After some time to get used to Monzo 3.0 (aka the new layout), and reflecting on some of the feedback about what needs polish or finish, I thought it might be fun to have a quick poll to see what our priorities are!
Improve speed of app (transactions show immediately, no lag)
Better search / filter (including seeing transactions by merchant etc)
Improve notes (bring iOS to Android parity, and fix Android so that you can see the original transaction reference in case you overwrite it in notes)
Improved payments tab (including fixing contacts and pot-to-pot transfers)
Showing your running balance
Better budgeting (revisiting Summary to improve functionality and integrate it better into the new design)
Something else (tell us below)
A new way to go back in time on the feed (what lots of folk used to use the pulse graph for)
make the back button consistent with normal behaviour (don’t dump you out of the app!)
Fix inconsistency where some screens have the old navy blue header and others don’t.
0voters
Usual caveats apply: this isn’t a Monzo sponsored poll so the team might well see it but won’t necessarily do what we want them to do. Or they might have ingenuous ways of fixing several at once in a way we haven’t envisaged! (In any event, we know that they are probably going to take budgeting next…)
Finally, I’ve tried to keep this to a fairly short list and one that’s related to the new layout. So apologies if your idea hadn’t made it. If that’s the case hit “something else” and mention it below.
Oh, and five votes only! I’ve done that to get a sense of top issues. Otherwise I would have probably voted for everything!
I’ve always been curious about the weekly budgeting argument. Assuming you have at least one months worth of total outgoings In savings, what prevents you using the 4 weekly / last working day of the month budgeting in summary?
If you have one months worth of outgoings (say £1200) in your main account balance (from savings) and an £800 budget. Your weekly pay would then “top up” your main account balance meaning you can still use summary but on a monthly basis? Obviously it’s not ideal but it can still be done.
Short version, because everyone works differently and a weekly budget would work better for me.
Long version, I am self-employed and have three personal bank accounts, my monthly(ish) dividend from my business account goes mostly into one and that’s where the bulk of my bills are paid from. I run that account monthly.
The second account is a Joint Monzo, again run monthly, into which me and my partner put money to cover our joint bills. I put in monthly, she puts in weekly.
I have a personal Monzo account for everyday spending and saving. My weekly salary goes directly in there.
I COULD make Monzo work for me as you suggest, or a variation of that, but quite simply, it’s a software application at that point so should be able to do exactly what I want, without me having to make any adjustments. Until it is at that stage, my current system works, and I get all the benefits of Monzo too.
Replies suggesting I ‘could just’ do X or Y differently, please don’t. I want as little friction to my ‘system’ as possible, it’s taken me a long time to get a handle on being ‘good’ with money so consider any good intentions carefully. Thanks all!
I’d like to see my other accounts from elsewhere in the app (in read-only form), particularly savings. I know credit cards are taking their time, but open banking should be separate to that (I’d imagine)?
Would be amazing to view my Marcus and even my premium bonds in the app.
Out of interest with multiple bank accounts run in the way you suggest, does that not make utilising budgeting within a single app (ie you only have a view of one slice of your finances) much more difficult / or will have info missing?
I guess weekly budgeting is a useful system if you separate recurring bills from day to day spending in the way you suggest
That’s the use case for me for something like YNAB - I can have a global budget and sort of fudge in a weekly spending pattern for bits I needed, and have oversight of all my accounts in one place.
Either way the system needs to be flexible enough to allow everyone to budget in a way that makes sense, within reason, and not just in one set way.
Bills are fairly static for me, and that’s all recurring payments - insurance, netflix et al.
As it’s all separated, I find it’s much easier to control. I can’t easily spend any of the money set aside for bills/commitments, so the Monzo ‘budget’ is purely to spend or save as I choose.
I have a spreadsheet to track the static stuff but as I’ve said, it’s static.
Ultimately, I don’t really need to be able to ‘budget’ from Monzo, it’s more a nice to have feature that I might use.
I don’t think there is a control group any more. I think everyone is now on the ‘new design’, and Monzo won’t be going back to the old design as it’s too limiting for when they want to add new features.
A control group was in place so that a smaller number of users could be switched ‘to’ the new design when it was being tested.
just a heads up that we tweaked the back button behaviour on android in version 3.6.0 to make it a bit more predictable, and have done some more work around defining a more consistent “home” in version 3.7.0, so it should be nicer now
make the back button consistent with normal behaviour (don’t dump you out of the app!)
