Financial calendar predicts next month’s bank balance

Taking a calendar-based approach to organizing personal finances, PocketSmith is a online tool designed to make budgeting easier than ever. Users input their scheduled salary, bill payments, rent and grocery bills and have each of these categories repeat weekly, fortnightly or monthly, which is made relatively painless through integration with Google Calendar, iCal and Outlook. PocketSmith then calculates all incoming and outgoing transactions to generate a six or twelve month forecast. Diving right into the ugly details, users can pick any given date and receive a predicted bank balance for that day. So there’s no more wondering what will be left one week before (or after) Christmas. If users are unhappy with their predicted balance, they can adjust their scheduled ‘financial events’ and immediately see the changes reflected in their projected cashflow, helping them set and aim for long-term goals. Subscribers can easily upload electronic bank statements; there’s no need to supply confidential information. While PocketSmith has joined a competitive arena—Mint seems to be the current leader of the webbased personal finance pack—its predictive powers could draw in a new crowd of consumers seeking to get a better grasp on their financial future. The basic version of PocketSmith is free, and subscribers can sign up for more premium versions at USD 5 and USD 12 per month. Spotted by: Harriet Geoghegan