PocketSmith レビュー 14

I have used PocketSmith for two years and found it helpful for budgeting and forecasting, especially with its scheduled recurring transactions feature. However, my recent experience has seriously undermined my trust in the service, primarily due to concerns about the integrity and privacy of my financial data.

A major issue occurred when a key budget category was deleted, affecting hundreds of transactions. Initially, support implied that I might have deleted the category myself. However, after I pointed out that the deletion happened in the middle of the night when I was definitely not using the account, they admitted that it was in fact a staff member who accessed my account and made the changes without my consent.

This unauthorized access not only disrupted my budgeting but also raised serious questions about how PocketSmith manages and protects user data. It was only after pressing for details and pointing out the timing that they acknowledged the mistake honestly.

Aside from this privacy concern, the web interface is slow and cumbersome, requiring too many clicks for basic tasks, and the iOS/iPad app is very limited in functionality. The budgeting system is rigid since budgets are closely tied to scheduled transactions, which reduces flexibility.

Given the high cost of the service, I expected better transparency, control, and safeguards regarding my data. For these reasons, I am now exploring alternatives that offer local data storage with secure encrypted sync.

PocketSmith has potential, but until it improves transparency and respects user data privacy, I cannot recommend it.

First week review:

Honestly reading most of the poor reviews, it seems like people are looking for a quick and simple budgeting tool. Although it’s intuitive, some budgeting skills are needed to use this platforms. I have a complex cross-border setup as I live overseas but earn income in my home country, and have investment accounts.

The good:
- It’s completely adjustable, you can easily manage categories, and adjust transactions, updating reports quickly.
- The forecasting tool is next level if you set up budgets and correctly allocate. It’s important you can spot errors in case there’s duplicates when you set it up.
- I have used Xero for years with my company, so going from that to this feels like a breeze. Easy layout, clear structure, it’s very easy to learn.

Cons:
- The Account setup although well designed, the search functionality makes it really difficult to find the bank you’re after, you may need to tweak keywords to find it.
- If you use wise, it’s a similar situation that you need to be aware of duplicates, multiple accounts to choose from etc (choose the global wise account if you hold multiple currency accounts)
- Liability set up is weird, you need to setup a budget then deduct. If you make the transfer above your regular payments you need to make a manual adjustment in the calendar on that date to reduce the liability balance.

Overall it’s a pretty simple system if you have basic financial knowledge of income vs expenses, assets vs liabilities, and understand where you’re trying to go.

I think the poor reviews are pretty inaccurate, the support so far has been quick, set-up was uncomplicated, and it’s a huge step up from something like Mint or your own spreadsheets.

Has great potential, but unfortunately it is still an incomplete product, especially on mobile. Even worse, you have to pay to get the useful features for an incomplete product that is very difficult to use and complex and full of bugs and inconsistencies.
E.g. I have added my loan account with negative balance, but it is still counted towards my positive balance and there are discrepancies in balances all over the web and mobile apps. I have contacted their support and no response more than a week later (and I'm a paying customer). Meanwhile, I'm receiving marketing emails I never signed up for.
The mobile app is about as useful as a prototype (not even a beta).
Overall, has promise and will be a good product when it's fully implemented.

Having issues with transactions not syncing and disappearing but PocketSmith advises now that they need export from account and their data provider can take up to 1 month to resolve issues. This is really unhelpful. This is not a properly tested end to end system and they are charing subscription fee for no reason. I would instead recommend using other tools like YNAB who have much stable product and you won't have headaches like this company who is most likely run from someone's garage. Takes a while to get a response and they always find a reason to not respond in first go, and asks more information. Avoid this company.

I have had multiple issues with feeds where PocketSmith deflects the responsibility. PocketSmith team has no accountability wherein they proactively looks at issues. I have had issues where randomly transactions disappear from Amex and CBA feeds. If I did not know exactly what I was looking for, I would never find out. This makes their system pretty unreliable as your data points are not accurate given underlying transaction data is always unreliable and unstable. I found transactions from over 3 months ago, suddenly disappear - when I have export from before showing correctly categorised and confirmed. This is not acceptable for a paid service. Better look elsewhere for options if you are looking for a reliable tool becuase PocketSmith is not it.

