Stand Alone Personal Finance Software
Simple, easy-to-use accounting software to help you manage your business finance in a smart way! Learn more about Zoho Books Zoho Books is an online accounting software that allows you to easily manage the money flowing in and out of your business. May 12, 2019 Some personal finance software can help you master budgeting and expense tracking while others can help with investment portfolio management. Of course, your budget for personal finance software matters, too. Our list of the best personal finance software includes free and paid options to suit a variety of financial goals.
Managing your money is a complex skill, especially now that you no longer have to leave the house or even pull out your wallet in order to spend money. That’s why it is more important than ever for you to track spending and.But the old-school methods of budgeting can be far too onerous for the new Millennium. Hardly anyone wants to be carrying an old-fashioned ledger book around with them to record financial transactions.Creating your own Excel spreadsheets sounds like the world’s worst homework assignment for some. That’s where personal finance budget software comes in.
There are many different budgeting and tracking programs available to help both beginning and veteran budgeters get a solid handle on their finances.Read our comprehensive list below to learn which program will work best for your financial situation. Quick Links to Budget Software Reviews:All-In-One Budget Software.Zero-Based Budget Software.Money/Budget Assistants.Other Budget Software.Budget Software Graveyard. Change. Hip Money. Penny.Most Popular.New All-In-One Budget SoftwarePersonal CapitalOne way to describe If you click this link and make a purchase, we earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
Budgeting software is an “account aggregator.” This program allows you to track and understand every single penny in all of your financial accounts. Once you link up all of your various accounts, including your bank accounts, investments, mortgage, credit cards, and any other accounts, Personal Capital summarizes your finances and offers you basic investment guidance.
Considering the fact that Personal Capital also tracks investments, it offers a more comprehensive (and free!) service than similar competitor Mint. On your dashboard, the program generates graphs and charts to help you better understand your financial picture, including the following:. Net Worth. Account Balances.
Income Reports. Spending Reports. Asset Allocation. Investment Returns. Projected Investment FeesBasic budgeting is also a snap with this program, as the interface gives you an understanding of all of your spending and account balances, and allows you to categorize your spending by date, merchant, and type of expense. The mobile app for iPhone and Android allows you to keep track of your budget even when you’re not at your computer.Personal Capital also offers a Retirement Planner tool that can help you build, manage, and forecast your retirement savings.
You can use the Investment Checkup feature that asks you to create a basic risk profile, pick a target retirement date, and your projected income sources, and the program will recommend a portfolio for you. Finally, there is a fee analyzer that can help you to understand the fees you are paying on your current investments.As with all other web-based personal finance programs, Personal Capital uses the same security and encryption you can expect from online banking. Pros: The most comprehensive aggregate of financial information, making this ideal for those with complex finances. Basic investment guidance is a major plus. Cons: The program is not as customizable as some others–neither asset allocations nor spending categories are customizable.
Cost: Free. See our.Learn more and get started with If you click this link and make a purchase, we earn a commission at no additional cost to you.Clarity MoneyIf you click this link and make a purchase, we earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Launched in January 2017, and was acquired by Goldman-Sachs in the spring of 2018. Though it’s still a relative newcomer to this field, it has been quite the mover and shaker.The company’s mission is to offer a service that will both watch your back when it comes to your money choices, and help you take control of your financial life. The founders of the app believe that consumers deserve nothing less than transparency and advocacy in their financial choices.
They designed Clarity Money to provide exactly that. After you download the app onto your Android, iPhone, or other Apple device, you then connect your accounts to Clarity. The program analyzes your spending data before making suggestions to you on how you can optimize and save your money. Clarity Money is able to do this through their Bill Cancellation service, which identifies wasteful recurring charges and will cancel those services for you.The site promises that Clarity will not make a recommendation that does not objectively improve your financial well-being, so you can feel secure that your finances will improve by acting on the app’s recommendations.There is also an algorithm on the app that will help you to find lower interest rate credit cards and/or personal loans. These sponsored products are how the app makes its money, but the site makes it clear that only the products or services that may be of interest to you will be shared with you. You can also through the app, which works with Experian and uses the VantageScore model.In addition to its basic money-saving tools, Clarity Money also allows you to set up automatic savings through a Marcus by Goldman Sachs high-yield savings account. There is no minimum balance, you can set up an automatic recurring transfer, on your schedule, for as little as $0.01.
