Hi there,
I have bank accounts in both Pound Stirling (£) and Euro (€). At the moment I can't include my Pound Stirling account because as there is no exchange rate in reporting the figures would be wrong.
Are there any plans to support multiple currencies?
I have bank accounts in both Pound Stirling (£) and Euro (€). At the moment I can't include my Pound Stirling account because as there is no exchange rate in reporting the figures would be wrong.
Are there any plans to support multiple currencies?
Posted 9 years ago
cmchien, Official Rep
cmchien, Official Rep
Steven Tafzil, Employee
Thanks to everyone for their input. Though we may not respond to every post, we do read these and take suggestions seriously.
Our main concerns are still what Chi-Ming described above. Keeping Envelopes "virtual" so that the money in them may come from multiple Accounts makes multiple currencies a problem.
As Bill noted above, one option would be to keep certain Envelopes/Accounts a particular currency. This would be like having two EEBA accounts in one. You might have USD accounts with USD Envelopes, and Euro Accounts with Euro Envelopes. If you made a transfer between the two, you could tell EEBA what exchange rate was used.
Would this be a workable solution for others?
I don't know when we could implement something like this, but I'm curious if it would be a welcome solution for those looking for multiple currency support.
Our main concerns are still what Chi-Ming described above. Keeping Envelopes "virtual" so that the money in them may come from multiple Accounts makes multiple currencies a problem.
As Bill noted above, one option would be to keep certain Envelopes/Accounts a particular currency. This would be like having two EEBA accounts in one. You might have USD accounts with USD Envelopes, and Euro Accounts with Euro Envelopes. If you made a transfer between the two, you could tell EEBA what exchange rate was used.
Would this be a workable solution for others?
I don't know when we could implement something like this, but I'm curious if it would be a welcome solution for those looking for multiple currency support.
How about it, EEBA? Allow those of us who have a paid subscription to have two sign - ins without having to pay for two subscriptions? Sounds equitable to me.
The suggestion Stephen mentions above would be perfect for me ie to have two accounts in one, but unless/until that comes along (and I can understand us multi-currency people are in the minority of the EEBA population) Maria's suggestion would work for me :-)
Hmmm... Having multiple accounts seems weird to me. It totally subverts the paradigm of single sign-on and managing all (!) transactions from a single place. What if I have 3 currencies (like I currently do)? Shall I use 3 accounts? That is not an option.
I am sure the idea of managing multiple currencies is easy. Each account should have a 'currency' property. Querying a global exchange rate provider will do the rest. At the end of budgeting period (or even more frequently) EEBA may do an account state reconciliation.
This is exactly what I do these days. My primary currency is EUR. When I spend, say, Rubles or USD I go to Google each time and ask for "100 rub to eur". Sometimes it may be inaccurate but it works. At the end of the budget period I actualize accounts state.
Despite this 'manual' approach fairly works for me I still desperately miss multiple-currencies functionality in EEBA.
I am sure the idea of managing multiple currencies is easy. Each account should have a 'currency' property. Querying a global exchange rate provider will do the rest. At the end of budgeting period (or even more frequently) EEBA may do an account state reconciliation.
This is exactly what I do these days. My primary currency is EUR. When I spend, say, Rubles or USD I go to Google each time and ask for "100 rub to eur". Sometimes it may be inaccurate but it works. At the end of the budget period I actualize accounts state.
Despite this 'manual' approach fairly works for me I still desperately miss multiple-currencies functionality in EEBA.
roxydiva, multi currency people are minority because there is no such feature in EEBA. If there would be such feature EEBA would have a chance to have those people as their customers instead of forcing them to either make serious compromises or choose one of their competitors.
Very few are willing to give up the possibility to record all their transactions, or pay for more accounts only to have all their transactions but no consolidation of them.
Very few are willing to give up the possibility to record all their transactions, or pay for more accounts only to have all their transactions but no consolidation of them.
thanks all for your comments and feedback. We are continuing to take them seriously and find it helpful to hear how you budget and find work-arounds that make EEBA work for you.
