Product Review: iBank Mobile
iBank Mobile
For a few months now, I have been on the look out for a financial management app from the App Store. Although most of the apps that I tried came with lite versions, the features that they showcased were not enough to make me go ahead and purchase the full versions. I’ve almost given up my search until I discovered iBank Mobile from IGG Software. Created by the same people who made iBank for the Mac, it offers a great interface to enter transactions while you are on the go.
The application was designed to run either as a standalone mobile application or as a companion application to the desktop version. If you run it as a companion application, you have the advantage of synching transactions between your Mac and your iPhone/iPod Touch.
Unlike other personal finance apps that are sold on the App Store, iBank Mobile does not have a lite or trial version. Thus, I had to buy it for USD4.99 just to try it. I have to admit that the app coming from IGG Software was an advantage. About a year ago, my wife and I tried out iBank and was very impressed by the software.
When I first launched iBank Mobile, I was asked if I wanted to use it standalone or if I wanted to do a sync. I selected standalone. From that point, it was a matter of setting up my accounts: cash accounts, savings, checking, credit cards, etc. even line of credit accounts. I was expecting to be prompted for the beginning balance for each account but that didn’t happen. So, I created a transaction for each account wherein the Payee was “Beginning Balance” and entered the initial balances. It would’ve been great if this were part of the account setup process particularly if the app will be used as a standalone application. If the app will sync with the desktop version, then the beginning balances can be picked up easily.
The next thing I tried was to do a transfer between accounts. I had to search the support website before I could figure out how to do it. In my first attempt, I placed the transfer transaction’s target account in the Payee field. I found it strange that the name of the account was not in the list, so I typed it in. When I saved the transaction, I could not understand why the amount was debited from the source account but not credited to the target account. It would’ve been really strange if I had to enter two separate transactions.
Luckily, I found the answer in the support website. Apparently, someone else was having the same problem. I discovered that to do a transfer between accounts, you select the target account via the Category field. But then, the list of accounts is listed on top of the Categories that you have created. You will have to scroll before you can actually see the accounts. That is not very intuitive in my opinion. I mean why use the categories field in the first place? Hopefully, the guys at IGG Software will realize this and come up with something better in a future release.
A neat feature of iBank Mobile that I really like is the passcode option allows you to set a passcode that is longer than four numbers. So far, I have tried using passcodes that have six, seven, and eight digits. It appears though that you can even enter more than ten digits but I guess this is only good if you have a good memory. The passcode is requested each time you open the app — even if your device sleeps and then wakes up while you are within the app.
Overall, iBank Mobile is a great app well worth the USD4.99. It is also worth noting that this is a very early version of the software and it already has great features. The developers themselves admitted that they only focused on core functions when they released it. We can only expect even better versions of this app.
