we are happy to announce that Cashew has finally been released to the Android Market.
Cashew is a full-featured and user-friendly personal finance manager which lets you easily manage and keep track of your finances without having any experience in accounting. It supports all the basic features required for personal accounting. These include:
- complete account management support including account adjustment, reconciliation and purging operations;
- extremely easy transactions entry, convenient browsing and powerful filtering capabilities;
- flexible report engine that allows to generate stored and instant reports of different types;
- user defined categories hierarchy for convenient transactions classification;
- multiple currencies support.
I downloaded it this morning and have put a few transactions in it as to decide if it will work. I currently use firewallet but am about to run into my 30 day trial period and thought I would give Cashew a shot... A few things I ran into...
When you are on the main screen showing your accounts it does not take into account pending/uncleared transactions. It shows my balance as my bank account would. Firewallet takes into consideration pending/uncleared transactions which I personally have to have. Like I have 4 checks that have not cleared my account. So my balance in firewallet is less those outstanding checks.
Also when you view the register it does not show the payee. This is nice to have...
These all could be changes in the settings but this is my off the cuff experience
I haven't tried Firewallet, but I may give both that and Cashew a shot. I'm kind of banking on a Mint.com app coming out relatively soon in 2010, but maybe I'll pick this up in the meantime and see how it works.
__________________ The following statement is true The previous statement is false
When you are on the main screen showing your accounts it does not take into account pending/uncleared transactions. It shows my balance as my bank account would. Firewallet takes into consideration pending/uncleared transactions which I personally have to have. Like I have 4 checks that have not cleared my account. So my balance in firewallet is less those outstanding checks.
Do you mean that you want to see the account balance including all entered transactions (including future transacation), so called ending balance, not the balance on the current moment (today's balance).
I guess this make sense, we will add the feature which allows users to change the type of the displayed account balance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jolenemae21
Also when you view the register it does not show the payee. This is nice to have...
These all could be changes in the settings but this is my off the cuff experience
To display the Payee field for each transaction in the transaction list, please go to the Register screen, choose Settings from the screen menu, and touch Primary field option, the list of fields that can be displayed will pop up, choose Payee to display it in the transaction list.
Any support for syncing with PC version of Quicken? If not, this app will not really have much use to me.
Unfortunately, no. Currently, Cashew is an independent application with no integration possibilities. We consider possibility to add integration with other desktop financial applications in the future, so your opinion is interesting for us.
Do you expect something simple like export transactions list to CSV/QIF and then import to the Quicken? Or you want to have complete synchronization that allows to synchronize transactions in both directions (like some other mobile finance apps do via Palm HotSync or MS ActiveSync)?
I downloaded it, very nice app. Going to use it often.
I would pay if you would offer complete sync with quicken but a cvs import /export option would probably be easier and quicker to implement.
Last edited by greg72; December 22nd, 2009 at 08:51 AM.
Got myself a Motorola Dext yesterday, and I'm in the (hopefully not too long...) process of migrating my data and apps from my Palm Treo 680 to the Android based phone.
On the Treo I used the SplashWallet suite heavily, and Cashew came in as an excellent replacement for SplashMoney, which I used for balancing my wallet and out of pocket expenses.
So far everything I did on SplashWallet I've managed to find a way to do on Cashew and I'm delighted to have found this nice software. Thank you!
Unfortunately, no. Currently, Cashew is an independent application with no integration possibilities. We consider possibility to add integration with other desktop financial applications in the future, so your opinion is interesting for us.
Do you expect something simple like export transactions list to CSV/QIF and then import to the Quicken? Or you want to have complete synchronization that allows to synchronize transactions in both directions (like some other mobile finance apps do via Palm HotSync or MS ActiveSync)?
Thank you in advance.
Not to answer for gizbug but...
Export would be nice thing at a minimum. And of course an import function for the same format. I don't have a major preference at the moment, so maybe CSV. This would be nice to at least backup data move it to a pc and back.
Have really enjoyed Cashew so far though.
.
Last edited by alostpacket; December 25th, 2009 at 10:45 PM.
We are going to provide a maintenance release soon which fixes some minor usability issues. Export/import functionality will be included into the next minor version upgrade.
