Money Tracking Apps
Personal financial management is increasingly becoming difficult by the day. Especially in this era when we’re can have unfiltered access to our money and pay for anything with just a press of button. It will require a deliberate financial planning and expenses tracking to manage one’s finances this time and in the future.
There are personal financial planning software as well and expenses tracking software
Money Tracker helps you track your budgets, expenses, savings and investments.
Although expense tracking has been in existence since the first versions of Quicken and Microsoft Money came to the market in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, but there now many several expense tracker apps both web- and phone-based that can help you reach a whole new level of financial knowledge, preparedness, and management.
These software apps provide quick and smart solutions to collect all your financial information in a place, making your financial planning and management easy and almost paperless.
We have compiled top 10 money tracker apps. If you need to track your budget, one of these apps will definitely meet your need.
Free or Paid Expense Tracker Apps?
Decide what kind of expense tracking you need help with and compare the free apps to the paid ones. If the features you need cost money, you need to weigh if it’s worth the cost. It’s a good idea to start with a free or low-cost version and see if you actually use it before spending money on a premium version. Still, none of the expense tracker apps are that expensive, and if they save you more than they cost, they will be worth the expense.
How We Chose the Best Expense Tracker Apps
Our choice of best money tracker apps was informed by comparing many different expense tracker apps. We looked at factors such as cost, compatibility, features, goal-setting capabilities, and user friendly.
We finally chose these 10 apps for their respective categories because they offered a positive user experience that set them apart from competitors.
Best Expense Tracker Apps
QuickBooks
Mint
Buddi
YNAB
Wally
Mvelopes
QuickBooks
https://QuickBooks.intuit.com
If you run a small business, you might have attempted to run both your personal and business finances through one expense tracker app. This leads to messy reporting, unclear results, and difficulty understanding what is going on with both sides of your financial life. Plus, blurring your finances between personal and business can lead to problems with taxes and might harm your personal finances if your business is ever sued.
Like Mint, Intuit is the clear leader in this space through its popular QuickBooks program. QuickBooks comes in various versions and editions depending on your computer and business needs. While it is far from perfect, it currently is the most prominent and best option to wrap up your entire business management, including expense tracking, contract management, and payroll, all in one app.
Pros
Option to upgrade as your business grows
Integrates with hundreds of third-party apps
Cons
Can get expensive
May be overwhelming for new users
App cost: $12.50/month & up
Platform availability: Android, iOS, web
Mint
Mint is one of the best and most popular expense tracker apps for personal finance management. The beauty of it is that the app is free to use, supports a wide range of banks and lenders, and comes from one of the largest and most trusted names in financial software, Intuit. With this app, you receive help with budgeting, expense tracking, credit monitoring, and bills.4
Despite being one of the oldest and most full-featured expense tracker app options, it deficiencies The software has some bugs, and no new features have been released since 2009 when Intuit bought the app. If you find a bug or a problem in your account, getting support sometimes can be a challenge.
Pros
User-friendly interface
Credit monitoring tool available
Allows you to customize budgets
Cons
Software can be buggy
Connecting with support is sometimes challenging
Pricing: Free
Platform availability: Android, iOS, web
Level Money (Financial Planning App)
Level money is a powerful financial planning app. As the name suggests, it levels the amount of money one can spend in a day, week, or month. The financial planning app automatically picks data from your smartphone and keeps sending reminder notification regarding the amount left to spend, thereby leveling up the savings and expenses rate. It also keeps track and gives you a insight to your spending habits based on the information it received.
Buddi
http://buddi.digitalcave.ca/tutorials/scheduled.jsp
Buddi is an open-source budget solution. Buddi can encrypt financial data with a password, and it's easy to use even if you are a novice with no financial and accounting knowledge. It’s multiple languages feature makes it easier to by used by anyone.
The software has features for budgeting, tracking accounts, and personal finance reporting, but you will have to enter transactions manually. It has free plugins that m add more features, and the online user manual is easy to read and use.
Supported Platforms
Buddi is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
YNAB
YNAB stands for You Need a Budget. The folks behind this app worked hard to build an app specifically focused on budgeting and expense tracking. The app takes an uncommon philosophy of budgeting. It makes it mandatory for users to assign a job to every dollar they earn, whether it is related to savings, expenses, or investments, and the app uses that to show user budgets.