Everything is done within the app and can all be accomplished with a couple of finger taps.The money in your Marcus high-yield savings account is FDIC insured up to $250,000.It’s also important to note that the app will provide you with a daily summary of your spending, which includes automatic categorization of your purchases. This simple daily breakdown of your spending will help you improve those habits and take better care of your finances. Pros: Clarity Money takes care of everything within the app, which makes it easy to act on their recommendations. The app offers a fairly global look at your money, helping you cancel unnecessary recurring expenses, save more money, and understand your money habits better. Cons: The automatic categorization of your purchases does not allow for split categorizations. Fees: None.
Clarity Money makes its money through the sponsored products and services suggested to users. To get into the nitty-gritty details of your finances, Mint tracks your transactions and automatically assigns an income or expense category for each one. It also assigns a default budget to each category of expenses, although you can create your own monthly budget, as well.
The default mode is a nice way to start budgeting if you’ve never done so. You can see your financial progress using the trends function, which creates graphs and charts of your finances to help you understand where your money goes.Mint also helps you create goals–both savings and debt reduction–and tracks your progress.It’s important to note that Mint does gain access to your login credentials. So there is the potential for exposure of this information. For many people, Quicken’s biggest selling point is the fact that it is a software program you install on your hard drive.
This means all of your sensitive financial information is also stored there–making it secure from any potential hackers gunning for online personal finance programs. And new this year, you can now manage your money on the go across desktop, web, and mobile.Quicken offers a great deal of customization and control and you can make the program work for your specific circumstances.
In particular, investors can easily use Quicken to track their portfolios and quickly find any data they need in order to make investment decisions. The newest version of this software now allows users to automatically track and pay bills.Of course, Quicken is also well-known for its sunset provision that stops online features and formatted files from working after a certain time period, which means users have to buy a new license to continue using the software. Often, these updates also include a new interface, meaning users have to relearn the program after each update. Pros: Quicken is the most comprehensive personal finance software available.
Security-conscious users can rest assured that their information is completely safe. Cons: The sunset provision can be extremely frustrating. Cost: Between $40 and $55, depending upon which specific software package you purchase.
The price jumps to $105 if you get the “home and business” version.Zero-Based Budget SoftwareYNABIf you click this link and make a purchase, we earn a commission at no additional cost to you. (YNAB for short) is an online budgeting program based on the envelope method, wherein budgeters set money aside for specific categories of spending.
The program guides you through the process of budgeting, setting goals and sticking to them, and reconciling accounts. The philosophy behind YNAB is built on that will help users live within their means:.
Give Every Dollar a Job–All money you receive is assigned to a specific budget category. Embrace Your True Expenses–Understand your irregular expenses. Roll With the Punches–You can strategically rearrange budget categories if your spending doesn’t exactly align with your plans. Age Your Money–You can end the paycheck-paycheck cycle by building a buffer of one month’s cash in hand.YNAB believes that in order to successfully budget, you need to be hands-on with your money. Until the version released in December 2015, users had to manually enter all transactions–although the program and its companion apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices made this very easy. This also means that YNAB is one of the few programs that easily allows users to track cash spending.However, the program does now automatically import transactions, but it is up to the user to assign each transaction to its appropriate budget category. With this program, you will receive a Visa-branded ProActive debit card.
You will transfer money to this card and then categorize it into virtual envelopes. When it comes time to make a purchase, you will open the app and tap which envelope the funds are coming from before swiping your card.
If you forget to choose a spending category, your card will be declined.ProActive has also recently introduced a Kid Card. This is another debit card that you can use to pay their allowance, split money into customizable spending categories, and use for purchases with or without a phone. You can even share family spending categories. This allows you to ask your teen to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home from school without having to reimburse her.In addition, you can also link a credit card to the account. When you, ProActive automatically pays the amount of transaction to your credit card immediately, effectively turning your credit card into a debit card.
This means you can get the great rewards offered by credit cards and avoid the trap carrying a balance month to month.Another great feature is the Partner Permissions. This makes sure both spouses are on the same page when unexpected expenses crop up. With this feature, if you want to spend money from one of the categories that require partner permission, the app will send a message to your spouse asking for approval to open the category for spending. This feature ensures that one partner can’t “accidentally” spend the Christmas fund on a new gadget when the other doesn’t agree. Spouses can turn on the feature for any category.The one possible concern about the app is that if you are unable to use your phone at the time of a purchase, you will not be able to use your ProActive debit card. A spending category remains open for 30 minutes, so if you know you will be going phoneless, you can plan ahead. However, using this app could be problematic if you have any issues with data on your smartphone.
