One place to see them all! Bank accounts and others that is?

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DCLane

Found in the Yorkshire hills ...
I imagine both you poring over the spreadsheets so long that you don't have much time left to spend much . Chuckle :smile:
It takes about 10 minutes a week. The pension one is hardly ever updated.
If you gather that information you may have to admit to knowing something that you might otherwise only suspect.
Follows a weirdly worded question from a third country tax authority.
Agreed. The spreadsheet stems from a discussion with SWMBO about 25 years ago when she questioned how much we actually spent.
 

SpokeyDokey

68, & my GP says I will officially be old at 70!
Moderator
It takes about 10 minutes a week. The pension one is hardly ever updated.

Agreed. The spreadsheet stems from a discussion with SWMBO about 25 years ago when she questioned how much we actually spent.

The gestation point for us was planning to quit the rat race.

We knew what we wanted to do - quit the rat-race whilst youngish, but we were scared stiff about turning off a high net income and wondered how we would get by.

We did the projections, and lo & behold, we didn't need anything like the amount we had coming in to fund a comfy lifestyle.

We made the downshift with a high degree of confidence and continue to manage our finances in the same vein as our original projections.

Takes a surprisingly small amount of time to reconcile each month and maybe half a day each December just updating forecasts for the following year.
 

presta

Legendary Member
I decided to keep detailed accounts of everything I spent when I quit work, and did so on paper for the first 15 years or more. Nowadays I have a spreadsheet, but I don't update it any more frequently than at the end of each financial year. Day to day expenditure is still on a sheet of paper unless there are paper bills that already record it, then the annual totals go on the computer.
 
OP
OP
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Time Waster

Veteran
I have potentially 15 years to retirement so I am in that frantic stage when I fear I might not have enough. To that end I intend to switch from a passive miser wrt spending to an active planner with expenses and incomes.

I also have a different timescale for income vs outgoings. I use DDs a lot so I have a fixed day for outgoings (different for different things due to various reasons related to the company it is going to and their systems or the time of the month it got set up). My work income is not on a monthly basis. So it leads to periods where I get surprised by just how much as accumulated in my current account, then I get a shock when it suddenly drops as I have two outgoing dates in one income period. Thia I have covered in the beginnings of a spreadsheet but TBH I haven't found a satisfactory way to account for the income vs outgoings mismatch yet.

So I have found a few apps that are UK based and use the open banking standards. This means they match and in some cases passes the security standards of your online banking app. Also they are covered by the banking regulations to some degree. One actually is covered by your bank's cover IIRC in that if a data breach somehow causes the money to go out of your account then the bank's fraud cover comes into play. Either way the FCA has control over them regulation wise. Also, the way they handle separation of identification details and financial details. Plus the way they are read only not read write. As in cannot change the account balance say through sending money somewhere, unless you agree to it and they only deal with recognised 3rd parties where your money could go to. Those are the ones who take on the risk just like you would find if say an insurance company's data got hacked and you lost money somehow that way. In fact 3rd party companies who contact you via your permission on the apps are probably the types of companies you would find for yourselves anduse for yourselves too.

Snoop is more about finding ways to reduce costs and without going to full premium option you cannot really do anything with the pay timescale side. It does have the best features to reduce expenditure though. Also it does not have the ability to change the timescale of pay and hence the monitoring and budgeting cycle timescale.

Emma is better at customising a categorising your transactions in the banks and other financial accounts. That is if you pay for it. So it seems to use the app for my needs I would need £5.99 in subscriptions a month or about 75% if the total monthly subsciptions per year if I pay one yearly fee. Might be worth it IF it gives me a better level of financial control. I feel I can put more into higher interest rate accounts and perhaps increase AVCs on my company pension. I do not have the level of control to feel comfortable with the income vs outgoings timescales without something to see the whole picture. For example I could easily end up making more than the subscription in a year from making the money work harder. I could also save a lot more on outgoings when I know more about where it is all going. Spreadsheets can do that but I never had the time or patience to fully realise the control (lunar versus calendar timescales and other reasons).

Then there is the old Moneyhub app which is now part of WPS but using Moneyhub workings (with recent additions that improves the service apparenyly). This is a full service financial app which charges IIRC £1.49 per month flat rate (or save paying annually) after a trial period of course. This offers the full analysis of the other two and covers every financial accout you could have (pensions, shares, bank current / savings, ISAs, LISAs, etc. Plus you can deal in shares through it (or at least buy them regularly through it). It also offers access to WPS's financial advisors and services. So you can use their comparison services (to get exclusive deals too apparently although too cynical to fall for that) and their financial advice services. Supposed to have a good rep too.

