Taxes are confusing enough without the added stress of figuring out which tax software is the best, so we did the research to help you choose the ideal option. The 11 Best Personal Finance Software to Get Your Money Swag On By Jeff Rose on May 18, 2018 L ong gone are the days of grabbing a legal pad, a calculator, and a pen to handle big personal finance tasks. Quicken Starter 2018: 27-Month Personal Finance & Budgeting Software [PC/Mac Box] by Editorial Team 1 week ago. Quicken Starter 2018: 27-Month Personal Finance & Budgeting Software [PC/Mac Box] 1 week ago. Paying off your debt: The three steps 2 months ago. How to pay for college 2 months ago. The software still resides on the desktop, but the 2018 and 2019 versions offer access to a website that contains Quicken's most often-used features and synchronizes its data with your own.
This article lists the best personal budget software for all major desktop and mobile operating systems. Whether you’re a small business owner, a student on a budget, or just someone who wants to be as responsible with their money as possible, our selection of the best personal budget software will help you reach your financial goals and avoid nasty surprises caused by poor management of your personal finances.
Best Personal Budget Software for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets
We understand if you’re surprised to see Microsoft Excel and Google Docs as our number one recommendation for the best budget software solution. After all, they are both complex spreadsheet programs and not dedicated budget apps. But a spreadsheet is actually all you need to manage your finances.
You can either download a pre-made budget spreadsheet template, or you can start from scratch and decide which expenses you want to track, and which don’t need your attention. Both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets can even automatically calculate various statistics for you or visualize your budget as a pie chart or graph.
The only major downside to working with heavy-duty spreadsheet programs instead of a lightweight budget app is how long it takes to do basic tasks such as add a new expense. With the best budget apps, you can just go through a few dialog boxes, input a handful of values, and you’re good to go.
On the other hand, because Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets use widely supported file formats, they don’t tie you to a single platform or app, keeping your data easily accessible.
You Need a Budget (YNAB)
You Need a Budget is a web-based budget software that makes tracking expenses and setting up budgets fun. Unlike many other budget software solutions, You Need a Budget doesn’t force you to budget your money in any particular way — you tell it what your expenses are, and You Need a Budget helps you keep them under control.
There are a few steps to budgeting with You Need a Budget. First, you give every dollar in your pocket or bank account a job. This includes allotting money to monthly expenses such as water, gas, and electricity, your true expenses, such as clothes and car maintenance, and everything else. After budgeting all your money, you can start spending while tracking your expenses with You Need a Budget.
Personal Budget Software For Mac
Because you always know how much money you have left in your individual budgets, there’s no need to feel guilty when you order your sixth tall frappuccino with extra whip or pre-order an upcoming game half a year in advance just to get your hands on a sweet pre-order bonus item.
Of course, you can never know what life has in store for you, and You Need a Budget accounts for this. When an unexpected expense comes, you can simply relocate money from one budget to another and roll with the punches.
You Need a Budget is free for 34 days, and it then costs $6.99 a month. Considering that new users of this best budget app save on average $600 by month two and more than $6,000 by the first year, we think that $6.99 is a pretty good deal. Even though we’ve categorized You Need a Budget as the best personal budget software for Windows, macOS, and Linux, you can also use it on mobile devices or from the web.
Mint.com
Founded in 2006, Mint.com is a web-based personal financial management service for the US and Canada. What separates Mint.com from other budget-tracking services and makes it one of the best personal budget software solutions available, is the fact that it can connect to more than 16,000 US and Canadian financial institutions and completely automate the tracking of your expenses.
Mint.com works best if you connect it to all your bank accounts, so it can automatically update and categorize your information regardless of what kind of purchase you make. Cash expenses can be tracked just as easily as credit card and online expenses thanks to the official Mint.com mobile app, which works both on Android and iOS devices.
Multi-factor authentication reliably protects your personal information, and Mint.com’s flawless security history shows that its developers, the same people who make TurboTax, which is a trusted an American tax preparation software package, have the know-how to protect their customers against cunning cybercriminals.
GnuCash
GnuCash is a multi-platform accounting program that runs on Linux, GNU, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, macOS, Android, and Windows. It’s aimed at small businesses, and it allows the tracking of bank accounts, stocks, income, and expenses. Despite its price tag of zero dollars, GnuCash is based on professional accounting principles and has features such as scheduled transactions, OFX, QIF import, multi-Currency transaction handling, SQL support, check printing, and many others.
While GnuCash can’t rival other best free budget software in terms of its usability, it can outperform even much more expensive applications when it comes to functionality and support. The first version of GnuCash was released in 1998, and a month doesn’t go by without a new commit on GitHub, where GnuCash is developed as open source software by its core developers and amateur supporters.
HomeBank
HomeBank is an open source personal finance software solution that can be used to track and analyze regular and irregular expenses, create beautiful charts, and find budget leaks with its powerful search and filtering tools.
