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Truffle: Finds business deductions in your personal spending history
- mtmithani 8y agoLove it!!! Saving so much money, as a engineer I pay way too much in taxes!
- paulcole 8y agoDo you have a GoFundMe where those of us not blessed with the curse of working as a high-paid engineer can contribute? Or are my thoughts and prayers enough?
- hacktavist 8y agoDefinitely using this during tax season this year!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- zallarak 8y agoI helped make Truffle. Here to answer any questions and thanks for stopping by!
- JumpCrisscross 8y agoCan you speak a bit more to the privacy policy? If I import my data, pay you $40, print out my report and then say “delete,” will you delete everything?
- zallarak 8y agoWhat do you want to hear more about? Glad to answer any questions.
- zallarak 8y agoYes. We will delete everything.
- laliberte 8y agoYou mention that you use the Plaid API to get the transaction data. You might delete _your_ copy of the user's transactions, but won't the user's transactions still exist somewhere at Plaid? It feels very dishonest to say that you delete the user's data, while handing it over to a third-party ...
- slackoverflower 8y agoPlaid is really just a centralized API layer for all the different bank accounts and bank systems which all have different specifications and data formats. Plaid just makes it easy for to get it in a clean JSON response. They don't store the transaction data themselves, they're just a middleman.
- chatmasta 8y agoHow do you know that?
- laliberte 8y agoI work at a company that is one of Plaid's largest customers and have chatted with their engineers before at a meetup in San Francisco. They were very open that they store the data themselves, and even shared this blog post with me about how they poll for data: https://blog.plaid.com/distributed-duplicate-detective/ https://blog.plaid.com/distributed-duplicate-detective/. For what it's worth, I actually like Plaid's API compared to Yodlee, but have serious concerns about privacy. There's no way to determine if they are _just_ collecting transactions when you request the user's transactions as a dev. The user is handing over their user/pass/MFA and Plaid could be doing god knows what with that.
- antpls 8y agoCan you prove it?
- eries 8y agoI’ve wondered when someone would do this. Great idea How does it work?
- zallarak 8y agoThanks for your kind words. I love your writings. Connect your personal spending accounts, and we'll find all potential business deductions and categorize them for you. If something isn't actually a deduction / business-related, you may remove it. If we got a categorization wrong, you can fix it.
- eries 8y agoHow does it know what’s business related?
- zallarak 8y agoIt is maximally inclusive. It is up to you to remove what is not. I know that doesn't cover all use-cases, but it is what we started out with.
- mygo 8y agothis is the best way to do it IMO. algorithms aren't as smart as me at everything. they're going to miss some things. even facebook with all their resources still can't figure out an algorithm that actually shows me posts from all the people that I want to see. And honestly it's easy enough for me to go through a list of potentially business-related expenses and say "nope, not business-related".
- p1necone 8y agoFacebook does that intentionally, the more you spend scrolling through crap with the occasional thing you actually want to see the more time you'll be looking at advertisements. They don't make money by being more useful, they just make money from showing you ads. Presumably the same reason for the recent reddit redesign, and snapchat's awful UI changes.
- welder 8y agoDon't people normally just use separate credit cards / bank accounts for business vs personal expenses?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> Don't people normally just use separate credit cards / bank accounts for business vs personal expenses? Every year my accountant tells me to do this. And every year I lose cards and get distracted by promos.
- bryanrasmussen 8y agoright I have two cards, but hey I misplaced one card whatever am I to do with this necessary expense right now?!
- exolymph 8y agobehavioral economics dot jpeg
- memory_grep 8y agoYeah, that's what I do.
- jedberg 8y agoMy personal card has much better travel rewards and free travel insurance, so I use my personal card for travel. Then I have to remember to deduct it at the end of the year. Usually it's not too hard to find the travel though. I'll still be signing up for this just to see how it does.
- sgustard 8y agoWhat's the basis for "the average freelancer finds $12,931 of business deductions"? That sounds mighty generous; I'd like to hear how that breaks down. Do people really spend thousands on flights and hotels and then forget about them?
- tylerhou 8y agoThe wording is "finds $12,931", not "finds $12,931 * more*".
- jedberg 8y agoInstead of exporting to Excel, will you support exporting to TurboTax?
- zallarak 8y agoWe will look into that. If it’s not some arcane format we will get it done ASAP.
- 20after4 8y agoIt used to be a very arcane format but I haven't looked at it in quite a few years.
- eli 8y agoIs that just for the sake of having it alongside your other financial info for the year? I thought the tax filing itself just needed the total
- jedberg 8y agoWell yes and no. On the actual tax form you just put a total, but TurboTax asks you to break it down, one so that you get it right, and two because if you get audited you have to provide broken down info, so you can't use their audit defense product unless you break it down.
- akosednar 8y agoWould you ever open it up to past years? I would love to go back to see if I missed anything in a past year. I could then maybe refile and get back some money.
- GregorStocks 8y agoIs this powered by Plaid? What's the user experience when you can't pull a full year+ of transactions?
