It’s that time of year again when you realize you should have saved those receipts or been more diligent with saving. Financial management has been a hot topic for the past few years thanks to the recession, and money management is certainly not a popular topic for most people. Save money? Sounds like fairy tale. However, there are ways to rise above hard times and come out ahead. It just takes careful planning, self discipline and a robust mobile app. While using one or more of these apps now won’t save you in time for Taxes this year, getting into the habit of tracking spending from your pocket will get you into excellent shape come April 2013, helping you avoid stress and achieve small goals along the way. Below are seven of the best apps based on user ratings, reviews, usability and military-grade security.
Easy Money [1]
Â
Platform: Android
Cost: $9.99
This best selling Android finance app helps you track your expenses and stick to your budget using a simple, intuitive user interface.The app includes an expense tracker, budget planner and bill reminder, in addition to 20+ powerful features. Use Easy Money to take photos of bills and receipts, set budgets on specific accounts or track spending through the interactive reports. You can even import or export data to .CSV or .QIF files for synchronization with your desktop management software. Easy Money excels over other options on this list if you’re an Android user simply becuase it was designed specifically for Android devices, making the user experience near-perfect. It gets a huge plus for the extensive customization options.
Easy Money offes a free trial so you can check it out before buying the full version. Get it from the Android Market. [2]
Pageonce [3]
Â
Platform: Cross-platform
Cost: Free
At first glance, not much distinguishes the award-winning Pageonce from other personal finance apps. It has a lovely interface for tracking bills, budgets, expenses and accounts. It generates comprehensive reports and graphs and is fully customizable for categories, transactions and alerts. What Pageonce does offer that others don’t is Investment tracking and Travel planning for those that want to go the extra mile. Pageonce also offers one-click mobile bill pay, but because it is not open to developers, the list is limited to Pageonce banks, utilities, stores and travel partners. Pageonce is a full web app, too, so you can manage your finances from your deskop and your pocket with seamless synchronization.
Sign up for a free account at the Pageonce website [4] to download the app for your device.
SnapTax [5]
Â
Platform: iPhone & Android
Cost: Free to download and use, $14.99 to e-File
Imagine sitting at a cafe sipping a latte or killing time waiting for an appointment and being able to work on your taxes. Even if you haven’t been diligently tracking your spending before now, SnapTax can still help you get through your taxes easily and on-the-go with the user-friendly interface and wizard Turbotax is known for. Aimed at users who normally file a 1040EZ, SnapTax can auto-fill W-2 info with the snap of a picture.
If you need a more robust mobile-tax solution for adding deductions or business expenses, consider Mint with the TurboTax addon.
Mint [6]
Â
Platform: Cross-platform
Cost: Free
Mint is used by more than seven million people thanks to its full online suite, slick interface and meticulously thought-out functionality. Mint offers everything you would expect from a personal finance app, including budget planning, expenses, investments, savings and gorgeous reports. You can set goals, import images, export to various data formats or synch with Turbotax [7] . It’s world-class security ensures your financial information and connected accounts are secure and private, so you can sleep easy. Amazingly, Mint is completely free and offers mobile apps for all modern devices.
Toshl [8]
Â
Platform: All (even Maemo!)
Cost: Free/$19.95
Toshl’s main draw is the interface, which is designed to offer a more entertaining and interactive experience than most financial apps attempt. After all, the more you want to use an app, the more successful tracking your spending will be. Like the other options on this list, Toshl supports custom categories, budget tracking, goals, expenses and cloud synchronization, but does not connect up with your bank or other accounts for live monitoring. It’s focus on expense tracking on-the-go allows it to perform the functions it has very well, and results can be exported to a variety of formats, including PDF and Google docs. Rather than charge up-front for the app, Toshl is free to download and use. Advanced features or additional budgets may be added for a yearly subscription cost of just $19.95.
MoneyBook [9]
Â
Platform: iPhone
Cost: $2.99
Moneybook is a simply elegant way to track expenses. Setup custom categories for tracking repeating and ad-hoc transactions, quickly view expenses by date or category, or track spending with the gorgeous animated graphs. You get cloud synchronization and notes with the app, but no photo support or bank account tracking. If you want something quick and lightweight, Moneybook will do the trick. Get the English version from iTunes. [10]
FriendCash [11]
Â
Platform: iPhone & iPad
Cost: $2.99
One expense we tend to forget or track poorly is the friend expense. If you find yourself as someone’s personal ATM, FriendCash will help you track money lent or favors owed. This app is a perfect solution for roomates, vacations, couples or lunch-buddies, offering contact and expense tracking in a stylish interface. Quickly add the amount owed or paid, connect it to a contact and category, or check out the overview to see how bad or good things are between you and your buds. FriendCash also comes with iCloud support for easy synchronization and access from anywhere. Grab the English version from iTunes. [12]
Links
- ^ Easy Money (www.handy-apps.com)
- ^ Android Market. (play.google.com)
- ^ Pageonce (www.pageonce.com)
- ^ Pageonce website (www.pageonce.com)
- ^ SnapTax (turbotax.intuit.com)
- ^ Mint (www.mint.com)
- ^ Turbotax (www.mint.com)
- ^ Toshl (toshl.com)
- ^ MoneyBook (moneybookapp.com)
- ^ iTunes. (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ FriendCash (friendcashapp.com)
- ^ iTunes. (itunes.apple.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment