How I Came to Write the Best Personal Financial Software

I didn’t plan to write the best personal financial software. If I’m honest, I didn’t plan to write any software at all at that point in my life. I’d already spent decades working for banks in London and Sydney, building software systems for other people, for teams who needed things to work reliably, quietly, and at scale. This started in a much more ordinary way with a task I’d been putting off and a growing sense of irritation.

It was tax time. I was sitting at my desk, bank statements open, trying to make sure I hadn’t missed anything I was legally entitled to claim. The rules weren’t the problem. The volume of information was. I found myself scrolling up and down, cross-checking dates, second-guessing whether I’d already looked at something. It felt inefficient in a way that bothered me more than it probably should have.

Eventually, I did what I’d done many times before in my career when a system got in the way: I pulled the data out and put it somewhere I could work with it. I exported my transactions into Excel. At first, it was purely tactical, a way to search, filter, and highlight what I needed, so I could finish the job and move on.

But something happened as I worked through the list. Seeing every transaction laid out in front of me, stripped of the bank’s presentation, I started noticing patterns. There were recurring payments I barely remembered signing up for. Subscriptions that felt insignificant month to month suddenly looked different when I saw them repeated over and over again. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was unsettling. The data was quietly telling a story I hadn’t been listening to.

Once that door opened, curiosity took over. I started categorising income and expenses, not with the intention of budgeting, but with the intention of understanding. I’ve always been entrepreneurial by nature; side projects, investments, ideas in motion, and money had never scared me. What I realised, though, was that I’d never actually seen everything clearly at once. Not properly. Not in a way that allowed reflection rather than reaction.

As I spent time with the data, the better decisions became obvious. They weren’t about sacrifice. They were about alignment. Spending money on things that genuinely added value to my life, and quietly letting go of the things that didn’t. Over time, that clarity changed how I felt about money. I wasn’t checking balances anxiously or avoiding decisions. I felt calmer. More deliberate.

Friends started noticing before I did. Comments like “you always seem to be doing things” or “how do you afford that?” came up casually. When I explained that it wasn’t about earning more, but about understanding my cash flow and total costs, a few of them asked if they could use what I was using. That question stayed with me. I realised I wasn’t just solving a problem for myself, I’d stumbled into something others were missing too.

I’d tried plenty of personal finance tools over the years, but none of them ever stuck. In practice, they all felt like variations on the same theme: track a budget, monitor spending, feel guilty, repeat. The underlying message always seemed to be that managing money meant shrinking your life. That never resonated with me. I didn’t want software that told me to say no. I wanted software that helped me say yes and confidently, and without surprises.

That perspective came directly from my career. I spent 30 years in banking, writing software and managing teams delivering systems for internal users. I saw how finance professionals think about money. They don’t obsess over individual transactions. They look at cash flow, trends, time horizons, and trade-offs. The irony was that personal finance software rarely borrowed from those proven approaches. Instead, it simplified them away.

From the beginning, I made a decision I never compromised on: don’t disguise the facts. With a cash flow table, you can change categories, you can explore different scenarios, but the totals must always remain true. That belief became the backbone of everything. No matter how you view your finances, reality doesn’t change and that’s a good thing. Once people can see the truth clearly, they don’t need to be instructed. They start thinking differently on their own.

I made mistakes along the way. Early versions focused too heavily on budgets, and something felt off. Budgets assume a single future, a single plan. Life doesn’t work that way. Once I allowed multiple budgets and scenarios, everything clicked. Being able to see twelve months of financial activity at once, then drill down only when something mattered, gave people space to think rather than react. It turned money management into a reflective process instead of a defensive one.

Time mattered to me as well. I didn’t want this to become a daily chore. My benchmark was simple: two to three hours once a month. Anything more meant the system was failing. What surprised me was how much insight that small amount of time produced. That balance of minimal effort and meaningful clarity is a big reason I believe this became the best personal financial software for people who want control without obsession.

The biggest shift it created for me wasn’t in monitoring costs, but in mindset. I stopped focusing on upfront costs and started understanding total cost (or return) over time. One example still makes me smile. I once bought a brand new LandCruiser, a big V8 gas guzzler that many would assume was financial madness, and kept it for seven years. Later, I bought a second-hand BMW X1 and kept it for two. Because I had the data, I know exactly which one cost me less overall and per year. More importantly, I understand why, and how satisfied I was with each decision. That lesson was personal, not generic, and it stayed with me.

Not everyone wants this level of clarity. Some people only engage with their finances too late only when something goes wrong. Others are proactive, and many of them already have elaborate spreadsheets trying to do the same thing. For them, this website is about having something safer, more accurate, and easier to live with. I still personally run onboarding calls, and watching the moment when the structure clicks for someone never gets old.

If someone tried to copy this product today, they could probably recreate the features. What they’d struggle to replicate is the thinking behind it. This software works because it reflects a mindset shaped by decades in finance and years of lived experience. The thinking came first. The software followed.

That’s how I came to write what I believe is the best personal financial software, not by chasing trends or features, but by paying attention to what actually helped me live better, and building outward from there.

I still don’t think everyone needs software like this. Some people are comfortable not looking too closely until they have to. Others already have a system that works for them, and that’s fine too. But if you’ve ever felt that your finances were technically “under control” while still feeling unclear or reactive, there’s probably more insight available than you realise.

This way of looking at money doesn’t start with rules or restrictions. It starts with seeing. Seeing where your money actually goes over time, what it really costs you to own the things you own, and what trade offs you’re already making, whether consciously or not.

If you’re curious to experience that clarity for yourself, you’re welcome to explore the software and see if it fits how you think. And if it doesn’t, that’s useful information too. The goal was never to tell people what to do with their money, but to give them the same visibility that changed how I think about mine.

Sometimes, simply seeing the full picture is enough to change the story.