Toshl Finance Blog

Visit the Toshl team on the Slovenian Startup Crawl

Posted on March 12, 2014

The Slovenian Startup Crawl is back! Since the last time Internet Week happened, they’ve transformed from an ad-hoc event to an organisation, promoting all the great startup & tech stuff that’s going on in Slovenia.

Now they’re organising the Startup Crawl again. The idea is for companies to open our doors for the day and invite people to come and see what we’re up to, what the company culture and atmosphere is like. Having fun and getting to know each other is the gist of it. If we find some common points, perhaps we can even work together on something in the future.

There’s a great roster of companies taking part: 3fs, Appssolut, Databox, Dawn of Play – Razum, DietPoint, D·Labs, Fieldoo, Flaviar, Ganxy, Klika, Lumu, Red Hat, Toonia, Zemanta and of course, yours truly.

So, to keep a long story short. The Startup Crawl is happening on the 21st of March. You’ll need to register for the event on Eventbrite. No worries, it’s free.

Register here.

You’ll find more details about the location and timing on the Eventbrite page.

When you visit Toshl, come check out our sister companies ThirdFrameStudios (3fs) and Toonia right next door. See you soon!

Come see the Toshl office art up close. There will be people there too. ;)

Posted in Announcements

Toshl wins Finovate Europe 2014 Best of Show with a sneak peek of the new Toshl Finance

Posted on February 18, 2014

Lately we have been nestled away in our secret lair, working on the next major version of Toshl. But there comes a time when one has to peek into the light and bathe in the sunshine. So naturally, we went to London. A city widely known for it’s sunny disposition.

Weather-based sarcasm aside, we went there to attend Finovate Europe, a conference on the future of financial technology. We went there to offer a sneak peek at the upcoming version of Toshl Finance, make connections in the financial and tech industry as well as meet existing ones.

As all the presenting companies, we were given 7 minutes on stage to demo what we’ve made. No slides and pre-canned videos allowed, it had to be a live demo. We were presenting the new Toshl Finance UI, both on iOS and the Web, with even more focus on making finance fun. The presentation was themed accordingly, which might have been a bit unusual to a suit-clad audience of banking executives used to presentations with a bit less zest.

Nevertheless, the reactions were great as we talked to the people at the conference at our booth after the presentation. Luckily, there was also the Twitter feed, where we could see what people were saying during the presentation itself. Here are some of our favourite ones:

Humour, jacket, hoody , passionate pitch from @Toshl May your finances be as fun as ours :) #finovate

— jason boud (@jasonboud) 11 Février 2014

Awww trendy couple of guys from @toshl on stage – 1.5m consumers – impressive shows that there’s a market for “out there” fun and funky #PFM

— Duena Blomstrom (@DuenaBlomstrom) 11 Février 2014

Toshl Mobile First PFM is really cool. We have to work harder :-) #Finovate

— Alexander Walter (@ItsAlexWalter) 11 Février 2014

Wow it’s either a tough crowd or the AA joke hit too close to home? ;) thanks for making me smile guys @toshl #finovate

— Jess Williamson (@JessInBlue) 11 Février 2014

The video of our demo is not yet available, but should be in about a week or so. We’ll post it here once it is. We don’t want to leave you hanging meanwhile. The Next Web was covering the conference and they’ve written a nice article about some of the new things coming in Toshl Finance 2.0, including a few of the screenshots we sent over.

Capture d'écran 2014-02-11 15.02.00 - copie

Toshl wins Finovate Europe 2014 Best of Show

During the 2-day conference 67 companies demonstrated their products. Finovate Europe was sold out this year, with about 1000 people attending. The attendees which were not presenting could vote for their 3 favourite demos. I’m very glad to say that Toshl was in fact one of the 9 most voted for companies which won the Best of Show award.

The whole Toshl team has been doing great work on this new version and I’m incredibly excited as we steam ahead towards the launch in the upcoming quarter. May your finances be fun!

