iSYB Budget - Dustin Skinner (Winter 2010)

Executive Summary

The Problem
It was about 2 years ago that I created a budgeting spreadsheet within Excel. I tracked the many costs that both my wife and I had, expenses from education to entertainment. This helped to achieve a growth in savings, even amidst a tight budget. The ability to track the money that came in and out of our house was something interesting to me. After all, I am studying accounting, and this is a simple application of such a study. The problem arose when I wanted a better spreadsheet, but was not completely able to design one with the knowledge that I had.

The Investigation
One day I was talking to a fellow classmate of mine about budgeting. He mentioned a budgeting software that he used called “You need a budget” or “YNAB.” He said that while it cost $60 to purchase, it did allow a 1 week free installation to test-drive the software. I downloaded YNAB and quickly found ways that it was much better than the budgeting tool I was currently using. The problem was I, nor my wife, did not want to pay the $60 to purchase a budgeting software. It was the following week that I entered MBA 614 and we were to create something within Excel, using VBA, for a business use. I thought this would be the perfect time to create what I desired.

The Solution
My product is called iSYB, short for “I Stole Your Budget.” With the week that I had YNAB, I learned the in’s and out’s and designed my own product within Excel. It has two spreadsheets, (1) Budget Detail, and (2) Charts. Both are used to help the person budgeting to see the details of his/her income and expenses. It allows both detailed and summary views of the data. Ultimately, iSYB is a budgeting solution for all those that can’t fork out big money to help manage their cash flow.

Links
iSYB Budget
iSYB Budget Write-Up