One thing that I've noticed just now is that there's no feature to purge transactions. It would be nice having such an option, say, per Account: Purge all transactions older than a specified amount of time.
This is not such a pressing issue right now but after a couple of months of intense usage of the application the user might want to clear old transactions (initial balances have to be adjusted accordingly).
We are going to provide a maintenance release soon which fixes some minor usability issues. Export/import functionality will be included into the next minor version upgrade.
One thing that I've noticed just now is that there's no feature to purge transactions. It would be nice having such an option, say, per Account: Purge all transactions older than a specified amount of time.
This is not such a pressing issue right now but after a couple of months of intense usage of the application the user might want to clear old transactions (initial balances have to be adjusted accordingly).
Sorry, this hasn't got into the Cashew User's Manual yet. We are working on the chapter about advanced account operations - adjust balance, reconcile and purge. All these operations are already available in Cashew 1.0.
To purge account's transactions you need to do one of the following:
- go to the accounts list and long touch on the list item corresponding to the account you need to purge, the popup menu will appear, choose Purge account command (last item) from the menu.
- go to the account details view and choose Purge action from the list.
After one of the actions above is performed purge filter forms appears. In the filter form you can specify date period, list of categories and status of the the transactions that has to be purged. Once you are done with filter, touch the Purge button, then touch Yes in the confirmation dialog. After purging is confirmed all transactions that match the given filter will be removed from the database and account's opening balance will be adjusted accordingly (to leave current balance unchanged).
I hope this is functionality you were talking about.
Last edited by Andriy Zakharchuk; December 26th, 2009 at 03:11 PM.
Hello all, We are happy to announce that Cashew has finally been released to the Android Market.
Hey, there are some things that look really nice about this, but I'm with some of the others who have asked about a sync with desktop Quicken. This is essential for this to work for me. Let us know what you guys are thinking about working toward that.
Hey, there are some things that look really nice about this, but I'm with some of the others who have asked about a sync with desktop Quicken. This is essential for this to work for me. Let us know what you guys are thinking about working toward that.
Thanks.
As I've mentioned above we are going to include export/import functionality in the next minor version upgrade (we are also going to make one or few minor releases soon).
We've already started investigation how things could be implemented and would like to collect feedback from our users. If you have experience working with mobile application for another mobile platforms (Symbian, Palm OS, WM), which had Quicken intgration, could you please share your thoughts:
- what the application did you use?
- was it synchronization or export/import operations?
- what would you want to be improved in that solution?
1. Quicken 2010 Home and Business on a Windows XP platform
2. Palm Treo 700p with the Palm OS Garnet v.5.4.9
3. Palm Hotsync Manager 7.0.2
4. Pocket Quicken v. 2.5.1 from Landware (www.landware.com)
Landware provides a conduit that works with Hotsync Manager and you get a complete 2-way synchronization. It works really great! It will sync account names, categories, tags (or Class), and of course all your transactions. It is NOT just an import/export.
I would love to have the same solution on Android. Unfortunately, Landware at this time says they do not have plans to develop for the Android OS. Whether they may in the future or not, I do not know.
If you could develop Cashew to the point where it has equivalent fields that match with Quicken and do some kind of a synchronization, I think you would have many happy customers!
You might also consider contacting Landware and seeing if they have any willingness to give you some assistance if they indeed are not planning to develop on this platform.
I wish you well. If I can be of any further assistance, feel free to contact me.
thank you for so detailed input. I've heard about Pocket Quicken, but didn't use it (I'm also Palm user) since I don't use Quicken on the desktop. From the first sight task is not trivial, so we have to investigate more and see what we can do here.
we've just published Cashew 1.0.1.50, which is a maintenance release with several usability improvements:
- The "Make home currency" action now requires confirmation;
- It is now possible to enter the currency symbol manually;
- Corresponding Cashew User's Manual update;
- Other minor enhancements.
Please note that we have changed the version format, so the third digit is now the release number and the build number is the last digit as before.
Besides, account balances across the application are displayed in the more consistent way, according to this jolenemae21 's request ending account balance is always displayed (which takes into account all transactions entered for the account).
thank you for so detailed input. I've heard about Pocket Quicken, but didn't use it (I'm also Palm user) since I don't use Quicken on the desktop. From the first sight task is not trivial, so we have to investigate more and see what we can do here.