Pros: Like traditional envelope budgeting, you cannot make a purchase with ProActive Budget unless you know which envelope the money is coming from. That’s the brilliance with this innovation. The credit card linkup allows you to enjoy the benefits of credit while making sure you set aside the money to pay off your bill each month. Cons: The fact that you are unable to use your ProActive debit card if you do not have your phone available could be problematic. ProActive recommends taking a separate pay card to alleviate this concern. Cost: The program costs $69 per year ($5.75 per month) for the primary card. To add a companion card, it will cost an additional $29 per year ($2.42 per month), and each kid card costs $24 per year ($2 per month).Learn more and get started with If you click this link and make a purchase, we earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
Use the code PTMONY to get a $5 discount when you subscribe.MvelopesLike YNAB, is personal finance software that offers a 21 st century method for following the envelope budgeting method. This online tool has both Android and iPhone apps that allow you to keep track of your spending on the go. When you sign up with Mvelopes, you link up to four bank accounts (including checking accounts, credit card accounts, and PayPal accounts, among others) and create an unlimited number of spending “envelopes” to manage your spending. The program automatically tracks your transactions, which you then assign to the correct spending envelope. The amount of your transaction is subtracted from the money in that envelope.
You may also manually track cash transactions.One of the unique features of Mvelopes is how it handles credit card purchases. When a user makes a purchase using a credit card, the program removes the transaction amount from the spending envelope and places it in a special envelope to pay off the credit card. When your credit card bill arrives, the amount due is already set aside in the envelope, so you will be able to pay off your bill in full.The basic Mvelopes program costs $4 per month or $40 per year if you pay all at once. The next tier is Mvelopes Plus, which costs $19 per month or $190 per year. This program offers everything in the Basic version, but also offers access to a debt reduction plan and guidance and a quarterly check-in from a personal finance trainer. The Mvelopes Complete version costs $59 per month, or $149 per quarter, or $549 per year.
If you sign up for the Complete version, you get monthly one-on-one sessions with a personal finance trainer, a customized financial plan, and full access to all the budgeting tools on the platform.As with other online personal finance programs, your information is kept secure with the same top-level SSL encryption technology used by all major banks. Pros: Mvelopes is set up to be interactive in order to teach users how to budget.
The credit card spending envelope feature is a very helpful aspect of the program. Cons: Multiple reviewers have stated that the program is not necessarily intuitive. Cost: $4/month or $40/year for Mvelopes Basic, $19/month or $190/year for Mvelopes Plus, $59/month or $149/quarter or $549/year for Mvelopes CompleteCheck out our full.To learn more and get started with Mvelopes, visit.EveryDollarDave Ramsey, the get-out-of-debt and budgeting guru, released his free online budgeting software in March of 2015. In keeping with his teachings, is focused on tracking every dollar. That way all of your money is accounted for and you know exactly where it is all going.
According to the EveryDollar website (and borne out by multiple testers), you can create a budget on their intuitive and user-friendly online program in 10 minutes. The program offers eight main spending/saving categories to help you get started with creating your budget. These include:. Giving.
Savings. Housing. Transportation. Food. Lifestyle. Insurance & Tax. DebtIf you decide to create additional categories in your budget, the program makes that category a savings goal, and you will input how much you plan to spend for each category per month.Creating the budget is the easiest part.
From there, it is up to you to input all of your transactions manually. (EveryDollar Plus, which costs $129 per year, will automatically import transactions for you.) There are both iPhone and Android apps available to make inputting transactions simple while you are out and about.
One common complaint about EveryDollar is that it does not allow users to create recurring transactions, which can cause you more work as you try to reconcile your transactions with your budget.One added benefit to using budget software from Dave Ramsey is the fact that EveryDollar helps you walk through his seven baby steps to get out of debt and build wealth. The program offers you the option of using excess funds for the baby steps, which can help you reach your financial independence. Pros: The program is very easy to set up, with an intuitive user-interface and well-thought-out defaults. If you are a follower of Dave Ramsey’s teachings, EveryDollar will help you meet the goals he suggests. Cons: The free version of the software does not automatically add transactions, nor does it allow you to set up recurring transactions, which can cause some reconciliation headaches. Cost: EveryDollar basic is completely free. EveryDollar Plus costs $129 per year.To learn more and get started with EveryDollar, visit.SpendPal (Formerly Envudu)was designed in collaboration with Dr.