@Marla and roxydiva, the suggestion to offer one paid subscription for 2 or 3 logins when handling multiple currencies is an interesting one, and I have recorded it in our feature request tracker.
@Marla and roxydiva, the suggestion to offer one paid subscription for 2 or 3 logins when handling multiple currencies is an interesting one, and I have recorded it in our feature request tracker.
@Dayspring Tech:
So what is the current status for this consideration started about a year ago? Any decisions so far?
Using the _base currency_ concept and a service converting the secondary currency "on-the-fly" might be a good idea.
Myself I am a bit stuck when started using EEBA with two bank accounts in € one account in Russian rubles and one in $. Everything is now in a disorder and a cant wait to clear it all off befor the new budgeting period.
So what is the current status for this consideration started about a year ago? Any decisions so far?
Using the _base currency_ concept and a service converting the secondary currency "on-the-fly" might be a good idea.
Myself I am a bit stuck when started using EEBA with two bank accounts in € one account in Russian rubles and one in $. Everything is now in a disorder and a cant wait to clear it all off befor the new budgeting period.
Steven Tafzil, Employee
Hi vsevolod.ukrainsky,
Thanks for the feedback. We don't have anything to announce yet regarding support for multiple currencies, but we certainly haven't forgotten about it. Thanks to everyone for the feedback they've provided so far!
Thanks for the feedback. We don't have anything to announce yet regarding support for multiple currencies, but we certainly haven't forgotten about it. Thanks to everyone for the feedback they've provided so far!
Look at https://www.clearcheckbook.com/.
They have multiple currencies, envelopes (categories+budget), web, Android and iPhone client.
They have multiple currencies, envelopes (categories+budget), web, Android and iPhone client.
Steven Tafzil, Employee
Hi jbtibor,
Thanks for the reference! That's definitely interesting. I haven't looked at their implementation of multiple currencies yet, but is there anything in particular that you like about how they handle it?
Thanks for the reference! That's definitely interesting. I haven't looked at their implementation of multiple currencies yet, but is there anything in particular that you like about how they handle it?
I like that they have it and it works. I'd say they follow the standard of other personal finance apps by having a base currency and converting other currencies to that when aggregation is required (i.e. reports, budgets). Exchange rates are updated automatically, this is also a must.
The only reason I'm also trying out EEBA is that CC's iPhone app is not so good, and I still have to give a serious try to their Android app.
Their web interface is far more advanced than EEBA, not only because having multiple currencies but usability wise too. Usability and lack of multiple currencies are the two biggest issues with EEBA. The next one is the lack of proper exports and imports.
Not to mention that they have an API so there are extensions like recording transactions using IM clients (i.e. Google Talk), or iGoogle gadget.
The only reason I'm also trying out EEBA is that CC's iPhone app is not so good, and I still have to give a serious try to their Android app.
Their web interface is far more advanced than EEBA, not only because having multiple currencies but usability wise too. Usability and lack of multiple currencies are the two biggest issues with EEBA. The next one is the lack of proper exports and imports.
Not to mention that they have an API so there are extensions like recording transactions using IM clients (i.e. Google Talk), or iGoogle gadget.
Steven Tafzil, Employee
Hi jbtibor,
Thanks for the honest feedback. Knowing your perspective helps us think about this issue, so thanks for taking the time to let us know!
Thanks for the honest feedback. Knowing your perspective helps us think about this issue, so thanks for taking the time to let us know!
Steven Tafzil, Employee
Thanks for the feedback everyone, discussions like this are really helpful for us. I don't have an ETA on when we might add support for multiple currencies, but we do sincerely appreciate the feedback.
@roxydiva Are you paying for two subscriptions? Send us an email at support@eebacanhelp.com with the EEBA Household names you're using and we'll work something out.
@roxydiva Are you paying for two subscriptions? Send us an email at support@eebacanhelp.com with the EEBA Household names you're using and we'll work something out.