Thank you for your support.
Andriy,
I'm sure it is not trivial, but is definitely worth the pursuit. Just do a search on the forums for Quicken and you will see some other threads of people looking for one of these financial apps that syncs with desktop Quicken. I don't know what your business model is (is this a hobby for you, or is it how you make your living, or do you have a team and investors, etc.?), but I would highly recommend that you purchase at least the basic version of Quicken and Pocket Quicken and take a look at how they work together. Look at the conduit, etc. Then if you're really serious about having not just a viable finance app on Android, but THE finance app that will be sought after and purchased, you should contact the developers at LandWare.com and have a serious talk with them to see if you can get some tips or direction, or discover whether they intend to develop in this direction.
Secondly, I know their product was advertised by Intuit. I'm not sure exactly what the arrangement was, but there was a cooperative agreement of some kind with them. You may want to pursue it from that angle as well. If you had some cooperation, or even better, an endorsement from Intuit, you could have a real profitable possibility there!
Anyway, I'm sure that's more "advice" than you may have wanted, but I'm a former developer who is doing other things professionally now, and I really wish somebody would get on the ball and make this thing happen for Android--so I'm just hoping that you might pursue it, or that someone else reading this post might pursue it. There are plenty of us who would appreciate it.
If anyone reading this is interested, I would be happy to share some other suggestions along these lines.
we've just published Cashew 1.0.2.52 to the Android Market. This is a maintenance release which fixes a few issues reported by our users:
- password dialog can not be skipped using the Back button;
- when Favourites only is turned on, the accounts list total displays the total of favourite accounts, instead of the total of all accounts.
we've just published Cashew 1.0.2.52 to the Android Market. This is a maintenance release which fixes a few issues reported by our users:
- password dialog can not be skipped using the Back button;
- when Favourites only is turned on, the accounts list total displays the total of favourite accounts, instead of the total of all accounts.
Enjoy Cashew!
Another account attribute that would be useful, besides the Favourite flag, would be a 'Consider this account in the total balance' flag. Then in the accounts list, the "Total" line would sum only the accounts marked with this flag.
I installed Cashew two weeks ago and using it extensively until now. Thanks for developing this great application. I hope some features could be added in the future, and I register to this forum specifically for this :-)
1) Export capability. If quicken requires long time, at least I need CSV or (better, less hassle) a .xls file to be saved in a specified folder on the SD card. This application is basically useless to me if at the end of the month I can't take out data and see what I spent and where.
2) Power users vs. simplicity Although I use several accounts and categories, I don't really need the "full" Cashew page to input some data. I actually never use "Payee" and "Number". All my statuses are "Cleared". I believe the easy suggestion to make both kind of users happy is a "Register Preferences" section where you can mark which entries the user would like to show or not, and the default values for scroll down options. If entries ar enot shown they still get registered "empty" in the database so the user can decide to set it in the future and the software maintains database integrity.
3) Fast input I use cashew for personal expenses. It is something I want to do, but is not something I love to do (as many other I guess). Imagine I buy something and want to do my "homeworks": the steps android out of standby, unlock, combination and click on cashew are already unavoidable... but, tap register, tap menu, tap new transaction could be shortened! My suggestion is to add a "Quick register" page on the main menu, fully customizable (this time in predefined account, category, default values...)
4) Customizable Quick register page Alternatively to point 3 you could have a "Quick register" page working similarly to the "reports" page: each user could add as many predefined register transactions as he wants with predefined accounts, category and default values. This would be the best (at least for me) as probably 70% of my entries are recurrent transactions in few categories with just different amounts.
5) Additional reports about expense and income. Imagine end of the month: my ideal preset report would be "income by accounts" with subtotals minus expenses by categories with subtotal and of course a "end of the month balance with the difference. At the moment I have to go manually to know it. I believe many people are interested in their balance between what they spend and what they gain rather than expenses and gains as separate entities. To do this report my suggestion is to have a new "expense and income" report category, where you set up your reports by selecting first how you want your income displayed (which accounts, which period... everything like the actual "income" custom report), then you similarly choose how you want the expenses. And in the end there is the balance between part 1 and part 2.