I think I will try the Emma app free trial and the snoop free trial. IF I find Emma is useful I think I may go to a monthly subscription and annual one to save money after I have a better feel for how I use it and keep up that habit. On top of this I will use the basic Snoop app for free. Emma has too many restrictions to use their free version but I need the higher one anyway or not bother. Snoop has a much better free version that will do enought of what that app does best (better than the others), which is to reduce costs through helping you find better alternatives. or to find where you can get the biggest saving for the least pain (cost cutting that is). The premium just gives a slightly less effective version of the premium Emma which costs the same. So perhaps pay for Emma and then free Snoop. Obviously stopping one or both if I do not see a benefit from it.

It seems there are options out there IF you need to see it all in one place, but none of them is best in all aspects so you have to compromise on one feature set over another. The key thing is it is at least as safe as having individual banking apps or online portal accounts. It is also a lot better at analysis than most people can manage with a home written excel spreadsheet. I don't have the patience to do a spreadsheet that will do what i want / need. At least not to my satisfaction. My partner has one for our joint household expenses and one for her own. It is one of her hobbies to check on her numerous bank accounts!! I cannot understand that personally. I must admit I do have a thing for analysis apps anyway. Beats designing a spreadsheet from scratch to get to the same point or not even close to it, IMHO of course. I do think some people find creating a good spreadsheet as good as a hobby!!
 
OP
OP
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Time Waster

Veteran
I decided to keep detailed accounts of everything I spent when I quit work, and did so on paper for the first 15 years or more. Nowadays I have a spreadsheet, but I don't update it any more frequently than at the end of each financial year. Day to day expenditure is still on a sheet of paper unless there are paper bills that already record it, then the annual totals go on the computer.

Every time I get a new car I keep saying I will keep a record of all expenses for that car along with mileage, fuel volume bought and the cost, etc. Also, the car average mpg for each trip too. I never, ever managed to do even one full day of this!!

This idea i will ever keep a detailed record of anything financial without help from a user friendly and efficient app is for the clouds. I have a good reason for this. Starts with A and ends with D.
 

wafter

I like steel bikes and I cannot lie..
Location
Oxford
Built our own Workbook here.

Our finances are scattered across 17 different entities and there is no proprietary App etc that we could find to track them all.

Ours takes about 10 minutes per month to update the current a/c's position. These and the projected investment positions give us an accurate enough fix on our current overall 'monetary position' plus future forecasts.

DIY is the way to go.

I do the same... doesn't work in real time and is a bit of a pain to update every month, but it allows me to keep close tabs on what I'm spending on various different types of outgoing - food, energy, car, cycling etc. In addition it gives me a general snapshot of how my finances are doing - debt held, amount saved, change in overall balance, income v. expenditure.

This is incredibly useful for tracking savings, assessing general financial health, identifying areas of greatest spend / where savings could potentially be made.


The thought of giving some random third party access to all of my online accounts sounds like an invitation to get screwed tbh.
 
OP
OP
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Time Waster

Veteran
All in one place so hackers will have field day once they get in.

Pretty much what will happen with DID

So what will they see that is more than your bank account has? Sure more accounts in one place but the point is the data there is read only access to bank accounts, uses the same or better encryption systems than your bank. Many hold identification data in separate systems from the financial data so get into one system would not get access to the other system who's data is needed for fraud.

I think nothing is completely safe but it is about trusting the encryption and systems that are used by any organisation as far as you can. Any system has the potential to be breached. The thing is that these apps and services take the security systems of banking sector and usually adds extra security on to that. The other thing is that somewhere I read that some of these apps (certainly one of the three I am looking at) has a fraud protection scheme covering it. IIRC I read somewhere that the protection comes from the same fraud systems that banks have to follow in that any fraud via that app is covered by the bank as if it was via the bank app or online banking. Cannot recall the details as it was read while researching into something else.

The weakness is that IF those get breached fully then all your data is accessed. I get that but I would say that most of my banking is with one of two banks, one in particular. IF this got breached (potentially easier than the apps I am considering) then I am quite possibly stuffed financially. Or not if the banking fraud systems kick in and reimburse me.

I do fear of data related fraud from open banking and online banking, potentially more than others do. For example I have a tablet that is used purely for access to my bank accounts via apps with biometric security and the other highest available security systems offered. It never leaves the house and is secured away at all times. It took me a long time to start to use online and app based banking. A very late adoptor I think. I also had a kind of nagging worry every time I logged on. That has gone now with familiarity but I am a cautious online services kind of person. When first using the online banking of my main bank I was totally paranoid that when logging on I could have somehow gone to a fraudster's site and get ripped off. Never happened but I had this paranoia over it. Still not gone completely.
 