Dan Ariely’s Behavioral Science Lab at Duke University. SpendPal offers another option for envelope budgeters in. When you sign up, the program asks you to sort the money in your checking account into separate spending Categories. You give each Category a monthly allowance and rank your Categories in order of priority. Whenever a new deposit comes into your bank account, your Categories are automatically filled in order.
When you make a purchase, you will open the SpendPal app on your phone, select which Category you are spending from, and swipe your debit card to complete the purchase. If you don’t have your phone available, the app will deduct the transaction from your default spending category. When this happens it will mark the purchase as unverified, and you will be prompted to verify or re-categorize it the next time you use the app.If you are tempted to make a purchase that would overspend the proper category, then you will need to make a trade-off from another category. This can help you pause long enough to decide if the purchase is worth raiding another spending category.Though SpendPal officially launched in June 2018, it is still in beta testing, which is good news for you. All beta testers get to use SpendPal for free for a full year. When it becomes fully available, there will be an unspecified monthly or yearly subscription fee for the service.
Pros: For beginning budgeters, the automatic filling of your spending categories can be an excellent introduction to money management. The fact that you can make “unverified” purchases without your phone available could be handy for the phone challenged. Cons: The availability of “unverified” purchases without a phone could get some users in trouble. The lack of a credit card option might turn some users off. Cost: Free for beta testers. There will be an unspecified monthly or yearly subscription fee once the program becomes fully available.To learn more and get started with SpendPal, visit. Money/Budget AssistantsPluto MoneyIf you click this link and make a purchase, we earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
Is an entirely free app is specifically geared toward helping “the Snapchat generation” get a handle on their money. Once you’ve downloaded the free Pluto app (which is currently only available for iPhone, although Android users can join a waitlist), the program will have you start by setting short- and mid-term savings goals, since having something to save for is such an important part of getting finances in order. To help you save more, Pluto gives you simple challenges specifically tailored to your finances. For instance, the app might challenge you to spend less than your average in coffee purchases this week or month. When you succeed, the app will show you the savings impact on your goals, although it is up to you to manually transfer the saved funds over to your goal account.Pluto also offers Peer Insights, that can help you see how your spending compares to your peers.
You can see how your stats compare using criteria that include age, gender, income, relationship status (which includes dating, so it’s not just the married/single binary), and college campus. You can even play around and compare your spending to different demographics.The app’s Behavioral Nudges are notifications that encourage you to save more for your goals and stay on track with your challenges. There are also notifications for when new transactions post, which have helped users to catch fraud.One of the newest features on the app is the Personal Insights feature.
This offers a lightweight, actionable way for you to learn about your finances and habits without getting overwhelmed. You’ll see snapshot summaries, then you can dive into details only if you want to or need to. You have the option of easily taking part in challenges on the spending categories you want to cut down on. The Joy app will help you do two things: rate your spending and save money.The app will ask you to rate each transaction you make with either a smiley face or a sad face. This will help you recognize what spending makes you happy so you can stop making purchases that don’t add to your life. As for the savings, each day when you open the app, you will be asked to save an amount of money that Joy’s algorithm has found “safe” to save. The money goes into an FDIC-insured Joy Savings account.Currently, Joy is only available for iPhone users but has a waitlist for anyone using Androids.
Once you download Joy onto your iPhone, you will be prompted to answer a set of questions. These questions determine your personality type and your money philosophy in order to better understand you and to help you reach your financial goals. You are then paired with a money coach based on the answers you provided. The app uses colors to help you gauge the health of your budget–a red background shows you that your money is quickly dwindling, while green and blue lets you know you are cleared for additional purchases. If you forget to log purchases, you’ll get an occasional reminder from the app to go back to tracking.Pennies does not sync with your financial institutions and only tracks a single source of money at a time. This can make things a little difficult for anyone with multiple bank accounts or payment methods. Pros: This app is easy to use and offers a convenient method for tracking spending.
Cons: Pennies only tracks one source of money, which means it might not work for individuals with more complicated finances. The app is only available for iPhone. Fees: $3.99 one time purchase fee. Best For: Beginning budgeters.To learn more and get started with Pennies, visit Other Budget SoftwareDebitizewas the runner-up, and it definitely earned a place in modern FinTech. It offers a solution for consumers who have trouble with credit card spending but do not want to give up the protections and rewards offered by credit cards. When you sign up with Debitize, the program will begin monitoring your credit card activity. When a charge is made it will automatically transfer the amount of your credit card transaction from your checking account into your Debitize account.
