Hi HN, I'm the solo founder behind Bountisphere. I find Zero-Based Budgeting (like YNAB) fails at handling Time: specifically in understanding cash flow/running balance not only today but next week, next month, next year. I find this approach creates a great ease knowing that the Money Plan you put in place is actually working right now AND into the future.
So, I built Bountisphere to focus on running balance forecasting instead of category tracking (though we do that too secondarily).
Would love any and all feedback on the approach! Thanks!!
The rearview mirror analogy is spot on. Traditional budgeting tells you what happened, cash flow forecasting tells you when you'll actually hit the wall.
The tricky bit is handling irregular income and timing uncertainty. Are you modeling confidence intervals or just point estimates? Most forecasting tools I've seen fall apart when income isn't predictable - would be curious how you're approaching that.
thanks for comment! i'm tracking both irregular and regular income/expense via common frequencies: weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, quarterly, annually. Then that income/expense shows up appropriately on the Money Calendar with projected running balance. so even if irregular (either income or expense) you can easily see it play out in the calendar. so nothing too fancy on the technical end. user just needs to pick a frequency and/or insert one-off income/expenses as needed. I use this obsessively and find it works well.