What are the best software tools for personal finance?

Question

What are the best software tools for personal finance?

Please list what you like about the software you use.

Answer 1

Mint.com—Easy solution to provide insight into finances.

Pros:

• Web based
• Automatically updates all accounts
• Free
• Works in plain english
• Supports large number of institutions
• "Goals" feature lets you define and track savings goals
• Clear spending reports help you balance your budget and identify areas to trim spending.
• Dedicated support team as well as Community based support

Cons:

• Can not perform transactions though it - you can only view transactions
• Can not track cash efficiently.
• Web based - they store a copy of your credentials and transactions until you delete your account
• Accounts often fail to update causing much frustration
• Only works in the USA & Canada

Answer 2

GnuCash—Great for the meticulous who want to know every detail of their finances.

Pros:

• Free.
• Locally stored, so you know you information is secure.
• Can import statements from most major banks.
• Supports American and Eurpoean banking data protocols (OFX and FinTS).
• Tracks prices of currencies and common investments (stocks, mutual funds, bonds)
• Scheduled transaction calculations (for example, splitting out principle and interest from a given loan payment).
• Double entry accounting standards to helps with research and audits.
• Complete reports and graphs make understanding you finances easy.
• Budgets
• Open Source software

Cons:

• Community supported, so getting answers to problems can occasionally be time consuming.
• Designed for business accounting, so interface is sometimes more complicated the needed for personal finance.
• Double entry accounting can be complicated for a beginner.

Answer 3

I like You Need A Budget (YNAB)

Pros:

• Integrated budget as key concept, not an afterthought. This is far and way YNAB's best feature, being able to plan what your money will do rather than monitoring it after it has been spent.
• Refined interface that is visually appealing.
• Easy setup and use.
• Can manually enter or import transactions from any financial institution supporting Quicken.
• Can track cash.
• Free, frequent updates until the next major version. The updates sometimes include new functionality.
• No forced upgrades or expiring download capabilities.
• License allows installation on multiple computers.

Cons:

• The application is focused on day to day finances. Although you can track stocks, mutual funds, etc., the application does not provide specialized interfaces or tools for this activity.
• Data not in the cloud, but you can sync to an iPhone app or an Android app. Data can now be in DropBox.

Answer 4

Excel

Pros:

• Extremely flexible
• Many available spreadsheet templates that can automate many tasks
• Easy to import / export data
• Easy to generate graphs / charts

Cons:

• Difficult initial set up
• Less convenient than a dedicated budget solution

Answer 5

Intuit Quicken.

Pros:

• Fairly Easy setup
• Good Account Management
• Lots of Flexibility
• Will automatically pull transactions from most banks

Cons:

• Possibly too complex for many users
• Bad file format
• Unclear behavior

Answer 6

I'm a big fan of buxfer.com

Answer 7

http://www.Mvelopes.com

Mvelopes is envelope-style budgeting in an online application. I've tried all of the other applications and I choose to pay for this one for the following reasons:

• Automatically downloads transactions from banks
• Envelopes let you spread income and know exactly what you have for each category at present
• Billpay service that integrates with envelopes
• 12 month spending plan(budget)
• Debt tracker

Answer 8

I just switched (from the abandoned, but good MS Money) to Moneydance 2010

Answer 9

For Mac it's definitely iFinance.

Answer 10

I use iBank for Mac to keep track of my expenses. I also use the iPhone version since they can sync over Wi-Fi and I can capture expenses right on the spot instead of trying to remember what I spent on when I turn on my laptop.

Answer 11

KMyMoney

Pros:

• Free (and open source)
• Easy to use
• Locally stored, so you know you information is secure.
• Can import statements from most major banks. (OFX)
• Tracks prices of currencies and common investments (stocks, mutual funds, bonds)
• Scheduled transactions
• Graph / Reporting tools
• Basic budget tool
• Works on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX

Cons:

• Windows and Mac OSX support not as good as Linux support

Answer 12

For iPhone: iExpenseIt

• Highly customizable and practical.
• Visual indicator of monthly budget vs expenses.
• Overview of Today's spending vs daily spending average.
• Expense Summary of total, average expense per day and top expense of the month
• Repeat Expenses - allow recurring expenses such as monthly rent, mortgage, utility bills, etc.
• Customize Detail / Simple monthly Budgets.
• Store digital photo receipts.
• Instantly generate graphical reports.
• Dynamic reports view: Specify reports by criteria such as report by payment, by vendors, etc.
• Supports VAT/GST.
• and so on... see the link ;)

Answer 13

Money Manager Ex

PROS:

• It is free and open
• Simple
• Does not require an install. Can run from a USB key

CONS

• Weak importing feature
• No any localized rule (e.g. taxes)
• No portable device support

Answer 14

Emergency Account Vault (Windows)

I use it to store info about all of my accounts/assets in an encrypted document. It's more for keeping track of everything that is in your name than managing money. Good for situations when you need to quickly look up info about a specific account you own.

Answer 15

For any android device you can try: Daily Expense Manager - to track your expenses and a host of other apps to suit your specific needs.