Introduction
So, we’ve decided to do something really really challenging with Bubble.
We’re going to Rebuild QUICKEN – or as much of it as we can.
What Is Quicken?
Quicken is the granddaddy of personal financial applications. There isn’t a single personal financial SaaS app that comes close to meeting the level of functionality that Quicken provides.
Don’t get us wrong, there are SaaS services that are great accounting platforms such as Xero and Quickbooks. But those are geared towards companies who use accrual accounting instead of cash accounting. And they require a working knowledge of double-entry book-keeping.
Quicken, on the other hand, is strictly cash-based and is awesome for users who don’t need formal accounting but need far more than the basics of what something like Mint allows.
Oh, and these users don’t want ADS in their financial app – that’s just creepy.
How We Will Build It
We will start with just building out the Account registers with categories and tags. We’ll then follow that up with basic reports. After that we’ll jump into things like linking bank accounts using PLAID, handling stock market trades and maybe even Crypto trades.
We will attempt to build this using just core Bubble functions, available Bubble plugins and, the Bubble API. If we need to build a custom plugin to implement a feature we’ll set aside that feature for later.
The Challenges
There are likely to be a lot of tiny little things we can’t build straight off the bat. We’ll set those aside as well to try to build as much as we can as fast as we can. Then we’ll come back around to those things and tidy them up.
One of Quicken’s most attractive features is its in-line data-entry. Unfortunately, Bubble’s support for keyboards is poor so we’ll likely have to optimize for mouse use instead of keyboard use.
Some Differences
We aim to do some things differently. We want to add formal support for companies and branches.
In Quicken, if you wanted to track your finances for your personal use and multiple companies you had a few options:
- Each company would have its own data file or
- Each transaction would have its own category / tags that’s different for each company
For our project we’ll allow a user to quickly switch between companies / branches while still allowing for categories and tags if the user desires.
Why Are We Doing This?
Bubble just released its new responsive engine. So we’ll be using this to learn as much as we can about that. But we also want to stretch our skills and really see how far we can take Bubble.
Despite how simple Quicken can be to operate, it’s a very complex product with a complex UI made to look simple for end users.
So we’re hoping that by taking on this challenge we can really build up our skill sets in multiple Bubble areas. And it’s a great training ground for our newer staff!
If you’d like to keep track of how we’re doing, join our email list. Or follow us on Twitter. Or both.
We’ll be posting frequent updates on Twitter and emailing out larger updates once a month to those on our mailing list.