Psamathe

Über Member
So what will they see that is more than your bank account has? Sure more accounts in one place but the point is the data there is read only access to bank accounts, uses the same or better encryption systems than your bank.
Being able to see details of a bank account (even if you can't do stuff) is a massive help to get into those accounts through other means. eg on the telephone as part of security I have been asked the current account balance as part of verification I'm me, sometimes recent transactions. Add birthday, postcode, 1st line of address, mother's maiden name (all/most readily available if somebody has got into your smartphone). and hackers are a long way to getting access through other means.
 
OP
OP
T

Time Waster

Veteran
Being able to see details of a bank account (even if you can't do stuff) is a massive help to get into those accounts through other means. eg on the telephone as part of security I have been asked the current account balance as part of verification I'm me, sometimes recent transactions. Add birthday, postcode, 1st line of address, mother's maiden name (all/most readily available if somebody has got into your smartphone). and hackers are a long way to getting access through other means.
i had one of those security team fraud calls but despite them knowing some details I hung up and called the bank's security number myself. I got through to the same team who asked the same sorts of questions, but at least I had made the call to them so knew it was the bank security team. The number being in the letter with my debit card or other post from the bank. I do not trust anyone who calls me that I do not know.

The point with that is it is no different from the bank's online or app based banking systems. Hackers could get that and more from your own bank's app just as easy surely? I mean the open banking systems have the same minimum standards and these apps, no doubt aware of the concerns, make a big deal over the extra security systems they employ to protect the data. Not least the separation of personal identification data and financial data. Either one of those could help a fraudster but both in the same source (do the banks separate too?) is a bonus for fraudsters.

So how is this different from bank apps and online services other than multiple accounts in one place? Which I might say tends to be the case with bank apps and online services as most people tend to have more than one account with their main banks. I do think that all online and app based banking or personal finance apps are at risk. As are loyalty cards which have details on you as well as what you buy. Even if you do not use these then banking is also at risk as shown by hacks into banks over the years. It is a risk we all face and either have to accept or keep your money in your matress and accept those risks! :laugh:

One of the apps I am looking at uses one of those security services that seek out potential data breaches and password breaches. Then they inform you of the risks. My bank does not offer that and indeed I think one of my banks got hacked once and it did not come out for some time that the breach was made. Well i might have been one of the bank brands within the group, but my point is how services deal with security and approach breaches as well. Quick notifcation and changing of logon details is one thing we can do when we know of a potential breach, but we need to know.

I am not saying these are safer or not I just do not think the fear is as justified for these apps when it is not applied to banks that use the same security systems as the apps. I have not heard of any security issues or breaches with the apps I have looked at so far but my bank has had a breach in one of its bank names in the group. Of course I will come back on here and let you all know if I take up one of these apps and then get defrauded. At that point humble pie will be my meal of choice!! 🤣🤣
 

Psamathe

Über Member
The point with that is it is no different from the bank's online or app based banking systems.
Personally I don't use either.

But apps I have seen store credentials (account numbers, passwords/certificates/security credentials) whereas online web access can be used where such details must be used entered (depending on how individual used the particular website, storing credentials or manual entry each visit).

One of the big weaknesses in some security systems using 2FA is if somebody gets into your phone and uses stored credentials even a 2FA OTP is sent by SMS text unsecured to the same device the hacker is using - your phone.
 
OP
OP
T

Time Waster

Veteran
Sure any system can be hacked or bypassed and the hackers are probably ahead of those trying to stop them. Defence is reactive in cyber security as in sport I reckon.

Which is why banking systems have processes to manage fraud, including taking the costs on the bank itself. AIUI a proven fraud or hack is covered by the bank when using their systems. I read somewhere that one of the apps was also covered by the bank that holds the account being read too. Not sure what the other apps are like.

This is all about risk perception and acceptance. For me the threshold was when I first signed up for online banking. Then again when I first downloaded a bank's app and started to use it. Then again when I put it on my phone to use when outside the house. This app use, should I go ahead with it is another threshold in risk acceptance. As is every bank app i start to use. Any one of them could be hacked so it is a matter of risk and risk acceptance. That is a case of ALARP!!
 

presta

Legendary Member
Every time I get a new car I keep saying I will keep a record of all expenses for that car along with mileage, fuel volume bought and the cost, etc. Also, the car average mpg for each trip too. I never, ever managed to do even one full day of this!!

There's no need to write anything down yourself, if you pay by credit card it's all done for you on your monthly bills.
 
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