Effective budgeting is a struggle that nearly everyone has dealt with at one time or another. Whether on a business level or a personal level, it is practically unavoidable. These five free online tools can help you gain insight into your financials that goes beyond just numbers.
Mint is a website that houses all of your financial information conveniently in one location. It is good for people who want visualizations of their accounts and spending habits. Mint also has a lot of additional tools, functions, and tips you can tailor to your particular needs.
Personal Capital is very similar to Mint in that it is meant to give an overall big picture of how you stand financially. It uses the same type of pie chart depiction of your spending, allowing you to compare your spending across categories. In addition to the free financial software, you have the option to pay a fee for the expertise of a personal financial advisor. You can also pay .89% annually to have Personal Capital handle your investments.
3. YNAB (You Need a Budget)
YNAB is built to get people to stop living paycheck to paycheck. It is a software built around the principle of zero based accounting. This means that every dollar you have (or will have) is assigned a job. Even if the job is just a “rainy day fund”, it still has a place. It is a very simple tool that is great for someone struggling to get out of debt.
Buxfer is similar to other budgeting softwares, but it is specifically targeted to young people. The software is especially well designed and easy to use. You can divide up categories of expenses/incomes and set up alerts that will notify you if you are overspending in a certain category.
5. BillGuard
BillGuard is aimed at protecting you from false charges to your debit and credit cards. This includes both fraudulent charges and mistakes. Its software is programmed to catch unlikely charges and then notify you via email.
Extra Tip:
For a more advanced budgeting software, check out our blog on Xero’s Budget Manager tool. This is especially useful for businesses that require more complex budgeting breakdowns than some of the simpler tools offered above. The instructional video on the blog will give you enough information to get started.