@Steven -- any chance another arrangement can be made for multiple accounts? I'm trying to figure out how to budget during the 2 months I'll be in the US. Right now my solution is pooling money into one envelope that I'll then convert to USD for expenses in the US...but this means I won't have any budget in the states. If I could start another account for US-only expenses, I think I could make that work. Do you think that could be arranged
Hi Steven - thanks for the comments - I'll send an email in a moment.. :-)
Steven Tafzil, Employee
Hi roxydiva,
Thanks! Got your email, responded to you over email as well.
Thanks! Got your email, responded to you over email as well.
+1 on this. I have a paid account, am from the US, but live in Southeast Asia. This means that I regularly deal in 4 currencies. I have been converting all my account balances and transaction amounts to a 'base' currency, but find that the extra step actually prevents me from immediately entering the transaction. It also makes reconciling my USD account balances tough... I know this feature isn't an easy one, but would be a huge plus for folks like me.
Love the iPhone app... heads and shoulders above many of the other competing solutions.
Love the iPhone app... heads and shoulders above many of the other competing solutions.
Becky Huang, Official Rep
Hi Marc,
Thanks for the praise! We're glad that you love EEBA on iPhone so far. I understand that it's time-consuming to constantly convert transactions from one currency to another. I've added your thoughts to our tracker and will let you know if we have more to share about this suggestion.
Thanks for the praise! We're glad that you love EEBA on iPhone so far. I understand that it's time-consuming to constantly convert transactions from one currency to another. I've added your thoughts to our tracker and will let you know if we have more to share about this suggestion.
Becky Huang, Official Rep
The way I do this is I convert all "foreign" currencies into my primary currency and set up my accounts with the amounts in my primary currency. I try and use a lower rate than actual, so I don't suddenly find my money supply has dwindled should the value of my foreign currency drop. Then each month - or however often I like - I recalculate based on the new rates and adjust my envelope values, particularly if the exchange rate has fallen below the one I used.
Then again, I mainly spend my primary currency only, and just accumulate foreign currencies, so I have no trouble with having to do many exchanges.
Then again, I mainly spend my primary currency only, and just accumulate foreign currencies, so I have no trouble with having to do many exchanges.
Karisa Russell, Official Rep
Hi Nikola,
Thanks for sharing your work-around! That does sound like a great way to track all of your accounts in your Goodbudget Household.
Thanks, again.
Thanks for sharing your work-around! That does sound like a great way to track all of your accounts in your Goodbudget Household.
Thanks, again.
Hi Karisa,
Just a quick note that users only need GoodBudget to offer a way to sign into one of two or more different GoodBudget accounts on a user's sole smart phone when mobile.
Each currency can already be handled and managed separately with its own unique sign-in ID and budget on the website with a laptop computer at home, but GoodBudget currently limits the user to only one sign-in ID for the app on a smartphone.
It's completely out of the question for the user to carry and juggle two or more different smartphones when mobile to deal with alternate currencies while on the road. Dealing with the GoodBudget website on the small screen of a smartphone is far too time-consuming and sometimes completely impossible due to bad reception for quick transactions while mobile.
Simply allowing the user to sign into a number of possible GoodBudget accounts on the user's sole smartphone would allow the user to access their GoodBudget account that corresponds to the currency at hand, and keep all of the transactions separate by currency. The user could easily convert one currency into another outside of GoodBudget. GoodBudget is already fully capable of tracking and managing different currencies separately while at home.
This would also solve the problem for other users who must also handle more than one budget (another for a spouse and/or child) while mobile on their sole smartphone.
Each of the user's GoodBudget accounts could have a unique log-in ID and share the same password to make it fast and easy to log into the correct GoodBudget account representing the currency at hand or for the correct family member.
Does anyone have any other thoughts on this? It seems to me that this small change could easily solve the primary problem.
Cheers!
John Vander Stel
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Just a quick note that users only need GoodBudget to offer a way to sign into one of two or more different GoodBudget accounts on a user's sole smart phone when mobile.
Each currency can already be handled and managed separately with its own unique sign-in ID and budget on the website with a laptop computer at home, but GoodBudget currently limits the user to only one sign-in ID for the app on a smartphone.
