Big Issue With Spending, Feature improvements and Suggestions

Big Issue With Spending, Feature improvements and Suggestions.

Since September of 2017, I have been a Monzo member, and I absolutely love this bank. I always recommend it to friends and family and it’s really cool to see the general public using and talking about the card.

Because I want this bank to succeed so much, I have to call out some overlooked things on the app. I also want to recommend some well-needed features to the app that I believe will help polish the app.

- Spending Section and Roundup

Firstly, the spending section. I use Monzo as my spending account meaning every month I transfer money from my main account and pay for everything on the Monzo card including bills via direct debit. The issue with spending is the transaction roundup, and how the spending section sees these transactions. The spending section doesn’t count the rounded up transaction as one which can be annoyingly bad. This is hard to explain so here’s an example of why it’s courses issues.

Let’s say I spent £1.40 at the local shop 5 times on separate occasions,

The transactions would look like this:

£1.40 + 60p round up = £2
£1.40 + 60p round up = £2
£1.40 + 60p round up = £2
£1.40 + 60p round up = £2
£1.40 + 60p round up = £2

Overall the round makes the transactions look like I’ve spent £10 but the spending section doesn’t see it like this. The spending section would look at the transactions as £7 which will mess up the budget goals. Because I deposit precisely how much I need to spend into my Monzo account, this can confuse me at times and it indicates I can spend more then I have available.

If my targets are set out like this before I go to the shops to buy 5 Freddo’s (LOL):

Targets:
Groceries - £10
Travel - £10
Eating Out - £10
Entertainment - £10

Total left to spend - £40

Available funds - £40
Coin Jar - £0

The spending tab will show me this after I’ve mad those delicious transactions:

Targets:
Groceries - £3 - Spent £7
Travel - £10
Eating Out - £10
Entertainment - £10

Total left to spend - £33

Available funds - £30
Coin Jar - £3

The spending section is saying I can spend £3 for groceries. Because the £3 was put in a “Coin Jar” pot for saving, I should really have £0 left to spend on groceries.

If you use Monzo as your main account and have loads of excess cash in the account, this may not be an issue. If you’re like me and put precisely how much you want to spend into the account, It can be annoying.

So users can choose, I think Monzo should have an option to toggle between grouping the roundup deduction to the transactions and having it as it is currently.

Also adding roundups to direct debits should be a thing or at least a toggle in the settings!

- Spending Budget

Budget targets shouldn’t be fixed to going up and down by £5. Sometimes a target needs to be £11, but the target would currently have to be set to £15. Clicking on the target should allow you to enter in a number.

- More Colours For Pots!

Please please please add more colours options for pots and even custom images! Adding a basic colour wheel would be nice. PLEASE MONZO!!!

Also being able o reorder pots would be pure fire.

- Black Monzo Card

This is a long shot but if you want to earn more capital, offer a black card to users. Trust me even if you give it a price tag of £20 it’ll sell quick!

P.S - Maybe go full AMEX on us and offer a metal black card hmmmmmmmmm… hmmmmmmmmm… hmmmmmmmmm…

- Transaction Logo Suggestions

Sometimes when I suggest a logos and they never get changed even though the logos on Twitter would be perfect to use. I know you may be drowning in logo requests so this isn’t a big issue.

Sorry for the essay and if I repeated anything that others have posted before!

Thanks Monzo!

:fire:

5 Likes

I think that the rounded up value should be taken into account by Summary. Round up is meant to be a method of saving money and it doesn’t do that as well if the rounded up amount isn’t included in your budget imo.

I disagree with this. I think limiting budgets to multiples of 5 is a good thing, since it makes it simpler for people to choose a budget since they don’t have to consider whether one or two pounds should go in a different budget.

NB: I do find it annoying when budgets are set at non multiples of 5 by Summary for some reason.

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If you’re putting in precisely what you want to spend, then surely you can’t use the coin jar? It’s supposed to help you save a surplus.

Btw, how expensive are Freddos now?! They were 10p in my day!

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I still want the coin jar to round up my transactions. I consider the coin jar with everything I spend, it makes my bank account looks cleaner. For example my phone bill is £44.41, when budgeting I see this transaction as £45.

I disagree with the spending categories part - if I spend £10.50 in Tesco and 50p rounded to coin jar I want my budget to reflect to reflect £10.50 spent not £11 spent because I’ve not spent it. I still have that 50p to spend if I want to. I want my spending budget to reflect what I spend. I’d also not want direct debit transactions rounded or anything. If my direct debit is £11.85 then I’ll budget for £11.85 not £12 (even though Monzo think it’s ok to round this up to make it appear neat and tidy on the spending screen which annoys the hell out of me!).

7 Likes

Yeah I get you. That’s why I said Monzo should have it as an option in the settings to toggle it on and off.

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But doesn’t this defeat the point of having Round Up as a savings feature or at least reduce its effectiveness?

For example

  • Let’s say you have a budget of £100 per month for entertainment and then you spend £90 on entertaining things which causes £10 to go into your Round Up pot.

  • Not including Round Up in budget spend:

    • Your budget shows £90 spent on entertainment.
    • You continue to spend £10 on entertainment for that month.
    • If you’re budgeting every pound you have to dip into your Round Up pot to cover the difference, assuming you reach your budget for every other category.
  • Including Round Up in budget spend:

    • Your budget shows £100 spent on entertainment.
    • You don’t spend any more on entertainment for that month.
    • The £10 in your Round Up pot is savings which you only have to dip into if you go over budget.

I thought the main benefit of Round Up was to quietly save in the background and, as the above example shows. Not including the Round Up value in the budget spend reduces Round Up’s ability to save money.

NB: I’m not a huge fan of having toggles for stuff like this - too many toggles tends to hugely over complicate the app and make it more confusing and difficult to work.

3 Likes

Budget targets shouldn’t be fixed to going up and down by £5. Sometimes a target needs to be £11, but the target would currently have to be set to £15. Clicking on the target should allow you to enter in a number.

Agree. Making it multiples of £5 isn’t the worst thing, but for some of us we’d like to be able to control exactly how much we spend. And £2/3 spread over 8 budgeting categories adds up to £25. That’s a considerable margin of error, either up or down. It’s a whole day’s budget in itself. Not a huge deal, but really why not allow it? And on that note, would be good to be able to create your own categories.

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Having to do this every time I get a direct debit gets annoying.

I know some of you guys don’t like the idea of Direct Debit being round up but for my financial management and others, this is needed. Just because you wouldn’t like to have a toggle doesn’t mean others who want it shouldn’t have it.

Monzo should work for different styles of money management.

I would like to know Monzo’s opinion on the feedback and ideas I’ve put forward.

Generally, a settings page full of functional toggles is something to be avoided if at all possible and Monzo have historically been against that sort of thing.

I have a feeling that however this sort of thing might be done, it probably won’t include anything as simple as an On/Off switch.

1 Like