Copilot: Track & Budget Money 4+

I was very reticent to try this app because I’ve been using mint forever and all my data is there and it’s free. It seemed counterintuitive to spend money on a budgeting app. But I found myself with covid at the end of the year and spending a lot of downtime laying on the couch so I figured I’d spend the time trying it out. I love this app! It’s so easy to use and very intuitive. I appreciate that it’s very well thought out. I had a couple of issues setting it up and the customer service team responded right away. One issue was easily resolved and the other has to do with linking one of my accounts and I’m very impressed with the level of ongoing communication while they continue to fix it. It’s very easy to ask questions and they respond with a genuine answer quickly. There is even a designated area to submit suggestions which they also respond to. The only thing it’s missing is the ability to filter a category by a specific time frame and then print it (i.e. rental expenses for the year). But after I asked about it they said others have also asked for that functionality and they are working on it.

So far I’ve been extremely impressed. So much better than mint and definitely worth the money.

I really want to give this 5+ stars. It does so many things very well - and serves all of our fairly moderately complex budgeting needs. So many great tools - and we’ve chosen to use it above all the other budgeting apps we’ve tried. I would recommend it to most people. The only thing lacking, to me, is better thought for user experience and visualizations. Don’t get me wrong - the app is beautiful, and a pleasure to to use in many cases. A lot of pleasant surprises in investments and net worth tracking features. It also has some visualizations that are very helpful - even an innovative one that helps track your spending rate over the month. But there are certain things that strike me as lacking some user research. For example, it takes 5ish clicks just to get to the sign in page to link a new account - for each account (unless yours is one of the 4ish they prompt at each screen). The charting is innovative and helpful. However, beyond those elements it is very difficult to compare month over month trends for this innovative charting for multiple categories. It serves the basic needs and then some. But I found myself wanting more and loaded the data into Tableau for advanced analysis (after using a great “export” ability from the app). Maybe I’m just a data and viz geek :). But this is a great app. In my opinion, one of the best if not the best depending on what you’re looking for. Thanks for a great app!

5 - 1 — need a split rating on this one for 5 stars and 1 star. I’ve been using YNAB for a few years and it has changed my ability to effectively manage my money. For various reasons I was looking for a different tool and did side by side comparisons between a few apps via 30-day free trials. Copilot was hands down my favorite. It’s awesome but I stayed with YNAB because of one thing. Copilot is missing a way to enter transactions manually before they clear your bank account. For me, this was a dealbreaker because I would be a nervous wreck about overdrawing my checking because I can’t see what my balance is projected to be when I issue payments. I checked with the support team and they confirmed that this is true, the only way a transaction will show up in my checking account is when it clears the bank. With YNAB, I’m able to manually enter transactions when I issue payments or write a check, but not with Copilot. So for me to use Copilot, I would have to use a manual check register on the side. So I stuck with YNAB as I didn’t find any other app to beat it even tho Copilot is better except for this one fundamental piece of functionality that’s missing. I hope manual transaction entry is on your backlog - if it’s ever implemented, I’ll switch as soon as I find out.
As suggested in another review, I’d also love to see a release newsletter to email to track updates. As soon as manual entry is there, I’m in!