Update: The Toshl Finance 2.0 Finovate demo video has been posted. See how the new Toshl will be like.

Posted in Announcements, News coverage

2014 FTW! Some Help With Your New Year Resolutions

Posted on January 1, 2014

Welcome to 2014 Toshlers! May it be an exciting one.

Here’s a little tip of what we like to do on January 1st.

1. Open up Toshl and set the time span for the entire 2013.
2. Switch to tags view.
3. Marvel at how much you spent on coffees, booze, transport or whatever tickled your fancy in 2013.

Gives you a good sense of perspective and probably serves up a few shockers. If there’s anything particular bothering you, perhaps it’s time to start a new budget as a New Year resolution. ;)

Posted in Announcements, Tips & Tricks

Guest Post on Currency Conversions: 0% commission signs are a gimmick!

Posted on December 4, 2013

Guest post by Aviva Tabachnik – Partnerships Executive at MyCurrencyTransfer

I’m delighted to have been invited by team Toshl to talk about a subject very close to my heart. Yes, currency is a little boring. Yes, it can be very annoying with lots of numbers and rates. However, I think it’s also well worth sharing with the wonderful Toshl fan base a small finance tip that has saved me a fortune over the past 12 months. Namely, ‘‘0% commission slogans on currency are a myth.’’

Here are my top 10 currency commandments for scoring a better deal, whether you are transferring money abroad OR buying holiday cash:

1. Ignore 0% commission – it’s purely a marketing gimmick designed to confuse. A terrible rate with 0% commission leaves you out of pocket

2. All currency companies make money the same way: they apply a transaction fee (think 0% commission) and add a markup away from the ‘real exchange rate.’

3. The markup applied is the strongest indicator of whether you have scored a competitive currency quote

4. The closer the rate you are offered is to the ‘real exchange rate’ the better the deal. The wider the difference, the worse the deal

5. Use a reputable currency converter tool to check and benchmark the difference between ‘sell rate’ and the ‘real rate’

6. Airports are the world’s most expensive place to exchange currency. They typically add markups of over 10% away from the real rate of exchange

7. Buying currency online for home delivery or airport pickup will always lead to preferential exchange rates

8. If you are sending large amounts of money abroad, consider the use of a non-bank foreign exchange specialist. They can offer 85% cheaper quotes than your bank

9. Don’t fall for the trap of ‘dynamic currency conversion’ when paying for goods abroad. If they ask you whether you want to ‘pay in local currency or your home currency’ always select the local currency.

10. Once you’ve bought currency, don’t fret over currency fluctuations and whether you could have held off longer or booked too soon. Not even the biggest currency analysts of top banks know with 100% accuracy which way the market is moving.

Aviva Tabachnik is a keen personal finance writer & partnerships executive at MyCurrencyTransfer – an OPP award winning foreign exchange comparison website.

Posted in Uncategorized

How to Export Your Expenses in a Custom Date Range

Posted on November 5, 2013

Sometimes you need to know how much you spent in an exact time span so you how costly were your holidays or to file an expense report at work. I’m sure you can think of many other situations. In the web app on toshl.com you can do it easily and quicker than you can say “omgthisiscoolerthanapinkflyingdolphin”. Here’s how.

1. Set a custom time span

Just click on the name of the month and an overlay will show up with the time span settings. Click on the custom timespan tab. Set the custom dates you want or use one of the preset options. Click Save. All the data in the web app is now displayed according to those criteria.

We noticed a lot of people don’t find the time span settings right away, we promise to make it more obvious in the next version.

2. Export the financial data

In the navigation bar, click on export. You’ll notice that the default option for export has now changed from the name of the current month to the custom time span you just set. If that’s the range you want, just click on the file type or service you want it exported in. Once you click, it will be downloaded to your computer or transferred to the service you selected. People using Toshl Finance for free can download their data in CSV, while Toshl Pro users can also export to Excel, PDF, Google Docs or Evernote.

Happy exporting!

Posted in Tips & Tricks, Tutorials