2. With 43% of households spending more than they earn each year (MSM Money) and
financial markets in dire straights, more prudent management of personal finances is
a critical priority.
The experts state that the solution starts with defining a budget and
getting a holistic view of your total spending on a monthly basis.
However, the personal money management market bears a huge
number of sub optimal solutions:
•Collect receipts and outsource the recording of one’s finances-
convenient but very expensive
•Bank solutions: safe but limited view of data (focus on one bank and
on card transactions- cash purchases not recorded)
•Record it yourself- can get a holistic picture but inconvenient (time
intensive)
•Aggregators (bring together information from multiple bank
accounts) – a holistic view (excluding cash purchases) is possible but
with a lag in access to data +safety concerns as you have to give them
access to your bank acct data
•Apps- Our review of the top apps on the market shows a tradeoff
between price, convenience and usability (see diagram).
•Stated differently, at present there is no app on the market that is
both inexpensive, low touch (easy to use) and holistic in helping
individuals to manage all their expenses in one place
Its no wonder that MSN money states that even in these trying
financial times 6 out of 10 people do not track their monthly finances
and have no clue how much they spend in total. Comparative with
Market leader apps
Our app fills this gap in the market by “asking MOM”, the Manage
yOur Money app , circled in red in our diagram.
3. Ask MOM Money Manager is a low cost, highly convenient low touch secure solution
Objective and process
which empowers individuals to record expenses and have a holistic view of their
spending within a maximum of 24 hours of their purchase
The process:
• Go online, create a hassle free account with broad categories of expenses, set up budget etc
• At a shop, after getting a cab, when receiving a bill or even when shopping online – simply take a picture of the
receipt and upload it via the app… its hassle free.
• Special instructions and categories can preset on app or quickly set up on app before uploading the expense or
the income
• The app transfers the images to the client’s account in the cloud which is routed automatically to micro workers
• The software managing this whole process is open sourced to keep costs down and no intermediary will be used.
The data being transferred will be encrypted for security purposes
• Micro workers access the job on their mobiles, sees a picture of the receipt and enter the info into the app which
populates the client’s app engine in the cloud. This is done as real time as possible with a service level
agreement that all receipts will be entered within 24 hours
• The account holder can then access the electronic interface which contains his budget information and
digitalised electronic copies of the receipts as a back up. Online via ask.mom.money.manager.com the account
holder can then easily interrogate the data (produce reports), set thresholds for spending which will cause the
app to alarm and all the usual bells and whistles associated with budgeting tools
4. 1. User receives a receipt
2. User opens "ask mom" anywhere 3. Image of receipt
anywhere
and using its easy-to-use is sent to "ask mom"
interface, photographs server
the expense with pre-set
categories
9. User receives a notification 8. Receipt is incorporated
when all expenses to budget & planning app
are up to date
4. Encrypted 7. Receipt
data transfer transcription
sent back
(encrypted
data transfer)
5. Microworker
receives receipt
(always a different
anonymous user) 6. Transcripts the
content of
the receipt
5. App simplified mock ups
Entering a new expense Users can take a photo After taking the photo users can In less than 24 hours all
(or income) is very easy. with the Smartphone choose to customise its receipts are added to the app
Users only need to open camera and enter category or simply upload the and digitally integrated online to
the app from mobile additional information expense using pre set provide the whole budget of the
home screen and select manually if necessary, in specifications such as user including a number of
the option “add this integrated function “Personal / Entertainment” or features such as generating
expense”. “Business / Client 1 project” reports and sharing budgets
with partners or co-workers.
6. Ask MOM Money Manager is the first low cost ( for the cost of a Mac and Fries
monthly), low touch solution for personal money management.
BENEFITS
• First to market in utilising micro work to help solve personal finance problems CHALLENGES
• Model is lean to facilitate low cost solution- software open sourced, use of micro • Security- although there is no data security threat as
work, no intermediary no one micro worker has access to the clients full
info and data is encrypted…..there may be a
• Multiple revenue sources perception of a threat…..this needs to be addressed
– App can be free or for a nominal charge £0.69p and persons can pay as you go
eg 3 cents per job, so the cost of processing 100 receipts is 3 USDs per month. It • Ease of imitation- The model is very simple making it
can also charged be a flat fee of 4.99USDs as an example for unlimited susceptible for imitation especially from current B2B
transactions per month providers of similar services. There are ways to
– For the website where clients access their accounts and print reports, we can address this by increasing the clients switching costs
use a freemium model- a combination of free elements and premium paid by developing an online community around the site
services where people give advice on managing their
finances. Alternatively a stamp of approval from
• Free elements may include :free space + basic version of the software Government agencies as a key partner in helping
• Paid services : users to be financially prudent may also lock in
– Additional space / retain copies of receipts > 6 weeks customers….a clear strategy must be defined in this
regard
– Possible premium features- eg track spending of different individual
family members or track spending on an event like a shopping trip or • Given the model is super low cost termed
family vacation, providing spending summaries within the hour ‘Ghandian’ innovation in the literature-A feasible
solution must be found for traditionally high cost
– Advertising on the site can also cross subsidise the cost of running the bells and whistles services such as
service, keeping the price to the client low – customer services
– Advertising campaign to attract customers
• Wider participation of microworkers as they may not be required to upgrade This is still to be fleshed out.
phone as image quality does not have to be perfect. Where they are required Nokia
can utilise second hand or refurbished handsets traded in from the first
world, keeping their costs down
• Huge benefit for the worker at the Base of the Pyramid (BOP: the world’s poorest
billion)- the average person at the BOP lives on 60US per month. Estimating that 1 We would love of hear your
job can be done per minute, a stay at home Mom working four hours, 5 days a
week can earn 100US per month if they get paid 2US cents per job ( by keeping the comments and suggestions
model lean, the majority of the money goes to the microworker). There is huge
potential to help displaced and abjectly poor individuals- particularly in urban
communities where internet access is prevalent.