The original version allowed for manual expense tracking only, though the newer update allows you to automatically import expenses from a linked bank account as well. It isn’t perfect for everyone, but if you want to start budgeting and need help getting the process moving, YNAB is likely a good fit for your needs.
Pros
Lets you track all your money goals at a glance
No ads
Cons
Can get expensive
Tracking every dollar may be overwhelming
Pricing: $14.99/month & up
Platform availability: Android, iOS, web
Wally
Wally.me
Wally is an integrated expense tracker app that provides insights into your spending habits by syncing with your financial accounts. Wally analyzes your expenses and gives you feedback and useful insights on your spending, but it also has a social feature for shared expenses. For example, if you share utilities with a roommate, Wally can track those expenses.
The appealing graphics and social features will be appreciated by millennial users.
Pros
Basic version is free
Ability to set custom budgets
Real-time expense tracking
Cons
Only available for iOS
Pricing: Free (with option to upgrade to paid version)
Platform availability: iOS
Mvelopes
Mvelopes takes a different approach in budgeting and tracking of your expenses, and offers spending forecasts and suggestions to keep you from going overboard on your next visit to the mall, or wherever else you like to spend money. This feature stands it out from the rest of other expense tracker apps.
Envelope budgeting is a style of budgeting that involves literally putting cash in envelopes at the start of the month, and you can spend until your envelopes are empty. Mvelopes takes that experience online, offering users digital envelopes to store their spending money each month.
Pros
Offers live chat support
Budgeting method is effective
Cons
Has a monthly cost
No initial setup help with Basic plan
Pricing: $5.97/month
Platform availability: Android, iOS, web
Empower Personal Wealth
Empower Personal Wealth, for tracking wealth and spending
Why we recommend it: Empower Personal Wealth, formerly Personal Capital, is primarily an investment tool, but its free app includes features helpful for budgeters looking to track their spending.
You can connect and monitor checking, savings and credit card accounts, as well as IRAs, 401(k)s, mortgages and loans. The app provides a spending snapshot by listing recent transactions by category. You can customize those categories and see the percentage of total monthly spending each category represents.
Empower also serves up a net worth and portfolio tracker. The app can be accessed through both phone and desktop.
Why you may want to think twice: If your goal is to plan out your spending and saving, you may want to go another route. This app’s budgeting features helped it make the list, but its investment tools are what make it unique. Other apps have more in-the-weeds budgeting capabilities.
Cost: Free
Apple store rating: 4.7
Google Play rating: 4.3
PocketGuard
PocketGuard, for a simplified budgeting snapshot
Why we recommend it: PocketGuard’s catalog of features isn’t the most robust on our list, but that’s part of why we like it. The app is big on simplifying.
You can connect your bank accounts, credit cards, loans and investments and track bills. With that intel, the app shows how much you have left to spend after setting aside funds for necessities, bills and goals.
PocketGuard also tracks your net worth and gives you the option to not link your accounts and instead track your finances manually. The paid version, PocketGuard Plus, offers a debt payoff plan, the option to export your transactions and other features.
Why you may want to think twice: This app does a lot of work for you. That’s good for a mostly hands-off experience, but less so if you want to plan for your money.
Cost: Basic PocketGuard is free. PocketGuard Plus is $7.99 per month, $34.99 per year or $79.99 for a lifetime purchase.
Apple store rating: 4.7
Google Play rating: 4.4
AceMoney Lite
AceMoney Lite, which prides itself as the best Quicken alternative, helps you manage your budgets, track your finances in multiple currencies, monitor your investments and gives you insights on your spending habits. It also has features foronline banking. This lite version, limits to having only two accounts, but the full version supports unlimited accounts.
Supported Platforms
AceMoney Lite is compatible with Windows and Mac OS X.
GnuCash (Financial Planning App)
GnuCash is a financial planning app. It's Linux-based system that works on double-entry bookkeeping. It is a business accounting tool, and can also be used for personal financial and accounting needs. For your personal finance, GnuCash helps you track your expenses and savings as well as with bank and investment accounts.
Pear Budget (Expense Tracking App)
Pear Budget is a financial planning app. As the number implies, Pear budget helps you budget your expenses. It uses spreadsheet format wherein you have to manually enter the information. It has certain basic expense categories on default, which user may alter later to suit one’s personal finance plans. Unlike other financial planning app, Pear Budget automated but it serves the purpose, especially for first-timers.