Mediaboss Marketing

Tracking your finances is pretty much mandatory in this day and age, and though you mayalready use a slew of methods for monitoring your expenses,therescertainly no shortage of quality softwaredesigned for stayingin the black and providing you with a detailed report from month to month, or even day to day. Moreover, though most freemium software excels when it comes to barebones budget planning, and provides simple, yet valuable analysis of your spending habits.

Here are our picks for the best personal finance software on the market.

Intuits stalwart personal finance servicehas been around since 2006, quickly becoming one of the go-to apps for those who prefer checking their finances on the go. The notable company is known for additionally offeringboth TurboTax and the like-minded Quicken. That being the case, Mint also excels in terms of customer satisfaction and feedback. The service takes a mere second to sync with your bank account(s), allowing you view a quick snapshot of your personal finances and providing insightful analytics regarding your spending habits when it comes to food, entertainment, utilities, and other facets of your monthly budget. You can even tailor the apps underlying budget restrictions to adhere to your own unique lifestyle, or set bill and low-balance alerts in caseyou often forget the due date for your gas bill is steadily approaching. Mint even tracks your aforementioned subcategories to give you an up-to-date picture regarding how much you can afford to spend on, say, gas or fast food. Downsides? The software only works in the United States and Canada, and occasionally, the apps inability to change transaction dates can throw of your entire budget.

Related:Best finance apps for iPhone and Android

Simply put, Level Money displays your budget within easy-to-read charts that resemblebubbles. However, unlike Mint, Level Money doesnt really provide analysis of your spending or any indication of what youre spending money on. Instead, the mobile apps streamlined interface merely provides graphs detailing your daily, weekly, and monthly allowances. Level Money also allows youto increase or decrease yourdaily allowance, though its hands-off approach to other most other facets to the problem will likely leave you wanting more. Nonetheless, the app lets you start and sync with your bank account in a matter of seconds, allowing you to edit and save bills to keep track of your monthly spending habits. It may not say how much money you have left allocated for specific purposes, but it will automatically detect income and fixed expenses to show you an accurate overview of your financial situation.

OfficeTime isnt necessarily designed for the everyday individual. The software works best for freelancers and businesses owners who need to track billable hours and oversee project budgets, providing you with a simple means of keeping track of your day-to-day activities and plugging in your project expenses. Summary tools also outline the total cost and time of particular projects, and you can set hourly rates or export data and project invoices to dedicated programs such as Excel or Numbers. You can even combine synced data from various project participants to create cross-team reports and monitor which reports are over budget.Thesoftware doesnt offer much in the way of budgeting, but its a great way of simplifying the daunting taskof recording hours and adheringto a strict projectbudget. OfficeTime also organizes all of your work by date, and once it collects all of the necessaryinformation, sends a bill to your clients via email.

Related:Best project management tools

We admit, Ace Money still looks as if it was inspired by Windows1998. However, though there are certainlymore visually-appealing tools available, AceMoney remains a standout in the field of finance software given its robust feature set and across-the-board compatibility with operating systems and foreign currencies. The desktop appcan automatically sync withmultiple checking and savings accounts, with additional budgeting options available for selecting from 100 predefined spending categories when it comes time to view your financial summary. Furthermore, AceMoney supports more than 100 different currencies, provides a built-in loan calculator and password protection, and allows you to import older finance data from personal assistants such as MS Money and Quicken. Whats more, the program lets you set up automatic reminders so youll never miss a bill, whilecategorizing every expenditure to provide you with up-to-data account information. And who doesnt like comprehensive tech support and a lifetime of instant updates.

YNAB, or You Need a Budget, is specifically designed to help you become financially literate err, more or less. As the name implies, the software providestutorials on a variety of different financial topics designed to help better your understand of your spending and budging habits. For instance, you can view tutorial specifically designed to help you live off of last months paycheck or save money for a rainy day. Itsvaluable advice, especially when pair with laudable mobile apps that provide updated snapshots of your finances, such as Level Money andMint.Though the software doesnt really go into depth about investments given its primary task is to help users break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, it does automatically link to your bank account so youll never have to manually enter expense reports. It alsocategorizes your expenses meaning youll always know before you go over budget it is often available on Steam for a mere fraction of the cost.

Google Wallet (Android/iOS)

Read the rest here:
The best personal finance apps and software