TL;DR: Dear Monzo, please give us custom categories on Joint Accounts if both accounts are Premium/Plus.
There are quite a lot of threads, and many more posts in other threads, dedicated to the topic of Joint Account parity. I know from staff comments on those threads that there are no current projects handing this, and neither is it actively being planned. In October last year I suggested a Joint Account Lite approach, but I believe even that subset is not easy to solve.
Having ruminated on that some more it feels like the one feature that is really critically missing is custom categories. Everything else is really just a nice-to-have, or do-able in a round-about way via the individual account. But custom categories underpin so much other functionality in the app. Trends, Summary, and Budgets are totally blunt without this - for the same reason that so many people asked for custom categories for so long for the individual account. And when searching, or using data via the export everything is just that much harder to use and more obscured.
So, instead, how about this: just give us custom categories in cases where both accounts are either Premium or Plus. The business account has custom categories, so itās clearly possible to do this on accounts other than the individual account. And if both accounts have paid then thereās no complexity to resolve with regards the payment aspect. And, if you think about it, not having custom categories on the Joint Account when both users are paying isā¦ kind of out of order, isnāt it?
So, go on Monzo, do us a solid and add custom categories to Joint Accounts when both user pay.
Iād just like the same features of a Paid-PA on a Paid-JA, not just a subset.
Custom categories? Great. Virtual cards? Great. But also IFTTT integration, monzo.me, GSheet exports, Insurance(s), Offers, etc. Even a Metal card (ducks)
Itās already been half-baked. Donāt half-bake it again. Do it properly.
IMHO custom categories are more important, because the lack of them neuters all the budgeting parts of the app (Trents/Summary/Budgets [which will later merge]). Sure, all those other things are nice, but a lack of offers or a metal card donāt cripple other critical parts of the app. The lack of custom categories does.
Iām sure everyone has their pet missing feature of course, but you can get your data exported in other ways - do it manually via the app, or use the API to pull it. So while itās annoying itās not crippling. Whereas lack of custom categories really cripples Trents/Summary/Budgets, with no escape hatch to do it another way.
I agree. But we are not going to get that for at least a year (it is not on the roadmap), which means a year and a half, two years at best. Whereas this could be done a lot faster, potentially in someoneās āMonzo Timeā, because it most probably doesnāt involve solving the Hard Problems that are blocking all the ones you list.
Better to have custom categories and an unbroken Trents/Summary/Budgets experience for all Joint Account users early; two years is a long time. Incremental improvements are better than the alternative.
I have no need for a Personal Account. Just a need for a Joint Account that works with all Monzo features. Until then, the only reason I use a PA is for IFTTT, Virtual cards, insurance, connected accounts. I donāt use custom categories on the PA at all, because they donāt flow through with the overall reporting which we are limited to with the JA. In fact, custom categories is the least applicable feature in our use-case.
If you operate with both a Personal Account and a Joint Account for day-to-day financials, I can see why custom categories on both account platforms are important to you. But advocating for Monzo to implement just that feature on JAās seems very lacklustre in the grand-scheme.
My eyebrows raise at the timescales youāve stated though - donāt hold your breath with those!
Well, I think itās well-reasoned and an clear addition to whatās gone before; a potential incremental addition that would un-cripple some critical features. But thanks for the insightful comment!
I disagree. Staff do look on here, and actively post from time to time. And if a compelling case can be made then positive influence can absolutely happen.
Cheque imaging? Pot to pot transfers? IBAN support?
Monzo will do what they want to do, which is not going to be swung by a couple of hundred people on here when they have 6m customers.
A few of them have agreed about joint accounts, same as about child accounts and various other things that have been talked about for years that still havenāt happened.
Indeed. And especially when thereās a potential low-hanging fruit to be had. Yes, the entirity of the Plus/Premium feature set is hard to roll out to Joint Accounts. Yes, resolving what to do with each feature in all cases of: (neither user | one user | both users) pay is going to make that hellish. But here we can avoid all that, and the feature clearly works in other (Business) accounts. It really feels like the sort of thign that can potentially be done quickly, and give great benefits. Low effort, high reward!
I think that the posts are a continuum - you can think of it like a pyramid. My last thread (āJoint Account Parity Liteā) was about showing that itās only a subset of features that are relevant, and that even a subset of that would give a pretty full coverage. Then this thread extends the train of thought, advocating that really the only totally critial feature that canāt be replicated in some work-around is custom categories, and whatās more thereās a path that logically feels like not a lot of work to have that, you know, three years early.
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devs.