A shame

Stuff reports:

Xero will write down $700,000 after deciding to axe a software tool designed to help people manage their personal finances.

The company said 12,000 people used its personal financial management tool, Xero Personal, but it had not “taken off” as the company had hoped.

Those customers had not been included in Xero’s customer tally of businesses using its cloud-based accounting product, which stood at 193,000 at the start of the month.

“A few years ago, independent personal financial management looked like a complementary space to accounting, especially for small-business owners,” chief executive Rod Drury said.

“While a valuable service with many fans, we haven’t seen a mass market of consumers willing to pay for PFM products. The market just hasn’t taken off for any players and relies on advertising-based models that aren’t our business.”

Xero would “wind down” development work on Xero Personal and axe the service on November 30 next year, he said.

That’s a real shame, as a user. I paid around $50 a year for Xero Personal and found it an easy way to classify and track my personal spending. You have to manually import in bank statements but generally I could do all my bank accounts and credit cards in around an hour a month.

Xero Personal helped my realise why my expenses were exceeding my income!

What was really useful was I could classify some expenses as business expenses and have it automatically generate an expense claim in my Xero business account. A big time saver.

Any recommendations for other good software that tracks personal spending, and can import bank statements into it?

At least I’ve got it for another 15 months.