It's completely out of the question for the user to carry and juggle two or more different smartphones when mobile to deal with alternate currencies while on the road. Dealing with the GoodBudget website on the small screen of a smartphone is far too time-consuming and sometimes completely impossible due to bad reception for quick transactions while mobile.
Simply allowing the user to sign into a number of possible GoodBudget accounts on the user's sole smartphone would allow the user to access their GoodBudget account that corresponds to the currency at hand, and keep all of the transactions separate by currency. The user could easily convert one currency into another outside of GoodBudget. GoodBudget is already fully capable of tracking and managing different currencies separately while at home.
This would also solve the problem for other users who must also handle more than one budget (another for a spouse and/or child) while mobile on their sole smartphone.
Each of the user's GoodBudget accounts could have a unique log-in ID and share the same password to make it fast and easy to log into the correct GoodBudget account representing the currency at hand or for the correct family member.
Does anyone have any other thoughts on this? It seems to me that this small change could easily solve the primary problem.
Cheers!
John Vander Stel
Grand Rapids, Michigan
(Edited)
Karisa Russell, Official Rep
Hi John,
Thanks for your thoughts! If I'm understanding you correctly, Goodbudget can already do this.
Folks can have as many Goodbudget Households as they like. However, each Household just needs to be registered to a unique username and/or email address. So, this requires folks to have two separate email addresses so they can register a second Household to use exclusively to track a different currency.
Then, while on their smartphone, they'll need to log out of their main Household in order to login and view the other.
Thanks, again!
Thanks for your thoughts! If I'm understanding you correctly, Goodbudget can already do this.
Folks can have as many Goodbudget Households as they like. However, each Household just needs to be registered to a unique username and/or email address. So, this requires folks to have two separate email addresses so they can register a second Household to use exclusively to track a different currency.
Then, while on their smartphone, they'll need to log out of their main Household in order to login and view the other.
Thanks, again!
Exactly. :-) it's been hard to explain this, but I'm glad that you now fully understand what I've suggested in the past, Karisa. Thank you for confirming that it would be a very useful tweek to the Android app. I would suppose this would be useful for those with the apple app, as well.
(Edited)
For more than 4 years this thread tiptoes around the idea of having multiple households to implement different currencies...
People of EEBA/Goodbudget, what's going on with you?!
This is totally wrong approach which is... well... just wrong. The suggestion is marketing-originated: more households - more money. What about the logic? What if I have Euro in my bank account and cash British Pounds in my pocket? Should I re-login to get my expenses tracked or what?
You will get slammed by more or less adequate software architect for proposing this!
I started to use the tool four years ago. At the beginning I fell in love with it and became a paid user. Then I found that I couldn't go on with my household because I had (and still have) multiple bank accounts in Euro, US dollars, Hong-Kong dollars, Chinese yuan and Russian rubles. Unfortunately the tool couldn't handle those and still cannot.
This was the reason I quit. These days I use my own application which can perfectly handle multiple currencies. It took me about 4 months to craft the whole thing from scratch. My app uses European Bank daily XML reports to keep an eye on the currency rates.
Again: offering your customers to implement multiple households IS WRONG. It leads to a complete chaos, requiring users to logon/logoff several times per day to manages the decentralized environment.
@Nikola Novak: converting currencies is not the way out. It will lead to the mess once the rates change. The one and only one holy idea: to implement Currency Accounts.
Another thing that surprised me very much is the reaction of EEBA people who seem to have queued the feature request but do nothing to implement it. Any comment on that?
People of EEBA/Goodbudget, what's going on with you?!
This is totally wrong approach which is... well... just wrong. The suggestion is marketing-originated: more households - more money. What about the logic? What if I have Euro in my bank account and cash British Pounds in my pocket? Should I re-login to get my expenses tracked or what?
You will get slammed by more or less adequate software architect for proposing this!
I started to use the tool four years ago. At the beginning I fell in love with it and became a paid user. Then I found that I couldn't go on with my household because I had (and still have) multiple bank accounts in Euro, US dollars, Hong-Kong dollars, Chinese yuan and Russian rubles. Unfortunately the tool couldn't handle those and still cannot.
