A useful financial dashboard still asks you to remember to open it.
Disclosure: I make MarginDeck. This article describes my own work on the product.
That was the problem I wanted to address in MarginDeck 1.5. Sometimes I want to review every product. Other times, I just want to check what is coming due and get back to work.
Version 1.5 is out today. It adds a small financial brief to the Mac menu bar, plus an optional weekly reminder.
Start with the number you care about
The first section switches between revenue, scheduled cost, and estimated contribution profit. When saved history is available, it also shows how the amount compares with the previous month.
Contribution profit answers a useful question: after the costs recorded for these products, how much is left? If costs seem unusually high, switch to cost for a quick check. Open the Dashboard when you want the broader trend or product breakdown.
For a month still in progress, the comparison is against the previous full month. It is a running check, not a like-for-like growth rate.
Know what is coming due
Choose the next 7 or 14 days to see scheduled costs by currency. If annual charges fall within that same period, the brief shows their count and total too.
Click View details to open Upcoming Costs. The annual-charge shortcut takes you to the annual costs, so you can find what needs a closer look without searching through the full list.
These amounts come from the billing schedules you record. A yearly renewal stays in its recorded billing month, where it matters for the upcoming expense.
See when revenue was last updated
The brief also shows the last saved update for manual revenue, RevenueCat, and Stripe when those records are present.
This helps answer a different question: are the numbers recent enough for the decision I am about to make? If a source needs attention, the arrow opens Revenue. Sync results still go through review before they change saved records.
Give the review a place in your week
You can choose a weekday and time for a local financial check-in reminder. Clicking it opens the Dashboard, ready for a fuller review.
The menu bar is there when you want a quick look. The reminder helps you remember to take that look. Both are optional and available in the free version, alongside tracking one unarchived product.
A smaller step into the same app
The Dashboard still holds the portfolio trend and operating signals. It now uses clearer metric colors and a wider upcoming-cost list. Revenue also has a collapsible list of saved entries, with their products and update times.
If you already use MarginDeck, enable the menu bar in Settings. If you are new, see MarginDeck for Mac. For the earlier history and trend work, read the 1.4 release note.
I am Junhua Jin, the developer of MarginDeck and author of SwingCodeLab. The question I would like feedback on is simple: after a quick look at your product finances, what do you still need to open the full dashboard to understand?