Pocketsmith has a fantastic interface with powerful and flexible tools. But some time in 2024, the product got more glitchy and the customer service quality plummeted to less-than-industry-average. It's sad to see a great product run into the ground. I likely won't renew my subscription this next round.

I used to use MSMoney but switched to PocketSmith in January 2024 and it is a world apart. PocketSmith syncs seamlessly with six of my account feeds, with only occasional minor glitches that are easily fixed. As a quasi real-time aggregator, it is by far the best app I've ever used. The calendar function, which shows future balances and transactions, has become indispensable. The budget function helps to keep on track at a glance. The dashboard provides a comprehensive snapshot of my finances, and the mobile version is just as powerful. You can easily see and download your income and expenses and cashflow month by month and I am still trying to figure out how to use the scenario planning function. If PocketSmith added a sync function for share investments as well as banks, it would easily deserve a five-star rating. It's not free but worth the cost.

As a UK user the best points about Pocketsmith are:

- for bank feeds it is far and away the best app I have used; it links with investment accounts as well as ordinary bank accounts
- visually it is attractive
- its use of rules to automate transactions is very useful and a time-saver
- very detailed and comprehensive.

Why not 5-stars? I have to say that it is a steep learning curve. I must have used 10 or more financial apps over the years including YNAB (which I still use), Quicken, Moneydance etc. Pocketsmith is undoubtedly the most difficult to get to grips with!

I am a massive fan of zero-sum budgeting - this enables you to save towards big annual bills. Although Pocketsmith does state that it is not designed for this form of budgeting, using their budget rollover facility (in user preferences you need to click beta facility) it is possible to replicate zero-sum budgeting. Very pleased with the results although you do have to put a lot of work in (i.e. forget the Auto-budget tool!). Having now mastered this feature I have upgraded from 4 to 5 stars - but you do need to put a lot in to get a lot out!

Regrettably, I must express my extreme dissatisfaction with Pocketsmith. Despite investing considerable time and effort into making the product work smoothly, it proved to be an exercise in futility. The recurring and persistent errors in their data feed system were particularly frustrating. Pocketsmith relies on Yodlee data feeds, which is supposedly an accredited entity for data sharing. However, the multitude of issues encountered cast serious doubts on this accreditation.

What's most disappointing is Pocketsmith's apparent reluctance to take ownership of their role as service providers. Instead of addressing the problems directly, they consistently shift the blame onto Yodlee, effectively absolving themselves of responsibility. This approach not only fails to provide a viable solution but also raises questions about their compliance with Australian consumer laws.

In light of my experience, I strongly advise others to steer clear of this product. Save yourself the time, effort, and hassle by exploring alternatives that offer reliability and accountability.

I have been using Pocketsmith for more than 3 years. It may be helpful to anyone with a couple of uncomplicated accounts, but if your financial environment is very complex, this is NOT your software.
It is not without merits, but the compromises are significant.
1. Does not gather ALL of the data available on the bank feeds.
2. Frequently misallocates the data (i.e. putting notes into the Merchant area & combining notes with Merchant.
3. Can't issue reports on subcategories rolling up to the primary categories.
4. No real-time assistance, no phone, no chat. Email only and that is (at best) frequently not understanding the problem.
5. It should but it cannot track transfers very well.
I have been using it for a long time, and if I wasn't fearful of migrating everything to another, I would be gone.

Tried to sign up and actually pay and it was impossible. Nothing worked, no cards worked, selecting an account type was complicated and there is absolutely NO SUPPORT. They say it can take 2 days to get back to you - terrible service for how expensive it is. They call themselves the MINT of Australia but if I was MINT I'd be challenging them on that because its not comparable at all. Too bad as there is a major need for something like this.

Pretty bored of Pocketsmith. Have been a paying subscriber for almost 3 years and never managed to get final data from the system. It's too complicated for a good proportion of the population, and even after paying an accountant to help set it up there are too many settings that if not correctly set, you will not get relevant data. GIGO - garbage in, garbage out. Support is too slow - if you need a response, you don't want to be waiting 2 days. They also limit you on Pots and saving pots are part of most banking apps now as part of efforts to help people save. Pocketsmith want to charge more for pots.

Scam

Be careful when signing up, they renew without your authorization !!

Why is the free version limited in time? Couldn't it have been done in some other way?