This was the reason I quit. These days I use my own application which can perfectly handle multiple currencies. It took me about 4 months to craft the whole thing from scratch. My app uses European Bank daily XML reports to keep an eye on the currency rates.
Again: offering your customers to implement multiple households IS WRONG. It leads to a complete chaos, requiring users to logon/logoff several times per day to manages the decentralized environment.
@Nikola Novak: converting currencies is not the way out. It will lead to the mess once the rates change. The one and only one holy idea: to implement Currency Accounts.
Another thing that surprised me very much is the reaction of EEBA people who seem to have queued the feature request but do nothing to implement it. Any comment on that?
Vsevolod, I've given my input to help out. The rates ALWAYS change, and it with the way Goodbudget is currently, it is left to the user to mindfully keep track of them.
Very little else can be done to actually support multiple currencies, yet be useful in most scenarios.
Imagine you have $1000 and 100 EUR. You normaly use dollars, and you decide to save euros for your trip to Europe. So, you open up a goal envelope named "Trip to Europe" and you put the 100 EUR towards that goal.
But this is where it gets messy. First, you can't mix currencies. Saying I have $1000 distributed among my envelopes, and one envelope holds 100 EUR is fine, but now imagine you want to also put dollars towards your goal of going to Europe. With the excange rate varying, how do you know you have reached your goal, or that you haven't overfilled your envelope? You either need a $1000 for your trip (converted to Euros), or 1000 EUR, because, really, anything else is meaningless. So, at some point you DO need an exchange rate of some sort.
But that's also not cool, because that means that as the rates change, on some days you will find excess money in your goal envelope, and on others there will be too little money in it. You just have to be able to convert to some base currency before you can put your money into envelopes, and work with that.
Then again, suppose your Euros converted to dollars (your base currency) are spread across multiple envelopes. When the exchange rate changes, it's easy to determine what happens with your accounts - the converted amounts are simply adjusted according to the new exchange rates. But what happens to the amounts in your envelopes? The software won't know how many Euros you have in each envelope unless you tell it, that is - if you are able to bind accounts to envelopes in some way or another.
Of course, the kicker is that when you DO actually go and make the conversion of foreign currencies into your base currency (or the other way around, or any way at all, really), you probably won't find the same exchange rate as your budgeting app uses. I know I'm never able to find the same one as I find on the Internet, so I err on the side of caution - that is, I intentionally underestimate the rate.
What I'm saying is that no matter how it's done, the system will always have drawbacks, so the workaround I suggested is quite good, at least in my scenario. Sure, some support could come from the app itself, but ultimately not much. You'll always find scenarios that will require some manual adjustment.
What I would do is enable accounts in other currencies, but always have one "base" currency. With each account, a user should be able to specify the envelope from which an amount would be removed, or added to, due to the change in the rate. When transferring between accounts of different currencies, the user would have to enter both amounts - the amount being withdrawn from the account in currency X, and the amount being deposited to the account in currency Y. If, say, Goodbudget calculated that the amount from X would equal more in Y than was actually deposited, the difference would then be removed from the envelope of the user's choice, and vice versa.
Upon adding a transaction, there should be a simple way to indicate the currency in which that transaction was made, or it should be inferred from the account that was used in the transaction, and the appropriate amounts should be removed from appropriate accounts and envelopes.
And that's it. Many of the proposals here I would never use because they would uniformly lead into a budgeting mess for me.
Very little else can be done to actually support multiple currencies, yet be useful in most scenarios.
Imagine you have $1000 and 100 EUR. You normaly use dollars, and you decide to save euros for your trip to Europe. So, you open up a goal envelope named "Trip to Europe" and you put the 100 EUR towards that goal.
But this is where it gets messy. First, you can't mix currencies. Saying I have $1000 distributed among my envelopes, and one envelope holds 100 EUR is fine, but now imagine you want to also put dollars towards your goal of going to Europe. With the excange rate varying, how do you know you have reached your goal, or that you haven't overfilled your envelope? You either need a $1000 for your trip (converted to Euros), or 1000 EUR, because, really, anything else is meaningless. So, at some point you DO need an exchange rate of some sort.
