Skip to content
New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

[WIP] Actual Budget Vision #213

Merged
merged 19 commits into from
Nov 26, 2023
1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions docs-sidebar.js
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ const unavailable = title => ({
const sidebars = {
docs: [
'index',
'vision',
'releases',
{
type: 'category',
Expand Down
59 changes: 59 additions & 0 deletions docs/vision.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
---
title: Actual Budget Vision
---

**Vision statement**: To produce a delightful budgeting tool that meets you wherever you are in your financial journey.

**Mission statement**: Our mission is to enable everyone to have the opportunity to:
* take charge of their finances
* find financial peace of mind
* actively engage in dreaming big and achieving your goals

**Design principles**: Actual is designed using the following principles:
* **Local-first**
* **Open**
* **Sleek and clutter-free**
* **Stable**
* **Reliable**
* **Secure**
* **Privacy focused**
* **Community-driven**

### Local-first

Actual is local first, meaning that the database that powers Actual Budget, and ultimately your budget, lives on your device. We don't store it on a server. Now you're wondering, what 'actual server' is for? Well, that allows you to sync changes to your budget on different devices. To do this, only the changes to the budget are sent to the server. The server stores the messages, and the client pulls down the change(s).

### Open

Actual is Open Source utilizing the MIT license. The code is open for anyone to see, view, and contribute. You own your data; you can do whatever you want with it.

### User Interface

Copy link
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Please don’t interpret this as bringing up the recent “unlock” discussion :) , but I think a note here would be nice along the lines that we make mistakes easy to undo. Similar to the early Macintosh philosophy.

The sleek and clutter-free user interface is simple to use for beginners and comes packed with a robust 'undo' system and progressive discoverability for advanced users. The responsive interface adapts to the screen size you are using to give you the best experience for that device. A desktop computer will have the full desktop experience designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse, while a tablet and phone will have an experience ideal for using touch screens. A native mobile app, often found in app stores and marketplaces, is not planned.

### Stable, Reliable, Secure.

The contributors to Actual Budget don't just write the program; they USE the program.  We all have a vested interest in maintaining reliability, security, and stability. If issues are found, bug reports are welcomed so that issues can be remedied immediately.

### Privacy Focused

Actual has no trackers, and unless explicitly enabled, no third-party access is allowed.

### Community-driven

Actual Budget, being community-driven means that development is driven by the community and the maintainers.

### Primary Objectives

* Full visibility into one's budget
* The user owns and controls their data now, and in the future
* View the current status and trends in a budget
* Keep track of your priorities and goals, whether they are long term or short term.

* Clean and fast user experience
* Fully usable across all devices, offline and online
* Multiple budgets, each one reachable by multiple devices
* Accessible application

### Third-party use
Actual is [MIT licensed](https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/blob/master/LICENSE.txt) which allows for the use of the software without restriction. The Actual Budget project and community appreciate any submissions from third-party contributors to enhance and improve our amazing project. This appreciation extends to any single volunteer or company-sponsored participants alike. Let's continue to make Actual Budget the best personal finance tool together!
Loading