Revisiting Mint.com

I mentioned Mint.com a few months ago on this site.  I’d just started using it and was thrilled at how easily I was able to get my stuff organized.  Now that I’m a more “experienced” user, I thought I’d revisit it and let you know what I like and don’t like, and ask you what your favorite features are.

All Your Accounts In One Place

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was when I discovered I could add my Paypal account to my Mint.com account!  I’m not positive, but I don’t think there are any actual software programs that allow you to do that, and it is a big deal for me since I use Paypal for a lot of different things and it’s really a pain to manually input.  Mint.com takes care of it for me, and I just have to tweak a few of the categorizations as stuff comes in and goes out.

…Sort Of.

I was really, really excited when I got all my accounts in one place, automatically.  But, then I started trying to figure out how to create a Cash account.  We don’t use much cash, but I do like to be able to track it just from a reporting purpose

For instance, occasionally I’ll receive a gift card in exchange for running a promotion, and I want (and need, for tax purposes) to be able to categorize that as blogging income.  I also try not to manipulate my grocery budget numbers by using gift cards I received to pay for groceries and not categorizing them as a grocery expenditure.

Or, sometimes I’ll cash a rebate check.  If it’s a grocery rebate, I would credit that rebate amount to my grocery budget.

But, I haven’t been able to figure out a way to effectively track anything other than actual accounts on Mint.com.  It’s not a huge deal, but it seems like they should really implement a way to allow you to add a manual account of some sort.

One-Click Reports

I’m actually an experienced Quickbooks user, having done a fair amount of accounting work in the past.  I could never get used to the reporting features in Quicken, because they were so confusing and, at least compared to Quickbooks, limited.

I’m a little disturbed that Mint.com calls their reports “trends”, but I’m not holding it against them.  I really like that it’s one-click to access the “trends” of income, income by category, expenditures, expenditures by category, etc.

The true test of their reports will be April 2011 when we do taxes!

New Features

Mint.com just added a new “Goals” feature that I’ve barely even looked at.  I’d love to hear if any of you have used it, and what you thought.  It appears you can set goals like getting out of debt, saving for a purchase, or create a custom goal.

What Are Your Favorite Mint.com Features?

If you haven’t tried it yet, you can sign up for Mint.com here.  It’s free (they make money much like this site, through advertising and affiliate offers), and super easy to set up!

I know from last time I mentioned it that a fair amount of you already use Mint.com.  So, what are your favorite features?  What am I missing out on?