Announcing uFincs!
The privacy-first personal finance app.
Today, I'm excited to finally announce what I've been working on (for far too long): uFincs!
uFincs is a privacy-first, encrypted personal finance app. Yes, another entrant into the already crowded field that is "personal finance apps".
But Why?
So why did I build it? Well, it's simple really: there wasn't a better solution on the market.
Having come from using such apps as GnuCash, I just wanted manually track my transactions and keep tabs on what my overall finances looked like. But I'll be damned if I can't do that on my phone. And GnuCash's mobile offerings were... less than stellar.
I also didn't want to connect my bank accounts with some dubious third-party service, nor did I care to set up a bunch of budgets. But I definitely wanted something a bit nicer than just a spreadsheet.
So I built uFincs.
All our Awesome Features
A lot of what makes uFincs great is what it doesn't do, and how we decided to fill those gaps.
Encrypt Everything
In the vain of privacy-first, we don't connect with your bank accounts nor use any third parties that would do the same.
Instead, you are responsible for entering all of your transactions yourself. In exchange, we make sure to encrypt everything you enter so that you stay the sole owner of your data.
Only you can access your data; not us, not anyone else.
Simpler Double-Entry Accounting
I personally don't care much for budgets. I prefer to just track everything and make sure I'm not spending too much.
And guess what? Managing transactions with double-entry accounting seems to work pretty damn well. Makes sure everything balances out but still provides an excellent system for categorizing transactions.
So coming from GnuCash, using double-entry accounting as the basis for everything was a no-brainer. And with things like super fast autocomplete and CSV imports, entering transactions 'manually' is less of a chore than you think it is.
Forecastable Future
The question everyone always seems to be asking is "Will I have enough money?" Enough money to move out? Enough money to buy a house? Enough money to retire?
Well, with recurring transactions, you can finally forecast your future! Salary every other week? No problem. Monthly credit card bill? Doable. Buying a vanilla latte and avocado toast every morning? Probably not great for your financial future, but we can model it.
Once you've modelled all of your most common recurring transactions, just jump ahead a couple of decades in the date picker and you'll find out real quick that that daily takeout routine isn't doing you any favours.
But at least you'll know.
Offline-First
You might be stuck at home all day, but that doesn't mean that sh*t can't hit the fan.
Whether it's your ISP being as unreliable as it's always been or even uFincs having to do some.. unexpected maintenance, as long you're logged into the app, you can use uFincs whenever, wherever. Everything will be synced back the next time you're online.
And for the more tech-savvy, yes, that means uFincs is an installable PWA!
And so Much More!
Well, not really. But we got things like charts, and stats, and... more to come!
This is just the beginning of course, so if you've got any ideas, feedback, or questions, feel free to send them over to devin@ufincs.com. I will personally be the one to receive it, tell you how great it is, and that we'd love to implement it — some time, in the future.
Check it Out
I can go on and on, describing just how great uFincs is for a while, but that's quite boring. How about trying it without an account, right now?
It's been a long journey just to get to this point, but this is really only the start. If you're interested in following along, feel free to sign up for the newsletter.
Or maybe, if you're interested in the more 'meta' aspects of building/running uFincs, you'd like to check out my personal blog?
Anyways, that's all for today. And remember: Control your Money, Keep your Data!