Maria Vardy, 43, Managing Partner of Iris Associates

Iris Associates (http://www.irisassociates.com) are an award winning digital design and marketing agency based in Sheffield. With high profile clients ranging from Aviva to Yorkshire Water and twin daughters keeping her busy at home, she needed a personal finance solution that would help her to save time as well as money.

She says: “I registered for Money Dashboard as a beta tester and have loved it ever since. I’d heard about mint.com in the United States so I was pleased to find that there was a UK alternative.

”Before I started using Money Dashboard I found budgeting and keeping track of my money too time consuming. I have three online bank accounts and two credit cards across three providers so logging in to them every day was inconvenient. I was also trying to budget offline but it was difficult to keep track of all of my transactions. I wouldn’t go back to my old system of managing my money because it was inefficient and could be inaccurate.

“The amazing thing about Money Dashboard is the way it syncs my accounts so that everything is in the one place. It’s done in real time rather than at the end of the month so it’s never out of date. That, combined with the transaction-tagging tool, is what really sets it apart from online banking.

“I also like the reminder I get when I’ve used 90% of my budget and the charts and graphs give me a very clear picture of exactly where I am with my finances. It makes my life easier so I’ve recommended it to my friends and four or five of them are using it already.”