- toyg 8y agoI expect it doesn’t work in non-US countries, correct? Any plans to expand to other countries? I know it’s hard, tax is a different mess everywhere, but I could really use it here in UK...
- stevespang 8y agoIt's rather arrogant you don't give prospects the opportunity to view the cost of your product without forcing them to signup - - the only button is "signup".
- cm2012 8y agoAlready did my taxes this year but saving this link for next year. I spent a good amount of time this week categorizing expenses for my taxes. Unfortunately, I also used HSBC last year which sucks at integrating with places, but I just switched to Azlo which is supported well. FWIW, my feedback - I need a way to filter larger amounts of transactions at a time. I just connected all my credit cards. 100% of my uber and hotel usage is personal - it looks like as is I'd have to select each one instead of being able to search "uber" and check all to remove them.
- victor106 8y agoLooks like a cool app. But what is stopping an application like Mint or Truebill to offer this?
- dflock 8y agoIn the case of Mint, Mint is stopping Mint. They've essentially been on life-support and have added no new features in that last ~decade, afaik.
- arawde 8y agoin terms of the features that are there now, what would you recommend using which has more active development? Mint's UI is hot garbage, but it does what I need it to do...
- toomuchtodo 8y agohttps://www.personalcapital.com/ https://www.personalcapital.com/
- enraged_camel 8y agoSeconding PC, it’s fantastic.
- kenneth 8y agoYou can use it as a Mint replacement without any of their Wealth Management offerings? How do they make money? What are the hidden costs?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoThe aggregator is a loss leader. You do not need to use their wealth management offerings. There is no cost. I’ve tried to give them money just because the aggregator is so good, and they said no thanks. Disclaimer: Just a happy user of a financial tool.
- vadansky 8y agoAssuming this doesn’t work for Canadians?
- zallarak 8y agoNo, it does't yet... Sorry.
- sokoloff 8y agoSeems like finding employee expenses that were missed (where you could recover 100% instead of your marginal rate) is another use case here. If I miss a few Ubers and a few airport meals that I should have filed expense reports for, that's real savings to me as well. That might be a harder use case (separating the fly shit from the pepper in terms of personal vs business).
- zallarak 8y agoActually our first user used it for exactly that. The free version should suffice to help you filter for this type of stuff.
- nightski 8y agoA few Ubers? That's going to make the difference between taking the standard deduction and itemizing for you? Interesting... Also for the meals it doesn't really help much unless you already keep every receipt.
- kimjongman 8y agoA few Ubers * 2000 employees
- sokoloff 8y agoScenario I posted was: As a W-2 employee, I may have failed to file an expense report for a company-related Uber trip (where I need to file an expense report to get all of it back). I generally have iPhone snaps of any receipt that is a business expense. I just don't always get around to doing the paperwork afterwards...
- jjeaff 8y agoYou don't have to have a receipt to take a deduction. In case of an audit, your bank statement or cc statement indicating the amount and who it was paid to is sufficient. But in the case of meals, you would definitely need some documentation like notes on the purpose of the meal.
- usaar333 8y ago
- blackdogie 8y agoSo has anyone used it ? It seems like a great, well thought out idea. I just want to make sure before I drop $40 and give save a few hours of accountants costs.
- zallarak 8y agoIf you’re not satisfied we will refund you.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kenneth 8y agoI have my (rather messy) taxes done by a professional accountant every year, and he saves me a ton of money by doing things like this. I'll have to see if this report can help him with a more accurate picture of my expenses. First thought is I wish there was a way to bulk edit transaction. I also have my rent which it picks up as a "utility," and which should be partially deductible as a home office. Doesn't seem to be able to handle that slightly more complex use case yet. Taxes are complicated…
- zallarak 8y agoThis is great feedback. We'll add bulk edits soon!
- arosier 8y agoLove how readable your Privacy Policy is.
- mimiii217 8y agoThis idea is amazing. I always use my personal credit card to make business purchases. I’ll try this before tax season!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- simonebrunozzi 8y agoGreat idea. I personally just hate the stereotypical "customer" (in this case, Karen T.) with a quote that is probably fake. Even if it's not fake, I hate the "category" so much that I end up disliking the service on that front. Note that I might be rather peculiar in my hate for these "business quotes", and please take this feedback with a grain of salt :)
- Shaanie 8y agoI agree. I'm so used to seeing those type of testimonials on garbage products that "speed up your computer", or on TV shop etc. that it only makes me suspicious of the product.
- ryanwaggoner 8y agoCan you elaborate here? Testimonials, case studies, reviews, and other forms of social proof definitely have a huge impact on conversions, so I’m curious about how it can be done better in your view, or if the entire idea is anathema to you.
- hopler 8y agoThe vast majority of people are dumb, so doing things that smart people hate is necessary for business success
- simonebrunozzi 8y agoFor me personally (and probably NOT for customers in general), seeing a $FIRSTNAME $LASTNAME.charAt(0) is a negative (e.g. Laura T., Tom B., Frank S., etc), and seeing something that looks like a stock photo is also a negative. These two things combined together make me doubt that the customer reference might be fake (and nobody is ever going to challenge it!). Instead, tell me something like "$RealFirstName $RealLastName, VP Product, $RealCompany", and I immediately believe you.