But that's also not cool, because that means that as the rates change, on some days you will find excess money in your goal envelope, and on others there will be too little money in it. You just have to be able to convert to some base currency before you can put your money into envelopes, and work with that.
Then again, suppose your Euros converted to dollars (your base currency) are spread across multiple envelopes. When the exchange rate changes, it's easy to determine what happens with your accounts - the converted amounts are simply adjusted according to the new exchange rates. But what happens to the amounts in your envelopes? The software won't know how many Euros you have in each envelope unless you tell it, that is - if you are able to bind accounts to envelopes in some way or another.
Of course, the kicker is that when you DO actually go and make the conversion of foreign currencies into your base currency (or the other way around, or any way at all, really), you probably won't find the same exchange rate as your budgeting app uses. I know I'm never able to find the same one as I find on the Internet, so I err on the side of caution - that is, I intentionally underestimate the rate.
What I'm saying is that no matter how it's done, the system will always have drawbacks, so the workaround I suggested is quite good, at least in my scenario. Sure, some support could come from the app itself, but ultimately not much. You'll always find scenarios that will require some manual adjustment.
What I would do is enable accounts in other currencies, but always have one "base" currency. With each account, a user should be able to specify the envelope from which an amount would be removed, or added to, due to the change in the rate. When transferring between accounts of different currencies, the user would have to enter both amounts - the amount being withdrawn from the account in currency X, and the amount being deposited to the account in currency Y. If, say, Goodbudget calculated that the amount from X would equal more in Y than was actually deposited, the difference would then be removed from the envelope of the user's choice, and vice versa.
Upon adding a transaction, there should be a simple way to indicate the currency in which that transaction was made, or it should be inferred from the account that was used in the transaction, and the appropriate amounts should be removed from appropriate accounts and envelopes.
And that's it. Many of the proposals here I would never use because they would uniformly lead into a budgeting mess for me.
(Edited)
I'm also surprised that this hasn't yet been implemented. There are API's out there that can feed currency exchange rates... given how many people have been commenting on this feature request, I would say that it's still a feature that your customers want. I too suspended my paid account because doing exchange rate adjustments made using the application far too complex.
I realize that multi-currency is not a weekend project, but perhaps you could attract more paying customers and get back old customers if you implemented this feature. Multiple logins really isn't a viable stopgap. If I told my wife she had to log in and out of two accounts to manage our money, she would roll her eyes at me and tell me, "no". I *want* to like this app... but this missing feature is still preventing me also from using it effectively. Otherwise, well done. :-)
I realize that multi-currency is not a weekend project, but perhaps you could attract more paying customers and get back old customers if you implemented this feature. Multiple logins really isn't a viable stopgap. If I told my wife she had to log in and out of two accounts to manage our money, she would roll her eyes at me and tell me, "no". I *want* to like this app... but this missing feature is still preventing me also from using it effectively. Otherwise, well done. :-)
Goodbudget was effectively abandoned. They spent lots of time and money on rebranding (why? what's the benefit?) but didn't implement any of the major feature request and after almost 2 years many of the bugs are still not fixed either. The answer is always a workaround or "we'll look at this sometime in the future".
Hi all,
I've suggested allowing multiple logins as a quick and easy way to leverage GoodBudget's web page's current capabilities to be used by the mobile apps, as well. GoodBudget online can already handle multiple currencies separately with different family IDs.
A flag could be added to each GoodBudget ID's database indicating which currency it is handling, thus opening up a clear path for future database interaction capabilities.
A permanent long term solution to change the whole composition of goodBudget's databases to add integrated multiple currency handling and currency conversion capabilities would require an incredible amount of brainstorming and time to pull off and would be a major undertaking just to figure out how to best approach it, but GoodBudget is already capable of holding and managing multiple currencies separately. Why not offer simple access to those built-n functions of GoodBudget while mobile, as well?
