As I added more investments that paid dividends, I began to feel that checking portfolio value alone was not enough.
I wanted to look at weekly, monthly and quarterly distributions alongside loan interest, living expenses and taxable financial income.
What I was really looking for was not another set of figures.
I wanted to see when money generated by my assets would arrive, where it would go, and what might change next.
That is how I began imagining ONSEMO FLOW.
From INVEST to FLOW
I imagine ONSEMO INVEST as a place to understand and manage investment holdings.
It could show what I own, the prices I paid, the dividends received and how each investment has performed.
I also want it to help me follow dividend kings, aristocrats, growing dividends and relevant ETFs by monitoring prices and dividend yields.
So what should FLOW do differently?
If INVEST shows what I own and what those holdings earn, FLOW could show when that money arrives and where it goes.
Expected dividends calculated in INVEST could appear on FLOW's income calendar and later be compared with amounts actually received.
The same view could include recurring payments such as loan interest, insurance and phone bills.
By comparing expected and actual income and expenses, I could see how assets affect everyday life.
A calendar or visual flow would make those relationships much easier to understand.
Why limit this to stocks?
The idea began with dividends and distributions.
But there is no reason that a cash-flow view should apply only to stocks.
Rental income, savings interest, repayment of personal loans, and predictable business income could all have a place.
The same applies to interest payments, taxes, insurance and other scheduled expenses.
I might want to see when someone is supposed to repay money I lent them, and whether that payment has actually arrived.
Of course, not every deposit is income. Repayment of loan principal is different from a dividend payment.
The platform would have to distinguish income, expenses and transfers of assets.
Nor do I want FLOW to become a conventional expense tracker where I record every purchase.
What interests me most is significant, scheduled or recurring cash flow.
Starting with investments, I hope the same idea could eventually help organize other sources and uses of money.
I want to remain in control of my own data
One principle matters especially to me as I think about FLOW.
I do not want ONSEMO's servers to store sensitive financial records about users' assets, income, loans or living expenses.
I would rather not build a product that requires users to hand every detail of their finances over to its operator.
Where possible, I want to rely on the user's own devices and personal Google account—environments they can manage themselves.
The aim is to use familiar protections such as Google account two-step verification while applying appropriate encryption and careful data handling in the ONSEMO platform as well.
Above all, I want the system designed so that ONSEMO's servers cannot read the underlying financial records.
This is still a design goal, not a security guarantee for a finished product. Technical constraints and security questions will need to be addressed during development.
I want users to own and control their information while still being able to connect and use it conveniently.
A monthly report of where the money went
My thoughts did not stop at visualizing cash flow.
Would I always have to open the site to review it?
Perhaps a monthly report could summarize what arrived and what was spent, while also showing what is expected next month.
It could compare dividends and other distributions received with scheduled amounts, alongside loan interest and major recurring expenses.
It might also include a reference view of the year's accumulated financial income.
It would be satisfying to see how much of the phone bill was covered by dividend income, or how the relationship between investment income and recurring spending changed over time.
I do not want a report that merely repeats a spreadsheet.
I want a record of what my assets actually contributed to everyday life over the previous month.
What if CONNECT could tell me at the right time?
That led to another possible connection: ONSEMO CONNECT.
A timely reminder of next week's expected dividends or an approaching loan-interest payment could be useful.
A short summary of the month's expected income and expenses, or a notification when something needs attention, might also help.
But I want a firm boundary:
I do not want to send users' sensitive financial records to ONSEMO's servers in readable form merely to deliver notifications.
Ideally, reports containing account details and amounts would be calculated and viewed on the user's own device.
Where a server is needed to relay an alert, I would explore an approach that does not let it read the underlying financial details.
CONNECT does not currently offer this financial-notification integration. It is a possibility to evaluate as the services evolve.
The objective would not be to send more alerts, but to surface an important change when it needs attention.
From the size of my assets to the movement of money
Looking back, I first considered owning property and receiving rent every month.
Studying officetels and storefronts led me to REITs and then dividend stocks through Realty Income.
My interest later expanded to dividend kings, dividend growers, covered-call ETFs and weekly distributions.
I began thinking about how dividends might cover a phone bill, and how to manage loan interest and financial income.
Eventually, I found that recording the value of my assets did not answer all my questions.
I wanted to know when the money they generated would arrive, where it would go, and what might happen next month.
That is why I started imagining FLOW as an extension of ONSEMO INVEST.
It is still an idea. What I eventually build may differ from what I am describing now.
But the starting point is clear.
If INVEST helps me understand the assets I own, I want FLOW to show how those assets and other sources of income affect my everyday life.
Not just seeing how much money exists, but understanding how it moves.
That is the ONSEMO FLOW I want to build.