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I helped make Truffle. Here to answer any questions and thanks for stopping by!
by zallarak 8y ago
I 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?
- vageli 8y ago> Can you prove it? Beyond audit by a third party, how would one go about proving they deleted something and absolutely no other copy remains?
- 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".