EP is simple and powerful.
When we introduce people to EP, one of the things they often ask, is how different EP from other personal finance apps out there, such as Mint or YNAB. There are a couple of things we wanted to say first before going deep. There is no silver bullet for everybody, and each solution offers different things for different reasons. That said, EP have a mindset of adapting to one's need, which is one of its design goal. Without further ado, let's take a look at the 2 well-known personal finance out there that we can put into perspective:
EP vs Mint: Better safe than sorry
Mint is designed to help you track where your spending is. You connect your banks and credit cards to it and Mint will record your transactions every now and then. Mint never enforce you to live within your means or monitor your spending and warn you when buying things you can't afford. The problem with this is that at the end of the month when you look at your balance and incoming bills, you'll get stressed over things that you have to pay, at the same time wondering where did your money went to.
EP is the complete opposite to this. Not only we make sure you "design" your spending so that you don't go over-budget, we also encourage you to enter the transaction manually to reinforce spending awareness. With this approach, you never have to worry about bills, emergency funds and big purchases anymore, you will be fully aware of what kind of spending you are going to make since you have budgeted them, and you have a crystal-clear view of everything that's going on in your financial life, even before it's happening.
EP vs YNAB/nYNAB: EP adapts to your workflow, and simpler to use.
YNAB is probably the closest comparison to EP. It includes sets of different rules on how you manage your money, they use budget-first approach and their rules work for most people. But what if you are different?. There's a lot of people who liked YNAB for its software but aren't able to perform a lot of things because their approach is, for some reason, different from the rules that are been set by YNAB, or maybe they are in a completely different financial situation.
EP on the other hand, doesn't enforce you to use certain rules while at the same time it provides a basic guide to starters on how to begin fixing their financial life. It has a lot of features that are similar to YNAB, and extends it even further to allow more controls for the user. For example, let's take reimbursement, EP has a built-in reimbursement that works for most people, but we also have an option for the user to set their overspending to be carried to next month (a.k.a "Arrow to the right" in YNAB). You will see that you can do things with EP in a variety of ways to fit your needs.
Another great example is the account mechanism. In YNAB, or many personal finance software out there, you are required to have a set of accounts, and specify them when you are making transactions. The problem with this is that it complicates basic stuff. For someone who only have a few accounts, and never really care from which account their money goes, this is an extra step that had to do every time, furthermore, if they are just moving money from one to another (e.g: withdrawing cash), they will have to enter this or else their account balance in YNAB will not be correct. EP solve this by giving people the freedom to either manage their budget with accounts or without accounts, it's entirely up to the user.
Handling payees is another good example of simplicity and flexibility. In YNAB, you can only enter 1 payee for each transaction, but what if sometimes you just don't care? Suppose you just grabbed snacks and drinks from few places that are not big in total. In EP, you can put multiple payees in one transactions and no need to worry about splitting it into 2 transactions. If you insist, you can still separate them too. It's that simple.
In conclusion, EP is a budget-first personal finance software, that offers a good starting point for those who just started, while at the same time have the flexibility to adapt to your workflow whenever is necessary.
If you're interested in exploring more, check out our guides or signup to try it first hand, we are still in beta so you can register your account for free, and it'll stay forever!
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