Once GoodBudget's current capabilities are fully leveraged to offer mobile access to all of GoodBudget's relevant current online capabilities, the team could better focus on how to best approach and implement other automated multiple currency conversion calculations and database features into GoodBudget for the future.
Why hold up short-term progress on mobile apps for a long term project on the whole infrastructure?
I've suffered the same kind of problem for many years, with different circumstances, but GoodBudget already has the capability to hold and manage multiple currencies separately. Why not simply share that capability with the mobile apps? That would solve more than half of the problem with currently built-in capabilities!
This would offer a quick and easy way for the mobile apps to access the functionality as the GoodBudget web page. At the same time, it will solve part of the problem for all foreign users and show them that the GoodBudget team has been listening and has not forgotten about them.
This would also offer a clear path for the GoodBudget coding teams to better focus on the longer term project of the best possible approach to add additional currency conversion capabilities that could enable GoodBudget to automatically handle currency conversions and transfers in the future.
At the very least they might even be able to add a currency conversion capability to the amount input functions on the spot in GoodBudget so Goodbudget could directly interact with the other different ID's databases (different currency accounts) in the future to offer the same result, while continuing to keeping each currency database separate from the others.
In conclusion, GoodBudget already has the capability to handle and manage different currencies. Why deny mobile access to the same built-in functionality that GoodBudget has online, and not open up a clear path to future separate currency conversion capabilities?
I suggest leveraging the capabilities GoodBudget already has built-in before brainstorming about major projects like currency conversions and transferring multiple currencies from envelope to envelope. Multiple currencies in the same database would be a huge and long-term undertaking.
As a former programmer, I can see now how GoodBudget could easily be improved with minor tweaks to open up paths to handle all of the advanced automated currency conversion functions you have been talking about, and so much more!
Without a clear path for action and insisting on all improvements at once, we could still be debating this for many more years to come. Without a clear path for a plan, nothing will be accomplished, at all.
Just my two cents, for what it's worth. Your further thoughts and ideas are welcomed and requested. United with a plan, GoodBudget can accomplish anything! :-)
Cheers!
John Vander Stel
Grand Rapids, MIchigan USA
I've suggested allowing multiple logins as a quick and easy way to leverage GoodBudget's web page's current capabilities to be used by the mobile apps, as well. GoodBudget online can already handle multiple currencies separately with different family IDs.
A flag could be added to each GoodBudget ID's database indicating which currency it is handling, thus opening up a clear path for future database interaction capabilities.
A permanent long term solution to change the whole composition of goodBudget's databases to add integrated multiple currency handling and currency conversion capabilities would require an incredible amount of brainstorming and time to pull off and would be a major undertaking just to figure out how to best approach it, but GoodBudget is already capable of holding and managing multiple currencies separately. Why not offer simple access to those built-n functions of GoodBudget while mobile, as well?
Once GoodBudget's current capabilities are fully leveraged to offer mobile access to all of GoodBudget's relevant current online capabilities, the team could better focus on how to best approach and implement other automated multiple currency conversion calculations and database features into GoodBudget for the future.
Why hold up short-term progress on mobile apps for a long term project on the whole infrastructure?
I've suffered the same kind of problem for many years, with different circumstances, but GoodBudget already has the capability to hold and manage multiple currencies separately. Why not simply share that capability with the mobile apps? That would solve more than half of the problem with currently built-in capabilities!
This would offer a quick and easy way for the mobile apps to access the functionality as the GoodBudget web page. At the same time, it will solve part of the problem for all foreign users and show them that the GoodBudget team has been listening and has not forgotten about them.
This would also offer a clear path for the GoodBudget coding teams to better focus on the longer term project of the best possible approach to add additional currency conversion capabilities that could enable GoodBudget to automatically handle currency conversions and transfers in the future.
At the very least they might even be able to add a currency conversion capability to the amount input functions on the spot in GoodBudget so Goodbudget could directly interact with the other different ID's databases (different currency accounts) in the future to offer the same result, while continuing to keeping each currency database separate from the others.