HomeBank has been around for over 20 years, and this best free budget app has been translated to 56 languages and ported to most operating systems, including Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and even the now obsolete Nokia N. The features of HomeBank largely overlap with the features of GnuCash, but HomeBank feels more polished and less focused on accounting.
Best Personal Budget Software for Android
Monefy
Monefy offers an easy way how to track expenses and save money. This best budget app has simplified the tracking process so much that you can add new expenses with a single click and without filling anything else besides the expense amount. Because new expenses are so easy to add, you’re less likely to skip add them, which means no unpleasant surprises at the end of the month.
Monefy can be protected with a PIN code, and a single Monefy installation can manage multiple accounts. Your data can be securely synchronized using Dropbox so you can easily restore everything even if you lose your phone.
Wallet
Wallet is an excellent personal budget software application for Android with bank connections for automatic expense tracking. With 3,500 participating banks worldwide, the chances are high that even your bank will support Wallet, and that means no more manual input of your expenses.
Wallet can generate comprehensive reports and visualize your budget to help you better understand how much money you can afford to spend on various things. We also appreciate the ability to scan loyalty cards and save them in Wallet.
Goodbudget
Goodbudget is the best free budget app for Android if you want a simple and elegant solution to help you manage your finances. It supports automatic synchronization across devices and platforms, and Goodbudget keeps all user data securely stored on its servers and protected by state-of-the-art encryption. But you can also download your transactions to CSV and import them to another budget app.
Best Personal Budget Software for iOS
HomeBudget
HomeBudget is a beautiful budget app with data synchronization between its mobile and desktop version. Its main highlight is the Family Sync feature, which allows a group of devices within the household to exchange expense and income information and work together within a single budget. The app supports various types of budget tracking, so you can choose the one which best matches your spending habits.
PocketGuard
With PocketGuard, you create virtual pockets corresponding to various categories of expenses and set up a budget for each pocket. PocketGuard can also be connected to your banks to automatically synchronize your transactions and balances, helping you find out where your money goes and where you can save. The app does all of this in a very elegant and secure manner, relying on bank-level 128-bit SSL to protect your sensitive information. You can also purchase PocketGuard Plus, which is PocketGuard’s premium monthly subscription. For $3.99, you can do even more with PocketGuard, including moving your ATM withdrawals to cash account where they belong to or creating a recurring cash bill.
Daily Budget
Daily Budget is a dead-simple budget app for iOS. It has been rated 5 stars by thousands of satisfied users because of its highly polished user interface and just enough features to make budgeting easy without increasing the app’s learning curve too much. To set up Daily Budget, you simply enter your regular income, then your recurring expenses and your saving goal. You can then watch your budget change as Daily Budget automatically recalculates it for you based on your expenses.
Ten years ago, there were no solid money apps out there. If you wanted to track your money, you didn't have many options beyond websites like Google Finance.
I got my start tracking our budget and net worth with a spreadsheet. I would learn about Intuit's Quicken software but it felt silly to pay for software to help me save money. It wasn't until later that other options, like Mint, started to appear.
A great personal finance app can help you save more money and give you an instant snapshot of your financial situation in seconds. A lot of the problems we face when dealing with money have to do with decisions and information. We need to make a decision but we don't have enough information! To get it, we have to log into a lot of accounts, track a lot of data, and then analyze it before we make a decision. That's a tremendous amount of time that can be saved if you use a good personal finance app.
Today, you have free personal finance apps that are better than what you had to pay for years ago. Personal Capital, SigFig, Mint, YNAB, Mvelopes, … the list is long and distinguished.
Money apps have taken over and we all can benefit.
That's why earlier this year I polled the readers of Wallet Hacks for their “must-have, can't live without” money apps and here's what they said.
Best Money Management App – Personal Capital
A financial dashboard is a place where you can see everything involving your money in one place. Your assets, your liabilities, your net worth – all your financial accounts visible on one convenient page.
This is important because when that information is easily accessible, it's easily remembered and understood. We use it to pull in all of our data, though we ignore the credit card debt piece because we pay off our bills every month in full.
What's easier – logging into one account or logging into a dozen?
When it comes to a financial dashboard, the clear leader is Personal Capital. It has a rich suite of tools built around investments, with a nod towards expense tracking similar to Mint, so you can get a sense of where everything is at a moment's notice. If you're interested in a consultation with a financial advisor, they have that built in as well and it's something that helps them stand out from other similar services. It's how Personal Capital makes the money that supports the free tool.
This app is for you if: You want an instant snapshot of your finances, from your investments to your budget, in one place. Personal Capital is free.
Best Budgeting App – You Need a Budget
If you want to change your budget, You Need a Budget (YNAB) is one of the most powerful tools you can use because it does more than track your expenses – it actually helps you build and stick to a budget.
One of the biggest challenges in money management is in near-term planning. What are you going to do next week and next month?
Retirement can be decades away but you are spending money today and tomorrow. By getting the next month right, you go a long way towards getting your money situation under control.
