‘Pace’ Gives a Household Budget a Better Front Door

Pace is a small personal finance app that reads from a Tiller Google Sheet, signs in with Google and runs on Netlify. It exists because the spreadsheet already held the truth; it just needed a better front door.

Like most projects reported in this paper, it began as a prototype for one household and is being refined in daily use.

The design choice behind Pace is restraint. It does not try to replace the spreadsheet or reinvent budgeting. It reads what is already there, shows the few numbers that matter on a given day, and gets out of the way.

Sign-in runs through Google, so there is no new password to manage, and the data never leaves the household’s own sheet. The app is, in effect, a window onto a file the family already trusts.

Daily use has shaped most of the features. A view that took three taps became one. A chart nobody looked at was removed. The guiding question has been whether a change makes the morning check-in faster.

Mr. Morgan expects the app to keep changing as long as the household keeps using it, which is the only roadmap a personal tool really needs.