Frequently Asked Questions
Growing by the day
Basic
No offense, but what even qualifies you to develop a personal finance app?
The founder, Tim Habersack has a B.S. in Business Administration, concentration Finance from California State University, California. Essentially a gauntlet of financial and accounting classes. Also, he's been developing web applications for 8 years, believes strongly in the project, and is slightly obsessed in the future of open-source software.
What kind of budgeting style is used in Nickelpinch?
Almost all current systems and styles don't work very well for personal finance. Even with automation, Double-entry bookkeeping is cumbersome, and the concept of accounts payable and accounts receivable is not user-friendly, to put it nicely.
Nickelpinch has its roots in Zero-based budgeting, but with some liberties taken for the digital age. Nickelpinch is designed to allow a user to be as Scrooge McDuck as they want. It doesn't force 'proper' ways to do anything.
There is already Mint and others that automate things, why should I use Nickelpinch, which makes me enter everything in manually?
Mint is a great budgeting tool for some people. For people who are concerned with owning their data, and who are or want to be more pro-active in the process, Mint doesn't work for them.
Nickelpinch is for the kind of user that wants to check their budget before making a purchase, and who likes the accountability of entering purchases themselves into their budget.
There is no 'one right way' to look at budgeting; it really comes down to the user and what features they will find helpful.
Legal
What is the Nickelpinch license?
Nickelpinch is released under a MIT License.