I’ve been building my own Money Manager as part of the WordPress back office I’m creating for myself. Originally, I was thinking about the usual things: accounts, transactions, bills, payees, budgets, receipts, reports and net worth. But while working on it, I realized something. I don’t really want to build another traditional money manager. There are already plenty of programs that can tell me where my money went. What I want is something that can tell me what’s actually going on with my money. A Transaction Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story. Say my register shows that I paid a company $85.That’s useful.

But what if the company says they never received it? Now there’s a whole story surrounding that transaction. Maybe I called the company. They told me to wait three business days. I have a screenshot proving the payment went through. I need to check again Friday, and if it still isn’t fixed, I may need to dispute it. Where does all of that information go? Traditional financial software records the $85 transaction really well. I want to record everything happening around the $85 transaction. That’s what led me to add an Activity Log to my Money Manager.

Almost Like a CRM for My Money.

The more I thought about it, the more I started comparing the idea to a CRM. A CRM doesn’t just store a customer’s name and how much they spent. It keeps notes, calls, documents, tasks, follow-ups and a history of the relationship. Why couldn’t financial software do something similar with a transaction, vendor or account? That’s essentially what I’m building. I can now create an Activity Log entry and connect it directly to a transaction, account, vendor/payee, bill or category. I can write exactly what happened and attach receipts, screenshots, invoices, PDFs or other documents.

Then I took it another step.

Knowing what happened isn’t always enough. Sometimes there’s something I still need to do about it. So I added Financial Tasks & Follow-up. A financial issue can now look something like this: $85 payment — ABC Company Payment hasn’t been credited. Called the company and was told to allow three business days.

Payment confirmation attached.

Follow-up:✓ Call company — Complete○ Check account Friday — Waiting○ Dispute if unresolved — Pending

Those tasks also appear in a master Financial Tasks area, so I can see everything involving my money that still needs attention. The system records when tasks and activity were added and who added them, based on the person logged into the back office. So over time, I’m creating an actual financial history rather than just a ledger.

Recording the Details Traditional Money Managers Leave Out

That’s the part of this project I’m becoming most excited about. Traditional money managers are very good at recording transactions. But a transaction often doesn’t tell me enough. I want to record the details surrounding the transaction.What happened? Was there a problem? Did I call the vendor? What did they tell me? Do I have a receipt or screenshot? Am I waiting for something? Is there something I need to do next? How was the issue eventually resolved?

So now a financial record can have notes, activity, attachments, tasks, follow-ups, dates, users and a resolution history.The structure is becoming:Transaction → Activity → Notes & Documents → Tasks → Follow-up → Resolution

I’m not trying to replace the traditional transaction register. I still need that. I’m trying to build the layer around it that I’ve always felt was missing. I started out building a Money Manager. It’s gradually becoming something closer to a financial operations workspace, where I can track not only where the money went, but everything that’s going on around it. That’s the financial software I’ve been looking for—and since I haven’t found it, I’m building it.

If you want to try it out for free while it’s in beta, be sure to subscribe to my email list and I’ll keep you updated. I also plan on building the same system for property management and investment (specifically Crypto) management software once this is complete.

Subscribe below and I’ll let you know the minute it’s available to test. No special software or plugins needed, you can even test it from your mobile phone, both Android and iPhone.