YNAB has a four rule methodology that has worked well for its users.
Give Every Dollar A Job
Embrace Your True Expenses
Roll With The Punches
Age Your Money
Another reason why YNAB is powerful has to do with its educational tools and community. You will not find this with financial tools like Mint. There are no Whiteboard Wednesdays to help you understand your money a little better. This is what separates them from the pack in many ways.
This app is for you if: You want to transform your budget and get your spending in line with your financial goals. YNAB costs $6.99 a month after a 34 day trial.
It's this methodology around the tool that really makes it powerful.
Budgeting Runner Up – Mint
For tracking a budget, Mint is one of the most popular budgeting tools out there and we wanted to list them because they are free to use.
If you don't have sizable investments, Mint is a very powerful tool that is better for budgeting but less effective for investments. Personally, I felt like Mint was fantastic up to a point. Once you focus more on investing than budgeting, Personal Capital has far more tools to help you succeed.
This app is for you if: You want to know where your money is going each month without having to log into multiple accounts. Mint is free.
Best Support Tool – Tiller
Personal Budget Software For Computer
Tiller is a service that will connect with your bank and credits card to pull daily transaction data into a sheet on Google Docs. No other service out there offers this. You can choose to start from half a dozen templates or roll your own, but Tiller will update it automatically from 100,000+ financial institutions.
NOTE: When we surveyed of our readers, the number one “app” was Microsoft Excel. Far and away the most popular application for anything – budgeting, financial dashboarding, net worth, whatever category you picked – it was Microsoft Excel.
If you see a list of “best apps” and it doesn't list a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel at #1 — they didn't actually survey. They made it up. 🙂
That being said – Microsoft Excel is all about finding a template and customizing something that fits your exact needs. It can be a lot of work but that hands-on interaction means you know the data is pristine. You can rely on tools like Tiller to pull the transaction data too so you get the automation (it works with Google Docs).
I use Microsoft Excel to track our net worth, with Personal Capital pulling the data.
The apps on this list are pre-built, faster to get into, and free. If you're starting from scratch, these apps will get you there faster but will not fit you like a glove. Excel is like a custom tailored suit, these are off the rack.
Tiller automates your custom spreadsheet so it fits you perfectly. Don't change the way you do things to match a tool, plug in Tiller and bring your spreadsheet into the 21st century.
Tiller is a monthly subscription but it won't inundate you with advertisements or pitch you on their financial planning services as an upsell. (to be fair, other companies need to do that because they are free – the bills have to be paid!)
You get the customization of a financial spreadsheet but the automation piece so you don't need to login to all of your accounts and update everything manually. Removing that hurdle makes money management that much easier. They offer a free 30-day trial.
This app is for you if: You love spreadsheets or have one you've tailored but need a tool to help you pull the data for you. Tiller costs $4.92 per month after a 30-day trial. (here's more about Tiller)
Robinhood is a stock brokerage that offers commission free trades through their app or web interface. They're like any other brokerage, they use Apex Clearing Corporation, are a member of FINRA, and have SIPC insurance for up to $500,000 like any other brokerage. There is no account minimum, no maintenance fee, and you can even trade crypto if you're so inclined.
They make money by offering a Robinhood Gold subscription service that gets you margin and after-hours trading. If you want to trade stocks, I find it difficult to argue against a Robinhood and their free trades.
For a limited time, you can get a free share of stock from Robinhood.
Best Microsaving App – Acorns
Personal Budget Software For Iphone
One of the newest innovations in personal finance apps is the idea of a microsavings app – where you can automatically save small amounts of money and have it invested in the market. The idea is that these apps will figure out how much they can transfer into an investment account without you, or your budget, realizing. It's less active than traditional saving but more effective if you're the type of person who doesn't actively manage your budget on a daily basis.
One of the best in class is Acorns, which doesn't rely on a black box “guessing” how much to save. When you make a purchase, the amount is rounded up and transferred. This predictability is often seen as a better process than some other apps, which “guess.” Guessing can be a little scary.
They also have a “Found Money” feature with some partners where if you make a purchase with a merchant, they may contribute a small bit to your Acorns account.
Here is our full review of Acorns.
Best Personal Finance Assistant – Trim
If robots can help you invest, perhaps they can help you do some of the more mundane jobs you don't want to?
That's the idea behind Trim, and a whole host of similar apps.
Trim is free to use and they can help you renegotiate your bills like with your cable provider, including Comcast, Time Warner, and Charter. They connect to your accounts, analyzes your recurring subscriptions, and identifies areas where you could be saving money. Cable is just the start, they will look at other subscriptions too including your car insurance.
The best part is that they handle the negotiations for you. No more calling Comcast and navigating the phone menu for ages – they do it for you. If you want to cancel, they'll do that for you too.
Here is our full review of Trim.
Summary
There are a lot of apps, many of them free but some of them paid, that will help you save time, save money, and save gray hairs.