Then, the program automatically pays your credit card bill on the due date with money set aside in your Debitize account.If you choose to sign up for Credit Optimizer (for a $3/month subscription fee), Debitize will pay your credit cards weekly instead of monthly.To make sure Debitize does not overdraw your checking account, you can set up a minimum balance amount. (The default minimum balance is $100, but you can set it to whatever amount will work for you.) The program will notify you when Debitize withdrawals take you down to your minimum balance. It will continue to monitor your checking account for deposits so it can transfer the necessary funds.If you encounter an emergency and need to access the funds in your Debitize account, you may request a transfer back to your checking account.
Although the program discourages this unless necessary.Debitize will not work for individuals with a serious spending or credit problem since your credit card will not be declined at the register if you do not have sufficient funds in your checking account. But for the average consumer, Debitize can be a great program for avoiding credit card debt, while still enjoying the perks of credit cards. Pros: Debitize allows users to have the best of both the debit and credit card world. You save money in credit card interest by always paying your bill in full, while still reaping your credit card rewards and protections. Cons: Those who consistently struggle with overspending will not be helped by the Debitize model.
Fees: None for the basic program. The Credit Optimizer option costs $3/month, although you can try it free for a month. Best For: Consumers who are able to responsibly use debit cards, but struggle with credit.To learn more and get started with Debitize, visitNote: Debitize was acquired by in April 2019. We are waiting to see what changes, if any, are coming our way.AccountMeLarge corporations use generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in their bookkeeping–so why shouldn’t individuals do the same?
GAAP allows for efficient, comprehensive, and consistent accounting, which would be a boon to the average budgeter. Offers users a customizable GAAP accounting framework that allows you to view, edit, and budget your finances using the same double-entry bookkeeping as multi-national corporations.
Free Personal Finance Software
This means users will have an incredibly accurate view of their finances. AccountMe describes itself as just like corporate accounting, with a few twists. Specifically, tracking your expenses in a personal budget needs a little more nuance than traditional GAAP accounting allows.
So AccountMe divides your expenses into three categories: Necessary Fixed Expenses, Necessary Variable Expenses, and Discretionary Expenses.For users who are familiar with GAAP accounting, AccountMe offers an easy-to-use budgeting app that will dovetail with their accounting knowledge and provide a comprehensive view of their money. According to their website, AccountMe will soon be offering features to link to bank accounts and credit/debit cards to allow automatic population of your expenses. Pros: Having a customizable GAAP accounting platform as an app on your smartphone is a major boon for anyone already familiar with GAAP. Cons: If you do not already know GAAP, it is not necessarily easy to learn from a smartphone app.
This is only available for Apple. Cost: The AccountMe website is no longer functioning, although you can still download the app from the iTunes App store. It is unclear how much the app costs based on the information available on iTunes. When the website was still active, there were three levels, starting at $9.99 per month for the basic platform, $24.99 for the mid-level, and $49.99 for the highest level (nicknamed the Gordon Gekko level, which indicates the creators of AccountMe have a sense of humor).To learn more and get started with AccountMe, visit. Budget Software Graveyard Change(While Change is still active for current users, it is not accepting new registrations. You can enter your email to be notified when it begins accepting new users again).The founders of Change started with a simple idea: the best way to influence people to save is to spark behavioral change.
After all, consumers have 100% control over what they spend and save. Yet they do not necessarily make the best decisions for themselves. So the Change virtual finance assistant, unlike other apps and programs on this list, does not automatically change your saving or spending habits.
What it does is alert you to those habits and give you choices for how to make changes.Here’s how it works. When you sign up with Change–which the creators describe as an “invisible” app, since there is no app icon on your device–you securely link your bank and credit card accounts to the program. Once your accounts are linked, Change analyzes your spending habits to find bad financial behavior. It then sends you text messages to alert you to behavior you may be unaware of and suggests simple ways to change.For instance, you might receive a message alert pointing out that your $14.95 per month Audible subscription costs you $179.40 per year. Or Change may text you to let you know your top spending category for the previous month was $200 in coffee shops, where you never spent more than $15 at a time. Those little nudges can help you become more aware of your spending habits without asking you to drastically alter your lifestyle. Change offers suggestions for how to reduce such costs so that you can seamlessly reduce spending without feeling deprived.Change also offers an automated savings algorithm that moves small amounts of money to a Change savings account.
This way, as you learn to curb your spending, you can instantly see how it boosts your savings.In addition, Change labs is also piloting a Predictive Overdraft Protection program. This program will make use of Change’s predictive capabilities to alert customers five days in advance of a possible overdraft event and its consequences.
