data sources and provide a holistic view of our customer’s financial situation, thanks to our partnership with Envestnet® | Yodlee®. We signed up for their new QuickStart package after Intuit discontinued their financial data APIs and the transition process has been seamless. The package was launched to help former Intuit clients by offering competitive pricing models and a RESTful API architecture, which speeds up integration and simplifies data access. For developers that would like to leverage Envestnet | Yodlee Aggregation APIs to provide customers with real-time access to aggregated financial data, visit: https://developer.yodlee.com Are you looking for new personal finance software to improve money management and reach your goals? Sign up for our free 15 day trial to seamlessly access our secure, cloud-based personal finance app across devices.
