My vision for Cheddar

Managing money is hard and time consuming. In what is considered “personal finance”, there is what one brings home from your paycheck, insurance premium costs for heath, car, life, home, etc., taxes like income and property, food costs like groceries & restaurants, utilities, gasoline, car repairs & maintenance, investments, and, and, and…

In addition, there is keeping track of statements and important papers, year end docs like 1099’s, living & final wills, estate planning, home asset & food inventories, and many other aspects of life to try and keep track of, manage and keep organized.

Now, add in a business or side hustle, or worse, multiple! The time spent needed to be on top of everything can be quite overwhelming. There is a lot of time “wasted” to run a business that is not really running the actual business activity of the business!

I want technology and software to handle and manage these things. Is that too much to expect? I say no, but the reality is what is available is generally limited AND expensive. Personal tools are usually narrowly focused and good luck exporting your data from them. Not to mention, most end up selling your personal data for others to send you even more credit offers. Quickbooks is a software and Intuit is a company that I despise. Huge monthly charges for sub-par software.

Cheddar is really more of concept being implemented through software. I am planning and building a set of tools for myself. Call it a “passion project”. The thing is, previous experience indicates to me that when I fully develop and polish a tool, others tend to like it. I also benefit from and like the idea of the open and free exchange of information, like open source software and OSs and the idea of Framework (a laptop built to be upgradable and repairable https://frame.work ).

With that in mind, the software will always be open source and usable for no cost. Your data will be local to you. There may be options to have someone else host the system (like me), and that is something one will need to consider. There are considerations on how to use it, like just a desktop app or as a server Cheddaraybe be needed for convince especially for multiple persons to use). There may be additional services that would require fees. But not required to use the software.

A big factor is getting data in the system. This is a hard and complex issue. From personal experience, having one's transactions automatically imported is crucial. Options to do this (like Plaid) can be complex and expensive. In order to do these, there would have to be fees for that ability. Importing data downloaded from banks and vendors is also possible, and if that is built in the system, I would not charge for it. If the company provides a direct API, then that bridge would be part of the system and not cost the user fees. For brokerage firms, I have leaned into Schwab for the reason that they offer their own API. Lots to work out here, and a user will have lots of options to choose from.

The two main focuses will be on personal finance and business accounting. US tax implications for both will be a major area as well.

Cheddar Money or Cash will be the personal finance module. It's focus will be on handling personal aspects like paychecks and income, tracking spending, net worth aspects like assets (bank accounts, investments, etc.) and liabilities (loans and credit cards, etc.), as well as budgeting and more.

CheddarBooks will be for business. Side hustles, micro businesses, and even small businesses. It would be direct competition to QuickBooks and Xero.

In addition, some ideas are:

Cheddar Kitchen - a module that would track groceries and food stocks to keep inventory. Could also integrate Recipes and meal planning to create a shopping list.

Cheddar Shopping - a module that could compare products and pricing from different stores and show you where to buy what to get the best deal. Kroger has an API, so maybe even create an order and you can just pick it up or have it delivered!

Cheddar Recipes - a module to store recipes and integrate with Kitchen to be able to ask it “what can I make with what we have?” or “I want to make this recipe/meal, what do I need to buy and what do I already have?”

Cheddar Menu/Restaurant - a Point-Of-Sale module for restaurants or food trucks or the like including online and app ordering.

Cheddar Trade - a module to interface with Brokers (Schwab) to perform stock/ETF buying and maybe selling, depending on the strategy desired. Part of the wealth and income building aspects.

Cheddar Tax - calculate US IRS, state and local tax returns in real time based on your actual finances. Both for personal and business.

Cheddar Legal - module to keep business compliance issues, like formation, stock ledgers, annual reporting, etc.

PersonalFinance.Exposed - An educational site to detail all things related to money producing website, videos and social media.

Open Source can be challenging. I have an idea on how to address that based on “Influence” scores. Come in wanting this, this ,and this, and that person has not helped or contributed in some way, I very likely may ignore their request. If they have been helping create docs, writing articles, planning out the said desired feature with mock ups showing what the screens they want to look like, yeah, I will be influenced to help them. If they contribute money, they gain influence.

Basically, I am working to create what I want. Others will be able to use it too. Depending on what additional things that involves will determine fees needed or services offered.

If you are interested in the project, reach out. Having the actual real test subjects would be helpful. Can answer a question, do so. Can write an article, have at it. Draw up screens and show what you want, go ahead. The more effort and details contributed, the more likely it would be done. And of course, if you can code HTML or F#, even better. Expertise is also incredibly valuable, like taxes, accounting, chart of accounts, etc.

Maybe you will be part of the community, maybe not. Up to you. I wish you love and prosperity, regardless.