If you want to avoid the overdraft, you will be able to hit accept and Change will extend you a short-term loan, with funds automatically added to your account within two business days.The pricing for loans through the Predictive Overdraft Protection™ are dramatically lower than overdraft fees. Paying off your loan will be easy and painless, as the amount you owe will be slowly deducted from your account over several days once your account balance allows it. Pros: Change is all about teaching users to be mindful spenders, which is the kind of long-term lesson that all consumers need to learn. There is no expectation that you will completely give up the spending habits that make you happy. The app Hip Money is that financial best friend.
When you sign up with Hip Money, you securely link it to your checking, savings, banking, and/or loan accounts so the program can understand your spending habits. From there, you will. Once a day, the app will ping you with a personalized daily savings recommendation. This is an amount of money that the program has determined you can safely set aside based upon the money you have coming in and going out.The really exciting feature of Hip Money is that it will show you how much that daily savings recommendation will be worth depending on where you send it. For instance, if you are saving up for a trip to Cabo, the $5.55 the app recommends you save will be worth $5.89 with the small amount of interest you earn.
If you send the $5.55 to your student loan, it could save you $29.78 over the life of the loan. And if you put that $5.55 in your retirement account, it will grow to be worth $67.91 by the time you retire.Once you have decided where to send your savings, a simple swipe will send the money to your selected account.
The app then applauds you for making progress on your goals. Pros: The app is designed to help you reach your goals without asking you to sacrifice your priorities or make drastic changes to your spending habits. It’s all about making saving money easy. Cons: It’s not entirely clear how the program determines a safe amount for you to save each day, nor what safeguards are in place to protect you from a potential overdraft.
Cost: Once Hip Money launches, the app will cost $18 per year.LevelLevel (Level is no longer active)The Level Money app syncs with your bank account and determines how much will be left in that account after automatically deducting upcoming bills, recent purchases, and your savings goals. It then gives you an estimate of the amount of money that’s safe for you to spend over the next day, week, and month. Since Cashpath offers you a single dashboard to see all of your transactions, it’s a great tool for anyone who struggles to keep track of their cash flow.
The attractive and easy-to-use interface will make budgeting something you look forward to doing. Though it is not yet available, the creators of Cashpath intend to have the app eventually offer options for doing the savings for you. It is not clear if that will be set up to be completely automatic, or if it will require input from you. Pros: This is a gorgeous and easy-to-use interface.
The program offers a simple method for on-the-go budgeting for individuals who break out in hives at the idea of a spreadsheet. Cons: The program is still new, and not all of the potential options are available yet. Cost: FreeUnsplurgeUnsplurge (Unsplurge is no longer active)Would-be savers who would like some community encouragement will love Unsplurge. This iPhone app asks you to choose a goal and upload a picture of your goal. Once you have set your goal, it can then be shared with “Town,” which is the community platform for Unsplurge, where users can see others’ savings goals and cheer each other on. You (and Town, if you choose) will get to see your progress as you put money aside for your goal. Unsplurge is not synced with your bank, so it is up to you to actually save the money.
However, the app is designed to help you create and maintain a habit, using both community and personal motivation to keep you on track. In addition, the app offers savings tips, such as a, to help you get into the savings frame of mind. Pros: Both the progress bar and the community aspect of Unsplurge can be very motivating and help you to establish a habit of saving money. Cons: Unsplurge does not help you budget or identify money that it is safe to put aside in savings. Also, the app is only available on the iPhone. Fees: None.
Best For: Those who are comfortable with budgeting but need additional motivation to save money.PennyPenny (Penny is no longer active)What if you had a money-savvy friend who could look over your finances, put the information into an easy-to-read graph, and even give you financial advice? That’s the idea behind the newly released Penny 2.0. It’s the personal finance app that feels as easy as texting with a really helpful friend. Each time you open it Penny will greet you and allow you to respond with a choice of several pre-written questions. Penny’s answers will help you better understand your current financial picture, and improve how you are spending your money. Penny will let you know when you have bills coming up and will forecast where you’ll be at the end of the month if you continue spending in the same way.New with this version, the app helps you understand if you’re getting your money’s worth from subscriptions and will help you cancel them. Penny 2.0 will also alert you to any data breaches that might affect you. Finally, Penny offers you a more traditional breakdown of your finances so you can choose to dig into the specifics of your financial life.
