Thinking about Clerk - now that I've used it for a while. Some thoughts

The three biggest things that prevent me from using it more:

• Not having regular reminders - email/home screen widget

• Sync breaking, and there not being an easy, predictable way to fix it.

• Not having categorization work on auto pilot.

Some other observations

• It's too heavy of a lift to do the monthly reconciliation consistently and move money in/out of vaults etc. But if vaults aren't the right way, then how do I segment out those buckets and have the costs in them not effect my GFS?

• Having an income target is probably unnecessary in most cases, because:

  • Most people have fixed income anyway

  • Missing this target will show up in the other targets

• Having a "Fixed Costs" target also feels kind of silly, given they're meant to be fixed, but it's also not super easy to understand if/how they fluctuate over time - see next point.

• I keep wanting to see how I've done as a trend over time (e.g last 6 months), but right now I can only track progress on a month to month basis.

• It's not easy to see and keep track of temporary outgoings (loans/deposits). Likewise temporary incomings

• The new table-like target tracker has too much going on to feel useful on an ongoing basis.

• The two questions I find myself repeatedly wanting to know are:

  • Am I on track to hit my targets with my current spending

  • Am I in danger of hitting zero before my next pay check

• Both of these require some form of forecasting - having some idea when new costs will land.

Features

• Add functioning "re-sync" button when a bank account sync is expiring.

• Remind a user when sync is expiring in a month, have a one click link in the email (which bypasses login) to re-sync. Bump re-sync period up to 6 months.

• OpenAI powered auto-categorization

• Daily/weekly email with overview

• Homescreen widget for iphone

• Simpler target panels

• Add ability to tag an incoming outgoing as temporary