Finance
Visual Budget - Finances
Personal and business budgeting for iPhone and iPad, with CSV and OFX import and category charts.
Get the app
Opens the official store page
- Developer
- Pascal Meziat
- Score
- 4.7
- Downloads
- 164 ratings
- Age
- Rated 4+
- Version
- 1.88
- Price
- Free
Screenshots
About this app
Budgeting across more than one account is the focus of Visual Budget, an iPhone and iPad app from Pascal Meziat for people tracking personal and business finances in the same place. Accounts can be sorted into groups, and each gets a budget plan built on two levels of categories and sub-categories, starting from a stock list that can be edited. Transactions are typed in by hand or imported from CSV spreadsheets and OFX bank files through iTunes file sharing. Recurring items such as a monthly subscription are set up once. You can tick entries off against a bank statement, budget each category, and read bar and pie charts breaking down income, spending and balance changes. A sample account with a dozen transactions helps with getting your bearings. The free version is capped at 50 transactions per account; an in-app purchase removes the cap. It needs iOS 7.1 or later, and a Mac version is sold separately.
Visual Budget - Finances: the full guide
What the app is
Several accounts, one budget. Visual Budget is an iPhone and iPad app from a solo developer, Pascal Meziat, built so personal and business money can be tracked side by side. Accounts sort into groups, each gets a plan built on categories and sub-categories, and transactions are typed in or pulled in from CSV and OFX files via iTunes file sharing.
Recurring items are set once, entries can be ticked off against a statement, and bar and pie charts break down income, spending and balance changes. The free version stops at 50 transactions per account; a one-off purchase removes the cap. A Mac version is sold separately.
How it works day to day
Month end is the main event: export a CSV or OFX from the bank, bring it in, and categorise what the import didn't recognise. Then reconcile against the statement, ticking entries off, and read the charts to see which category overshot. Day to day it's lighter, a few manual entries for cash and a glance at the balance.
The sample account with a dozen transactions is there for the first week, when the two-level category system takes some setting up.
Why people look for it
File import without a bank connection. People who don't want to hand their banking login to a third party, or whose bank isn't supported by the aggregators, want an app that takes the files banks already export. Running business and personal accounts in one place is the second reason. It's a small app with 164 ratings, so searchers tend to be deliberate.
Look and feel
Finance apps of this type are tables and charts, and the five screenshots on the page should show the transaction lists, the category tree and the bar and pie breakdowns. The iOS 7.1 minimum hints at an interface that predates current design conventions, so expect a functional look rather than a fashionable one. The charts are the visual payoff for the data entry.
