This will allow you to keep all your data from Wesabe and allow for a quick and easy transition to GreenSherpa.  Once you import your data to GreenSherpa, we advise you link your GreenSherpa account to your savings, checking, loan, and credit card account so you can have an accurate glimpse into your financial future on a daily basis. For more detailed directions on how to import your financial data to GreenSherpa, please check out our tutorial screencasts. We understand transitions to new applications can be difficult and we appreciate you considering GreenSherpa.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Sign up for a free 30-day trial for GreenSherpa.

Do you know how much money you need to last the rest of your life? Do you know how much you need to get through the next 12 months? What if something unexpected happens, like a home repair you weren’t expecting or you have an opportunity to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip? Nearly everyone faces financial challenges and uncertainties. It’s how you respond to them that makes the difference between financial success and failure.

When Erin and I started GreenSherpa, we wanted to create a product that helped people manage the uncertainties of their financial life.  Erin’s success with her clients revolved around the fact that she would help them create a spending plan, but more importantly, she would help them adjust the plan when things came up that hadn’t been accounted for. She found that as long as there was some flexibility in the plan, people could keep moving forward even when unplanned expenses arose. Her clients felt empowered by their plan, rather than restricted by it.

GreenSherpa’s Cash Flow Projection feature starts out by automatically creating a 12-month spending plan for you based on your historical average spending. The plan is completely editable, however, so you can add unplanned expenses and see how they will affect you.

For example, say you just found out that you have an urgent and size-able home repair bill you weren’t expecting – perhaps a leak in the roof or the pipes burst. That kind of expense probably won’t show up in any kind of budget since it didn’t happen last year. With GreenSherpa’s Cash Flow Projection, you can enter the expense in and see how it changes your cash flow for this month as well as your bank account balance for future months. Can you afford it? If so, great! If not, you can adjust other categories of spending for a month or two to make it up and then go right back to your normal spending plan.

The goal of GreenSherpa’s Cash Flow feature is to empower you to create and stick to a plan that YOU create, even amidst the challenges and uncertainties of life.

Give it a try for free.

Next up – setting and achieving your financial goals.
——————–

In a world that involves more paperwork than ever before, how do you manage your finances on the go?

I figured it out: Box.net. It’s an online data storage site that allows you to organize and view all of your files, plus share files with other users. Financial planners use Box.net all the time to integrate their clients’ data and transactions. I got very excited at the prospect of having a virtual filing cabinet for all of my records.

Reduce, recycle and digitize financial documents

I started by calling my bank and asking them to email me PDFs of all of my statements rather than mailing them. Then, I uploaded them to Box.net. Next, I scanned and uploaded all my paper documents.

Now I am literally living virtually. I can access my Box.net account and email a document in seconds rather than have to be in a dedicated location to fax it. And my accountant can access my account to check on a statement without a phone call. Box.net has a password protected sharing feature that allows you to give approved people access to selected files. All of your information is right there in one place, perfectly organized.

GreenSherpa and Box.net, a perfect match

Box.net is so great, GreenSherpa has partnered with them to integrate our online personal financial management tool with the best in cloud computing solutions. Tip top organization and cash flow planning all in one place? I can hardly contain myself.

GreenSherpa is the first Software as a Service (SaaS) application designed specifically for a more sophisticated user—typically mid-career individuals looking for a better way to take control over their financial life. GreenSherpa’s online web application includes such powerful features as automated synchronization with bank and credit accounts, goal setting and progress tracking, and even online collaboration with other trusted individuals such as a spouse, family member or financial planner.

With the inclusion of Box.net, GreenSherpa users have even more ways to access and share important financial files. Box.net makes it simple for businesses and individuals to share, access, and manage all of their content online. With today’s partnership, Box users can connect their files directly with GreenSherpa, making data access from within GreenSherpa a one-click operation.

