The best income and expense tracking apps to help you manage your expenses, improve your financial position, and keep more cash in your wallet!
Budgeting and expense tracking might not sound sexy, but it's what lets us afford all the truly sexy things we love, including iPhones, iPads, and Macs. From bill payments to expense claims, budgeting for vacations and holidays, financial planning is all about making the most of what we make, and that's where apps can help!
The App Store is full of apps to help you manage your personal finances straight from your iPhone. Some apps just help track expenses, others can completely monitor your accounts and help get you back on track. Here's a broad selection of of my current favorites, the best personal money management apps the iPhone has to offer!
BUDGT
BUDGT for iPhone doesn't require you to give it any personal account information or login information, so it's simple to start and even simpler to keep using. Enter how much income you have or enter the amount of money you'd like to budget, it doesn't have to be all of it. Then start adding daily and monthly expenses.
If you don't like giving finance apps access to your sensitive banking information and just want to be able to better figure out where you stand, BUDGT is a great option. Of course, that also means BUDGT will work best for people who have a pretty good handle on their financial situation already.
Mint
If you want fine-tuned control over all your personal finance accounts in one app, Mint is a great option. You can link bank accounts and credit cards, and from there Mint will simply pull everything into one place to give you an overview of what 's coming in compared to what's going out. Mint lets you set up budgets in-app for different categories, and since Mint monitors your bank and credit accounts, it can notify you when you're nearing a limit.
As long as you're okay with giving a service access to your personal accounts, Mint the best choice for people that really need help staying on track with budgeting, with very little upkeep needed.
Check (formerly Pageonce)
Check, formerly known as Pageonce, is very similar to Mint in terms of functionality and feature set, but caters to a different kind of person. While Check imports a lot of the same information as Mint, it presents it in a different way and has more detailed options such as adding investments and checking and monitoring credit scores. Most of these additional features require a monthly subscriptions, but may well be worth it if you have a lot to manage.
If you are only concerned with budgeting your money and doing simple financial tasks, Mint or another app would be a better choice. If you're more concerned with monitoring credit or investments, Check is the best option available.
Spendee
Spendee is a brand new income and expense tracking app and, not only does it have a great interface, but it's ridiculously easy to use. Adding income and expenses can be done in very few steps, which makes entering things on a regular basis painless. Activities show up in a main feed so you can easily and quickly scroll through everything you've added. Likewise, the overview section gives you graphs you can scrub through to see where your money is coming from and where it's going. Underneath that you'll also see a breakdown on what you spend the most money on.
Because Spendee requires no personal information be given to set up and start using it, and it has an excellent and easy to use interface, it's the best choice for anyone new to personal finance apps, and anyone who wants to get started, and keep at it, with as little effort as possible.
Dollarbird
Dollarbird has a great interface, several really useful features, with lightning-quick system for expense and income entry. There's no personal information required in order to start using Dollarbird, no accounts to create or banking information required. The thing that makes Dollarbird unique is that it uses a calendar view as a grid system for tracking your balances. That means, at a glance, you can easily see on what days you spent the most money, and where your balance sits at any given time. Underneath the calendaryoul have a quick view of expenses for a particular day. Pulling down will launch the income and expense entry section. There are tons of categories to choose from and you can add your own whenever you want.
Dollarbird is a great option for people want quick and easy data entry and detailed financial information, and don't want or have the need to link personal accounts. If the calendar grid makes sense to you, Dollarbird will make sense to you.
Next
Next is the simplest version of an expense tracking app you're going to find. It doesn't track income at all, only expenses. Next works by giving you a block of pre-selected icons. Tap on one and create an expense for it. You can change the date in the calendar at the top by scrolling sideways. You can move the individual expense blocks around or change them into something else. Any category that currently has expenses associated with it will appear blue. Darker blue categories are the ones you spend more money on each month, while lighter colored blocks indicate less money spent. Swiping from side to side gives you breakdowns of what you're spending and where.
If you don't need to track your income and only want to see where your money is actually going, give Next a try.
Your picks?
We are aware that personal finances are just that, personal. Everyone has different needs and wants when it comes to managing their money. Let us know in the comments what apps you're using to budget, save, and track your income and expenses. How does it work for you and have you seen good results?
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