- sriram_sun 8y agoGreat idea! However, there wasn't a whole lot in my account's analysis. I can't seem to find the delete button. How do I delete my account?
- zallarak 8y agoJust send us a message on chat.
- woogiewonka 8y agoIs it just me or is anyone else bothered by Plaid privacy policy on the information they collect? I want to use this app but reading through that privacy policy is the stuff of potential nightmares. "collect information including: account numbers, routing numbers, names, balances, history, loan info etc etc..." pretty much everything. Umm no thank you.
- rixrax 8y agoI'm generally bothered by giving access to my anything to some random 3rd party websites. I am clearly not in a target market, but why would you trust this or anything similar to act in your best interest after you've allowed them to connect to your bank, email, etc. Especially after a year or two when their balance sheet begins to be on the red. Would make an interesting experiment to create a website that would 'promise' cash-money based on whatever in exchange of user connecting their email and other accounts. This hoax could then siphon the passwords and accounts directly to Troy Hunt [0] and warn user like SECs fake ICO site[1] does. ;-) [0] https://haveibeenpwned.com/ https://haveibeenpwned.com/ [1] https://www.howeycoins.com/ https://www.howeycoins.com/ edit: grammar
- Fnoord 8y agoJust like with any of these data grabbing cloud services I don't believe anyone is in the target market, long term speaking. You just learned your lesson sooner rather than later.
- exolymph 8y agoDon't they need that info to perform the basic functions of the service? Or are you concerned about it being stored long-term?
- Thibaut1 8y ago>In January 2019, we entered into an addendum to our commercial agreement with AWS, pursuant to which we committed to spend an aggregate of at least $300 million between January 2019 and December 2021 on AWS services. If we fail to meet the minimum purchase commitment during any year, we may be required to pay the difference, which could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. Not as bad as snap but what could they possibly be spending $100 million a year on?
- kissickas 8y agoYour site looks just as beautiful with NoScript on! Thanks.
- jv22222 8y agoI've been wondering.... Are bank records like this good enough to replace receipts? Or do you still need to know how to get the actual receipts? Great brand BTW
- zallarak 8y agoIt looks like bank statements are sufficient but I’d check with your accountant: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/what-kind-of-records-should-i-keep https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
- fauigerzigerk 8y agoNo, it doesn't look like that to me at all. Bank statements do not usually contain nearly enough information on what was purchased. They are proof of payment. That's why they are listed on that page among other supporting documents like invoices.
- seanwilson 8y agoGreat idea. Any hints on what a typical freelancer is forgetting to expense? $13K sounds crazy high. I'm a freelance software consultant working remotely and there isn't much I can expense as far as I know (working from home costs, hardware, software, insurance, accountancy fees, mobile bill).
- warent 8y agoAgree with this. Unless you're frequently traveling for business or making big work-related purchases, I'm finding it hard to believe that you could provide a compelling argument to the IRS that you have $13k in expenses. "Meals" is not a deductible expense, that's a personal expense and the IRS will nail you for it.
- DeusExMachina 8y agoI guess that depends on the country. I live in NL and (I checked with my accountant), I can deduct the cost of coffee I get at the cafe where I work, provided that I drink it while working.
- seanwilson 8y agoIn the UK, it's along the lines of you can only expense food and drink if it's an expense that occurs while traveling away from your normal place of work for business purposes. Without travel expenses, purchasing lots of hardware or online service costs for running a project, I'd be interested in what people are expensing if their expenses are above say £5K a year.
- novaleaf 8y agoactually you can deduct meals. not sure for sole-proprietorships, but corporations and llc's most certainly can. (in the USA). However in case you get audited, make sure you keep reciepts (not just record of payment) and can justify it as being a food-while-working or bizdev expense.
- arbuge 8y agoThis app looks like it could get alot of people into trouble if they interpret it as giving them some kind of permission to expense all their travel, meals, etc. You're only supposed to expense the items which were actually for business purposes, and no app can figure that out for you if your record-keeping throughout the year was sloppy. I don't think it will fly when you're sitting down uncomfortably with an IRS auditor if your defense is that some app told you to do it.
- hrdwdmrbl 8y agoThis is why I find Mint so terrible! It had such potential to enable things like this, but just never did anything after being bought by Intuit. This is also another reason why I think Bitcoin / crypto will be huge, because a company like Truffle could get implemented without needing crazy integrations with every existing financial institution. It could just use open-protocols. I already use a product in the same space called http://cointracker.io/ http://cointracker.io/ which I'm able to give my public keys to and it can do my taxes.
- stevespang 8y agoYou cannot see what it cost until you go through signup, kinda arrogant eh ?
- robot_jackie 8y agoThe website looks like got ruffle, but this looks cool!
- zallarak 8y agohaha that's funny! Now that you say it, I can't unsee.