Pros: This easy to use app takes a great deal of the intimidation out of finance. In addition, Penny’s pre-written questions allow new budgeters to know what to ask even if they would otherwise be confused. Cons: The pre-written questions might be annoying to a more advanced budgeter. Fee: None. Best For: Beginning budgeters.Do you have a favorite financial app? What do you love about it? When a user is required to sign up to the company web site and hand over his/her account numbers, user name, password etc it raises a major concern about security and data usage.I believe that perhaps private information should remain private and not stored or viewed by anyone else than the actual owner of the information.That is why i use Geltbox Money – it doesn’t use any third party Aggregation site.Moreover, Geltbox is the only personal finance software that has the ability to work with any financial institution in the world.
The Best Personal Finance Software ProgramsThe best personal finance software bolsters your financial literacy and eliminates confusion. When you are able to keep track of the money that moves through your life, you’re better equipped to understand your spending and saving habits and hold yourself accountable to both short- and long-term goals. We pulled the data on every personal finance program we could find — 36 in total — then whittled down the list to the top-performing five based on security, functionality, device compatibility, and customer support. How We Chose the Best Personal Finance Software Programs SecurityMaking full use of a personal finance manager means handing over all of the bank account information and credit card numbers in your life. It's vital to have strict security measures capable of keeping all of that delicate intel protected. The first hurdle that finance apps needed to jump to meet our security demands was fairly low: an.
That’s the secure version of plain old and signifies that the website uses encryption to prevent third-party interception.We also verified that all of our top picks employ multi-factor authentication (like entering a username, password, and secret code received through text or email) and utilize 128- or 256-bit encryption and TLS 1.2 for transmissions. The gold standard for secure storage and transmission of data, these encryption protocols ensure that your information can’t be hacked. Account XpressAceMoneyBudget ExpressCashSyncHandwalletHome BookkeepingMonefyMoneydanceMoneylinePocket ExpenseRichOrPoorSpending TrackerSplashMoneyWallet Mobile and desktop accessWe verified that the finance apps offer versions for both iOS and Android and have a desktop browser version. Being able to keep tabs on your money on the go is a non-negotiable, and it would be a pain to have to hunt down a new program if you switch up your phone.
Having access to your information from any computer is equally important. Mobile accounting is convenient, but a full computer screen experience allows for greater exploration. Quite literally, it lets you see the big picture — all the data on the screen at the same time. BanktivityDaily CostMoney LoverMoneyWellMy Budget BookPennies Syncs with banks and credit cardsA personal money manager is a glorified calculator if it can’t automatically import your financial transactions. And if you’re going to have to manually enter your expenditures and income, you might as well make do with a spreadsheet. When personal finance software links up to a bank, it instantly reflects and categorizes transactions, balances, upcoming bills, and so forth, allowing you to move on to the real work of managing your money.
We cut any software without this usability. DollarbirdGnuCashGoodbudgetMobills Personal FinancesMoneyspire Customer supportIt’s hard to find trustworthy answers to money questions online. When it comes to questions about how financial software is processing your data, you’ll want to be able to go to the source for quick, custom advice. An FAQ section, while helpful for general queries, is no substitute for getting in contact with an actual human.
Finances are complex and personal. We required an option to get in contact via phone, online chat, or email for personalized assistance.
BuxferEverydollarNerdWallet Ease of useOur cuts left us with six promising personal finance software programs to test ourselves. In exploring their functionality on desktop and mobile, tinkering with settings, tracking our finances, and building budgets, most impressed us with their intuitive design and helpful data sorting. Of them, only Mvelope confounded us with its less-than-ideal organization.
With clunky calendars and over-large icons on the dated Flash interface, Mvelope just doesn’t have the polished visual simplicity of its competitors. Its layout and learnability issues resulted in our final cut. Why we chose it Account setupIf you’re totally new to money management, is the way to go. The simplicity starts with account setup.
Mint links all of your accounts with the same bank in one fell swoop, so it only takes a minute to get rolling. Then it pulls two months’ worth of transaction history and begins categorizing. Transaction sortingIntuit’s products (the other being Quicken) nail down transactions better than any other software we looked at. They even break down subcategories (think: “Fast Food” instead of “Restaurants”), making it easy to visualize and categorize your monthly spending. Why we chose it Ad-freeis made by Intuit, the same parent company as Mint.
It feels similar, with an equally user-friendly interface and tools, minus the distracting credit card and loan ads. Desktop appAlong with being ad-free, Quicken is a bit more robust than Mint. It uses a downloadable desktop app rather than a browser-based one, which has some perks. For instance, you can build out a calendar to track budgets, bills, and savings over time.
