The 5 Expense Tracking Tools for Your Business
The year 2022 is fast approaching, and it promises to be quite packed with expectations. Financial planning is the foundation of understanding what your expenses are. A good percentage of our life is centered around finances in one way or another; whether it be making your rent payment on time, financial support through a college education, finding your dream job, medical expenses, or social hour.
No matter where you go, money follows. In order to gain a better understanding of your expenses, the first step that needs to be taken is financial planning.
If you find yourself wanting to take that next step to improve the way you save and budget your money, look to technological tools for a helping hand. Depending on your necessity, there are numerous apps that provide different tools personalized to support your financial needs.
Some of the apps target the basics of financial planning and/or management, while others offer more detailed tools that can be combined with other financial tools or used singularly to fit into your financial management plan.
Utilizing smartphone apps have made monitoring your spending habits and tracking your expenses so easy because they have the ability to automate your transaction activity.
These programs will total your expenses, organize them into categories, and track your financial progress with whatever goal you have laid out for yourself – if that is the intended purpose for your use of the app itself.
Not only are these apps easy to use, but they can also save you a lot of time when it comes to tracking your expenses and managing a budget.
If expense tracking is the feature you are looking for in the financial world, it is best to research the key features for each app first – along with this, you will want to make sure that the app you are looking to use will work across multiple platforms and able to sync with your personal bank.
Finding a financial tool that appeals to you is crucial because the best tools available to you will only take you so far – what matters most is whether you will actually use them.
The following list was compiled based on what we believe are the most user-friendly, resourceful, and cost-effective apps to help you better your financial situation.
Contents
The 5 Best Expense Apps to Track Your Spending
- Mint
- YNAB
- PocketSmith
- Clarity Money
- Wally
1. Mint
Cost: Free
What was Mint developed for?
Combines your personal finances to make money management easier and more accessible.
View all your spending and accounts in one financial program that allows you to keep track of your balances, account activity, and track your expenses. You can set financial goals in the app and receive actionable, money-saving advice, that lets you track your progress as you go.
Mint offers insight for smarter budgeting, including saving opportunities based on your account activity. Delivers personalized alerts based on your account balances, activity, and goal-tracking.
Why Mint.com is #1 on the list of Best Expense Apps to Track Your Spending
With the ability to sync numerous accounts, Mint.com will download all of your financial data, making it easy to track your expenses across multiple accounts that include your personal bank, credit cards, and investments.
Following each account login, your data will be automatically updated and categorized based on spending. The app does afford you the ability to manually change and add your personalized expense categories if you wish.
All of these features allow you to track your bills, account activity – where you are spending your money – and set personalized budgets that will alert you to stay on track to meet your financial goals.
A newer service provided by Mint is the ability to check your credit score, while they also provide monitoring your report and altering you to any fraudulent activity.
Mint is also very appealing as there is no local software required to install and easily accessible using any browser or mobile device.
Ratings
Cost: 10/10
Customer Service: 6/10
Ease of Use: 9/10
Tools and Resources: 8/10
Synchronization: 7/10
Accessibility: 8.5/10
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2. YNAB
Cost: $5/month or $50/annually
What was YNAB developed for?
YNAB stands for You Need a Budget, therefore this financial app was created to provide you an overall budgeting strategy. The idea is referencing the zero-based budgeting system, meaning that it is essential for households to create a plan for every dollar they earn, only spending money that is currently available.
The core principle of this program is centered around three concepts:
- First, every dollar including in your budget needs to have a purpose.
- Second, reduce the stress you feel from budgeting your finances by consistently distributing your money to expenses every month.
- Third, be prepared – certain expense categories will differ month to month, so anticipate these changes and adjust to fit your needs.
YNAB has many appealing, user-friendly features. This finance app will sync to your bank accounts, credit cards, and loans, and the ability to download your financial data to monitor your income and expenses, allowing you to easily track where you are spending your money.
This app is compatible with all of your devices and data will carry over to each; supported by both Android and iOS users.
YNAB is also visually appealing because it’s color codes categories to visualize trouble areas in your spending habits and overall budget. YNAB also offers resources, such as budgeting advice and free workshops.
Ratings
Cost: 8/10
Customer Service: 8.5/10
Ease of Use: 9/10
Tools and Resources: 8/10
Synchronization: 9/10
Accessibility: 9/10
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3. PocketSmith
Cost: $0.00 – $19.95/month
What was PocketSmith developed for?
PocketSmith is a convenient, user-friendly personal finance software that allows you to track your current expenses, credit, and investment accounts. The software is structured similarly to Google calendar, where its approach is centered around event-like communications, creating a visualized way to manage your finances.
The program will sync to your financial accounts and budget categories for you to view summaries of all financial accounts, transaction history, and budgets. Using your existing data and trends, PocketSmith will even forecast future finances for up to 30 years.
Not only will this program deliver clear information regarding your finances, but this app will also compare your budget to actual expenses, locate your recurring costs – such as rent and utilities – and itemize and categorize them using a visually appealing, color-coded representation.
You also have the ability to add in one-time expenses or income.
One very unique feature that sets PocketSmith apart from the other expense tracking apps, is the ability to input financial scenarios and determine the impact of costs in your budget.
This program offers budget creation and expense tracking, where flexible periods can be adjusted – whether it’s every month, quarter, or annual – to view, create, adjust, manage budgeting plans in the present, and in the future.
Moreover, PocketSmith will calculate an estimated net worth for you based on the accounts you have connected to the program.
Ratings
Cost: 8/10
Customer Service: 8.5/10
Ease of Use: 8/10
Tools and Resources: 7/10
Synchronization: 8/10
Accessibility: 7.5/10
Create An Account Here
4. Clarity Money
Cost: Free
What was Clarity Money developed for?
Clarity Money is a finance program app with online and mobile device software available.
With an easy-to-navigate design, you will have access to in-app analysis of your accounts and breakdown your recent account activity in a visually appealing format – including your expenses, savings, and any subscriptions you may have.
Clarity Money is an all-inclusive budgeting and saving program where users can easily link their financial accounts, then the app will take your data and organize and track your expenses into a range of categories. This app also provides credit score monitoring with a more in-depth picture of your finances – not just your transactions.
The app will utilize the information you provide and compare your expected income to expenses over time – also included is the ability to set up an automatic transfer to your savings.
Ratings
Global average: 4.7 out of 5 stars
Register Here
5. Wally
Cost
Basic version: Free
Add-ins: $1.99/month
What was Wally developed for?
Wally is an expense tracking app that incorporates all aspects of your financial accounts to offer insights based on your personal expense habits with the use of technological advancements in the banking and finance world.
Wally’s primary focus is centered around expenses in order to provide feedback that is useful to you, while also incorporating a social feature for expenses shared between you and other individuals.
This expense tracking app appeals to individuals who desire an organization regarding personal finances. There is no need to manually input expenses each day, all it takes is a quick snapshot of your receipts – it helps to utilize the device location when doing so because the app will autofill that information for you.
Wally is effective and efficient for your personal financial needs, all wrapped into one exceptionally convenient and user-friendly app – free to use.
One major selling point of using this app is that there is no added use, guaranteed.
Ratings
Global average: 4.7 out of 5 stars