“Box.net and GreenSherpa are the perfect combination for a new era in personal financial control,” said Masen Yaffee, chief executive officer of GreenSherpa. “Today’s consumers are demanding flexible Web services that make their personal lives easier. By linking these state-of-the-art tools, people have what they need to gain the power over their cash flow they’ve always wanted.”

“Box.net gives GreenSherpa users a very simple tool to facilitate conversation and collaboration around a critical piece of their lives—their finances,” said Karen Appleton, vice president of business development for Box.net. “By linking Box.net and GreenSherpa, users can bring their money managers, lawyers, and families into shared, private workspaces as needed to provide ongoing access to important documents.”

To learn more about Box.net and its subscription plans, please visit www.box.net

To learn more about GreenSherpa’s personal finance app, visit www.greensherpa.com.

1.  Leave a comment on this article answering this question: What is your best money saving tip?  Be sure to leave your email so we can contact you if you win!

2.  You have until Tuesday night to enter.  The contest ends on Tuesday, April 20th 2010 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

3.  On Wednesday, we will choose two winners using random.org.  Winners will be notified and receive a coupon code for their free 1 year subscription by 10 p.m. PST Wednesday, April 21th 2010.

Each subscription is a $71.88 value.

Make sure to leave a comment for a chance to win!  Good luck!

Cash Glow True Stories

After planning the family cash flow, one transformed friend we’ll call Jamie, said, “Instead of focusing on financial problems, my husband and I are coming up with new ideas to be proactive about our financial future.”

“There’s magic that happens,” another convert related. “Erin saves marriages through cash flow.”

What is the big deal about cash flow?

Cash flow planning can handle anything that affects your finances. The mighty little mantra “income minus expenses over time” takes the mystery out of where your money goes. It lets you know explicitly how much money you have and how much you’ll need, by helping you forecast your future, month by month.

Why not, if you know you’ll need money for new tires in five months, map that into your plan? That way, for each of the five months ahead, you can save for them, or at least recognize tire money is spoken for in that month of the forecast. Result: you won’t overextend.

Why not map out the flow for the year, and set aside some money each month for unforeseen circumstances? Or a vacation you have in mind. When you are active in your cash flow planning, your financial life gets flexible. Room to breathe, anyone? Welcome to that Cash Flow Glow. You can put any event in your life into your cash flow plan and feel freed up, knowing it’s accounted for.

I’m Okay, You’re Okay

Cash flow fluency is a life regulator. It helps you to know what kind of action you need to take with your money at any given time. Can I afford coffee at Peet’s today? Knowing what I’ve got ahead of me, do I want to? Maybe it’s time for radical action. When you can see your income and expenses mapped out in front of you, that $2 balance projected for October is going to get your creative juices flowing on how to bring in more money and where to cut expenses.

The settled feeling you get, being at the command center of your money situation? That’s Cash Glow. The freedom to make intelligent moves, rather than hold your breath and wonder how it’s going to be next month? That’s the Glow we love. Cash Flow Glow that gets us evangelizing.Try it. It might get you crowing, too.

It is quite a journey building a financial management software program targeting women.  We were at lunch today with two gentlemen who are a potential partner for us.  Inevitably the conversation turned to why women?  “I thought that I might be a perfect user for you and then you said that your market was women.”  It is always curious to me when the subject turns to products for women why some men’s eyes glaze over.  We had one friend ask us a few weeks ago if he could use it as if there was a sex barrier to entry to manage your finances with Green Sherpa.  Most people are unaware that 70% of all US household finances are managed by women.  There is a need and we are going to fill it.

On my quest to talk to women about money I have come across some great – no amazing – spaces where women congregate and have amazing conversations about life, money, careers, family. There’s a new place I discovered where real voices rule. Where people can write and publish stories about anything that matters to them. It’s called DivineCaroline.com and it’s full of words and wisdom. I hopped on yesterday and had to peal myself away after 45 mins on their site.  You can submit a story if you want or just see what everyone else has to say. It is one of the best content sites I have found yet.