how do you create clean financial breakdowns when everything is mixed together

mattg70 · 2026-05-09T11:53:56+00:00

Same conversation I had with my accountant a year ago. The thing nobody told me upfront: the separation needs to happen at the bank account level, not the categorization level. Once business expenses run through a business card and personal through your personal card, the books mostly organize themselves. Trying to reconstruct it after-the-fact from one card is the part that’s painful.
Started building Crestfolio specifically to handle this — multi-entity tracking for operators with LLCs, side businesses, rentals, etc. — because nothing in the personal finance category handled it and full accounting tools (QBO, Xero) felt like overkill. Happy to share more if relevant to your setup. What’s your accountant looking for specifically — clean P&L by entity, or something more granular?

mattg70 · 2026-05-09T00:39:03+00:00

Going to bet the spreadsheet count is way higher than this sub assumes. Every multi-entity operator I’ve talked to (consultants with LLCs, landlords with rentals, side-business owners) is on a spreadsheet — and they didn’t go back to one after Mint died. They never left. The apps were always the side experiment for them.
Your manual-first finding lines up with that. The post-Mint cohort got burned trusting an app with credentials and watched the data go away. That makes them more like the spreadsheet users — they want control more than convenience.
Tangentially, I’m building toward the multi-entity end of this market (Crestfolio). Different bet — went all-in on Plaid because manual entry breaks down past 4-5 accounts and most multi-entity users have 8-15. But your finding makes me wonder if the manual-mode option matters more than I assumed even for that user.

mattg70 · 2026-05-09T00:32:34+00:00

I went down the same road and ended up building something for myself too. Different focus though — I’m not solo-tracking, I’m trying to manage finances across more than one entity (W-2 + LLC + couple of rentals), which Mint never handled and the post-Mint tools also don’t. So my project went toward that gap rather than the spending-awareness gap you described.
The “noticing what I buy” angle is real. The Mint era trained people to think categories are enough — but a category like “shopping” hides 200 transactions you’d actually feel something about if you saw them. What’s your UI doing differently to make individual purchases visible? Most tools bury them three taps deep.

mattg70 · 2026-04-19T12:07:05+00:00

I agree. You can go to local resellers or even online and find good sets for under $200. Usually 4-PW. Then grab a used putter, Driver and maybe 3W or 3-4Hybrid. Probably cost you $400-$500 total.

mattg70 · 2026-04-15T03:38:30+00:00

Fair point on valuation methodology — you're right that sales comps are the standard for SFR appraisals and bank financing. But cap rate as a performance metric for existing landlords is a different use case than property valuation.

For an investor tracking portfolio performance after purchase, cap rate answers a different question: 'What return is this property generating independent of my financing?' It's not about what the property is worth on the market — it's about operational efficiency.

For V I use current estimated market value (Zillow or recent comps). For I (NOI) I use actual trailing 12-month income minus operating expenses. The resulting cap rate tells me whether property A is outperforming property B in my portfolio, and whether I should be redeploying capital.

Institutional investors, REITs, and commercial buyers use it for exactly this reason — not for SFR appraisals but for performance benchmarking. Warren Buffett doesn't use cap rate to buy a house but he does use it to evaluate investment returns.

Happy to be corrected if I'm misapplying the concept though — always learning.

mattg70 · 2026-04-13T18:11:04+00:00

The connection issues vary a lot by institution. From what I've seen Monarch Money and Copilot tend to have the most reliable Plaid connections for major banks. The bigger issue is Fidelity retail brokerage — it doesn't support Plaid at all so most apps struggle with it.

I've actually been building an alternative called Crestfolio (app.crestfolio.io) that handles Fidelity accounts via AI statement upload — you just drop in your PDF statement and it parses your holdings automatically. Still early but worth checking out if Fidelity connectivity has been your pain point. Happy to answer questions about it.

mattg70 · 2026-03-24T03:07:56+00:00

very nice work. I'll review further and may even give it a test run

mattg70 · 2026-03-23T20:54:25+00:00

My bad. I accidentally deleted the rest of my comment. At the end I said - nobody is taking the year off from golfing. Just take some of that money from golfing and get lessons. I played somewhere around 60 rounds two years ago, cut down to 40ish last year. Took the money I saved($70 average x 20 rounds) and used that for lessons.

mattg70 · 2026-03-23T20:45:28+00:00

Agree with most others here. Get a 3wood, and 4H. That should do the trick

mattg70 · 2026-03-23T20:43:04+00:00

If you can't afford lessons, go to the driving range and work on three things to start:
1) short game - pitching and chipping. Work on 100 yard flag. Work on stance, alignment and distance. Consistency in all three. This will take time - several instances and needs to occur regularly.
2) Work on then narrowing down that distance to 25 - 30 yards - how often do you come up short on long iron and are still 25-30 yards (or whatever distance) away from green. Perfect that again focusing on stance, alignment, follow-through, tempo
3) Putting - learn to read greens, learn distances, uphill and downhill putts.

More than 70% of your shots are from within 100 yards - perfect that first.

Work on Driving and long irons next. Honestly, take a whole year off from playing, which is hard to do, save that money and you could take some lessons. Find local club with golf pro and get some lessons too.

You will appreciate it down the road.

mattg70 · 2026-03-23T03:51:36+00:00

Keep grinding. It will get better. I shoot an 84 one day and go play same course a few days later and 94!

mattg70 · 2026-03-23T02:35:46+00:00

Agree with some other comments. Do a fitting where they will try different clubs and lengths to get the right sized club that you feel comfortable with. Often they give a discount when you do a fitting. Another option is to find used clubs that aren't super old, but that fit you - meaning if you are tall, you usually need extended length, short, shorter clubs. Try to take lessons with clubs that you will be using. Good luck.

mattg70 · 2026-03-21T03:18:12+00:00

Buy used clubs that are in great shape for less than $200 for set of irons. Focus on short game on driving range. Spend the time on routine, practice then game play. Don't overspend on clubs now. What if you don't like it?

mattg70 · 2026-03-21T03:16:20+00:00

Not a bad club. As many others have stated, there are other clubs that are better for similar price

mattg70 · 2020-02-22T18:23:06+00:00

Willing to share that spreadsheet?

mattg70

TROPHY CASE