To stay up to date with this calendar, the app lets you create customizable pop-up alerts for your desktop. It also has extra Report and Summary options — like “Net Worth Over Time,” “Spending Over Time,” and “Tax Summary” — that might be helpful for people with more accounts and assets. Quicken tracks your budgets, bills, and expenses in a customizable desktop calendar.
Good for managing large portfoliosWe recommend this home budget software for people who are familiar with managing their finances and won’t need any hand-holding. Unlike Mint, which offers suggestion boxes — plain-English translations of what you should enter — Quicken expects you to be well-versed enough in finances to know where to find account numbers and the tools to run reports. Quicken is also a good choice if you have multiple accounts or larger assets to track since the desktop application is well-suited to manage built-out portfolios. Sheer capacity is one thing, with its wide array of tools, but security is another; everything is stored locally on your computer.
It also allows you to see summary reports of your holdings, invaluable if there are too many moving pieces to otherwise view concisely. Points to consider Customer supportWhen we tested Quicken, all of its communication channels had long wait times (more than 30 minutes), with no indication of where we were in the queue — although they assured us that we could get shorter wait times by upgrading to “Premium Support” for an extra $50. Quicken does have a comprehensive Support section on its site to help you troubleshoot, and the software is intuitive enough that you may not have many questions if you have experience with money management.
But we were still disappointed by its weak live support. PriceQuicken will cost you between $35 and $90 annually, depending on your operating system. If you’re on the fence about taking that leap, Quicken offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can take the software for a spin and see if Intuit’s tools work for you.
Mobile appQuicken’s mobile app leaves a lot to be desired. While it has a decent rating on the Apple app store, it earns an abysmal 2.7 rating on over 2,800 reviews in Google Play. Most users complain about the app being slow — a real problem if you’re at the store trying to figure out if something is within your budget. Why we chose it Budgeting featureIf you have trouble making a budget and sticking to it, then you need (it’s redundant but true). This software takes a unique approach to budgeting.
Instead of making a hypothetical plan for future money, YNAB works with the cash you have on hand. It asks you to allocate all of your income: First, cover your immediate expenses; then, once those are taken care of, money goes towards next month’s expenses and savings goals. There’s no discretionary cash left sitting around — which means you won’t be tempted to spend it frivolously. Instead, every dollar is put toward a specific purpose, which is what YNAB means by its first rule: “Give every dollar a job.”. Thoughtful account setupYNAB had us import each account separately, as opposed to pulling everything at once as Mint did.
This took a little longer, but it made us think critically about how we wanted to prioritize our finances. For example, when we imported a credit card, YNAB asked us how we’d like to pay it off, then helped us work that goal into our budget.
This setup process lays the foundation for thoughtful money management from day one. Helpful tutorialsYNAB also walks you through budget planning with plainly worded, helpful tutorials. To really succeed, though, you need to take the before anything else. Trust us on this; we tried crafting a budget without it and were a little lost. What was Age of Money? What were Immediate Obligations and True Expenses and how were they different? Why was YNAB saying we’d overspent when we still had cash?
Then we took the webinar, and everything clicked. These awesome resources take YNAB from a budgeting platform to a one-stop-shop for becoming financially responsible. Flexible goalsOne thing we really appreciate is YNAB’s flexibility. The company’s “roll with the punches” philosophy reflects the way we handle money in real life. Maybe you get a pricey Uber and overspend on your Transportation budget. No problem — you can log in, redirect some of your dining-out budget to cover it, and you’re home cooking (affordable) dinners in the black.
Our other top picks didn’t make it as easy to reset our goals and stay on track. YNAB has tons of budget categories. You can choose which ones to use based on your individual financial needs.
Points to consider More prescriptive than other appsWe’ll admit that YNAB isn’t 100% flexible across the board. It only asks you to budget for non-immediate expenses like “dining out” after you’ve fulfilled your “immediate obligations.” This is a sterner approach, and it may feel more prescriptive than our other top picks. But YNAB’s honesty about priorities is part of what makes the software so successful. Fewer analytical toolsCompared to our other top picks, YNAB is a bit of a one-trick pony. Everything relates back to your budget: Income, expenses, and goals are all presented in terms of dollars allocated and dollars to be allocated. This is great for keeping you on track, but it also means that YNAB lacks the trend graphics and other analytical lenses we loved from Mint, Quicken, and Personal Capital. Successful money management will hinge on whether YNAB’s specific lens works for you.