6) Report results: in "expense" or "income" by category, after the report is generated i can see each category total sum. If you tap into one category it will show the "breakdown" with all entries. I would love if this breakdown could show also the "notes" for that transaction: it is very hard to remember what was that amount referred to and if you need to know you have to manually go an look for it in the registry page. Even a little font (same as for date and account) below the category name would do. Of course, considering point one, you could even have "additional report entries" customizable for a menu in the related page.
We will synchronize your wish list with our TODO list (we already had some features there or even started working on them, but there are several completely new ones). I guess we may have more questions about features you suggest later.
I have a question:
I need to move one subcategory into a different category. When I tap categories/edit categories I can only edit the name... can this be done in the actual version?
no, at the moment, you can not move a category into another parent category. You need to delete existing one and create a new one under a category you need.
This was done to avoid confusing cases when a user created a report where multiple categories were selected in the filter. After moving a subcategory to another parent category, the initial idea of the report might be broken, but it will be not obvious for the user.
I understand. In this case, what happens to entries belonging to the category if the category is deleted, is it possible to assign them to another category automatically?
Currently category field of all transactions of this category becomes unassigned (no category), but feature which allows user to reassign all all the transactions from deleted category to another one makes sense and is included to Cashew todo list.
This release fixes the problem with entering numbers using the on-screen keyboard on HTC Hero with German and Russian firmware and probably some other combinations of devices and locales.
i'd be happy to see a simple csv-export function in the near future. is that possible?
Currently work in progress.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lindsche
i also think that the most used function "adding a transaction" would be best placed on the start screen.
Similar feature is already in our TODO list, but in a little bit different form - widget you can put on desktop and get access to the transaction entry form in one click.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lindsche
are you planning on developping graphical reports?
Yes, it was in our initial plans, but our users request other features (e.g., import/export or recurring transactions), so currently it doesn't have highest priority (you are the second person who asked about charts for reports visualization).
I would also like to see an Android app that supports Quicken. I use Quicken 2010 now, but just moved from a Windows Mobile phone with which I synchronized my Pocket Quicken with my desktop seamlessly, settings in Pocket Quicken allowed you to determine how often one sync'd.
I would also like to see an Android app that supports Quicken. I use Quicken 2010 now, but just moved from a Windows Mobile phone with which I synchronized my Pocket Quicken with my desktop seamlessly, settings in Pocket Quicken allowed you to determine how often one sync'd.
I agree. Too bad the developer isn't pushing this option, as this seems to be the #1 option for anyone looking for a Personal Finance manager on Android OS.
I would say syncing with Quicken is hot because we all know it as a finanace app that does what we want and likely have. I will take sync with any desktop accounting application that is affordable, tracks finances well, including 401ks, and a desktop app that can download my transactions from my bank as well.
Moneydance might be an option to sync to, I know they are working on an iphone app. So if Quicken seems daunting talk to them next.
I should also add, for Quicken syncing it might be simple to output and launch an ofx file, I beleive that is the standard format. Quicken should be registered to that file type as a way to add the data, just need to know how to format it. Then the trick is to read the updated file and manage the changes. That might be the hard part with quicken, Quicken saves in it's own format.
Last edited by Eryl Flynn; February 22nd, 2010 at 12:39 PM.
I realize that some people don't use desktop financial software, but I would think the majority of us do. A phone app that tracks finances is great, but if it doesn't integrate with the desktop software that someone uses, they have to enter everything twice, once to the phone and then later to the desktop software at home.
Me, I'll continue the tried and true method of placing receipts in my wallet and enter them only once.
Just my opinion. Your software looks great other than that.
yes i use desktop software quicken 2009 premier, and i would not survive without it. we badly need a app that can import or sync with the desktop software and make use of the same files as quicken files. gba money can import but screws up numbers, easy money need csv files, an money use microsoft money qif files or qif files which are from only one acct. i need to import my whole quicken setup into the program. there is a quicken playpen file which is a good example of quicken files structure.
personal finance management is a complicated structure and it's very important to understand the essence of it. I think this option is really great and I will definitely download it soon.
Cashew - personal finance manager