In conclusion, GoodBudget already has the capability to handle and manage different currencies. Why deny mobile access to the same built-in functionality that GoodBudget has online, and not open up a clear path to future separate currency conversion capabilities?
I suggest leveraging the capabilities GoodBudget already has built-in before brainstorming about major projects like currency conversions and transferring multiple currencies from envelope to envelope. Multiple currencies in the same database would be a huge and long-term undertaking.
As a former programmer, I can see now how GoodBudget could easily be improved with minor tweaks to open up paths to handle all of the advanced automated currency conversion functions you have been talking about, and so much more!
Without a clear path for action and insisting on all improvements at once, we could still be debating this for many more years to come. Without a clear path for a plan, nothing will be accomplished, at all.
Just my two cents, for what it's worth. Your further thoughts and ideas are welcomed and requested. United with a plan, GoodBudget can accomplish anything! :-)
Cheers!
John Vander Stel
Grand Rapids, MIchigan USA
(Edited)
John, that is an awful suggestion IMO. Honestly, if I were asked to do something like this I would flat out refuse because of two reasons:
1. It's not a solution. It's a way around the solution - a hack, if you will - and it doesn't solve anything. Everything your application could automate is left to the user this way (I'm picturing myself in the middle of the fun park in a foreign country trying to punch in my expense after buying a cup of coke, doing currency conversion in my head while everyone else is riding a roller coaster and my coke is getting warm, only to find out that my conversion was incorrect and I would have to postpone my next trip to a fun park because I haven't been able to save enough money because of this bad conversion).
2. I will have wasted a couple of weeks which I could've used to develop a part of an actual solution - which I will have to implement sometime in the future anyway. In fact, this half-hearted attempt to solve a problem will probably postpone the actual solution indefinitely, and will - in the long run - probably cost me customers, and therefore profit.
Moreover, it's sometimes challenging enough to keep things in sync as it is (e.g. I have some accounts where the amount of money in the account is supposed to be the same as the amount in one of my envelopes). Keeping two separate Goodbudget accounts in sync is a lot of hard work, prone to errors, and not something I would want to do on a regular basis. In fact, I'll probably be leaving Goodbudget if anything like this is developed.
Cheers!
Nikola
1. It's not a solution. It's a way around the solution - a hack, if you will - and it doesn't solve anything. Everything your application could automate is left to the user this way (I'm picturing myself in the middle of the fun park in a foreign country trying to punch in my expense after buying a cup of coke, doing currency conversion in my head while everyone else is riding a roller coaster and my coke is getting warm, only to find out that my conversion was incorrect and I would have to postpone my next trip to a fun park because I haven't been able to save enough money because of this bad conversion).
2. I will have wasted a couple of weeks which I could've used to develop a part of an actual solution - which I will have to implement sometime in the future anyway. In fact, this half-hearted attempt to solve a problem will probably postpone the actual solution indefinitely, and will - in the long run - probably cost me customers, and therefore profit.
Moreover, it's sometimes challenging enough to keep things in sync as it is (e.g. I have some accounts where the amount of money in the account is supposed to be the same as the amount in one of my envelopes). Keeping two separate Goodbudget accounts in sync is a lot of hard work, prone to errors, and not something I would want to do on a regular basis. In fact, I'll probably be leaving Goodbudget if anything like this is developed.
Cheers!
Nikola
Keeping two separate Goodbudget accounts in sync is a lot of hard work, prone to errors, and not something I would want to do on a regular basis. In fact, I'll probably be leaving Goodbudget if anything like this is developed.+1
Chi-En Yu, Official Rep
Steven Tafzil, Employee
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. You give a lot of detail in your suggestions, which helps us tremendously. I've added your comments to our internal requested features tracker, thanks!
Ian White
Chi-En Yu, Official Rep
JasonK
One thing you may consider is looking at the code for KMyMoney or GnuCash since they are both open source Linux products and they both handle multiple currencies. Why reinvent the wheel?
Thanks for your attention to this subject.
Sincerely,
Jason
Becky Huang, Official Rep
Thanks for your input! We've added your voice to our tracker.