Gone are the days when you could tell how much money you had by looking in your wallet or at your checkbook balance. These days, many people only carry debit and credit cards—no cash. You find your checking account balance or check stock prices by reaching for your smartphone.
Get Your Financial House in Order
But how easy is it to discover how much money you've spent on lattes, gas, or work clothes this month? Do you know what the car dealer is going to learn about your credit history when you go in to buy a new vehicle? If you're a self-employed worker, how fast can you find out whether you're on track with your income this month?
What is a good personal finance software for India? - Home / Housing Loan. “After accounting for management fees, the performance of active managers is no. Free personal finance software. Quicken and Microsoft Money alternative home budget. MechCAD AceMoney Lite. AceMoney Lite, home budget, free personal finance software, is the best Microsoft Money or Quicken alternative. Scheduled backups and many other features without having any experience in accounting! What is good personal finance software for use/sale in India? Update Cancel. What is a good personal finance software for India? The first is highly analytical and the second/third are more accounting related / more tedious. I suppose we all find investment management a lot more fun - not to say that 2/3 are not. Front Accounting is an accounting system for small companies that also functions as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Front Accounting has accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory, and manufacturing modules, among others. This open source accounting software can handle multiple currencies and several companies simultaneously. Online GST Ready Accounting Software for Small Business in India - ZipBooks is very simple and easy to use cloud based GST Ready accounting software designed specifically for small businesses.
There are many websites that handle personal finance exceedingly well. We review five of the best here. Quicken, the granddaddy of all personal financial solutions, is now a hybrid solution. The software still resides on the desktop, but the 2018 and 2019 versions offer access to a website that contains Quicken's most often-used features and synchronizes its data with your own personal file. So, you can check in on your income, expenses, and investments on the go.
Critical Connections
Quicken's online companion app is the biggest recent news in the personal finance world. But all of the applications we reviewed have new features, and they share some common characteristics. Most of them support online connections to your financial institutions. That is, you can download cleared transactions and other account data from your banks, bank card providers, brokerages, and other financial institutions, and see all of it neatly displayed in registers in the applications. Typically, you only have to enter the credentials that you use to log into those financial sites, though you occasionally have to provide additional security information.
Once you've imported a batch of transactions, you can work with them in numerous ways. For example, they need to be categorized correctly as income (salary, freelance payment, and interest, for example) and expenses (food, mortgage, utilities, and so on). The personal finance sites guess at what an appropriate category might be, but you can always change it—and you can split transactions between different classifications. If you're conscientious about this, you'll see charts that tell you where you're spending your money. This information can also be helpful when tax preparation time rolls around.
Depending on which website you're using, you might be able to add tags to transactions. That way, you can search for those that are related in ways other than through their category assignments. You can add notes and attach files, too. If you bought something with cash, your bank wouldn't have a record of it. In those circumstances, you can create a transaction manually. CountAbout goes a step further, providing an additional set of tools that let you make recurring transactions (or flag them).
Best Home Accounting SoftwareA Different Kind of Dashboard
Four of the five personal finance websites reviewed here have what's called a dashboard. It's basically each site's home page, or the first screen you see when you log in. Sometimes, the dashboard is the only screen you'll need to see, because it displays the information you most need when you're checking on your financial situation. You'll learn what all of your account balances are and perhaps any bills that are pending.
You'll see charts and graphs that tell you, for example, what your income is versus your spending, and how you're doing on your budget. You may be able to gauge your progress on any goals you've set and view your investment portfolio, with live prices if it's during the market day.
Basically, this overview shows you snippets of the detailed data that lies behind the numbers on this opening page. Click on a checking account balance in Mint, for example, and this link takes you to the account's register. Click on your credit score in Credit Karma, and you'll learn what contributes to it and how it's changed recently. So the dashboard on a personal finance website can either provide a quick look at your money situation or it can serve as a springboard to a deeper study of the numbers.
Budgets, Goals, and Bills
If you're a freelancer or sole proprietor, budgets can be challenging. You don't know for sure how much money you'll make in a given month like a W-2 employee does. Being conscientious about your finances includes trying to curb your spending so that it comes in below your income. Note: Freelancers and sole proprietors might find that a small business accounting website is a better fit.
The mechanics of creating a workable budget are much easier than the process of specifying your limits. Mint, for example, treats each category as a budget. You select one, choose a frequency for it (every month, etc.), and enter an amount. The site shows you how well you're adhering to each budget by displaying a series of colored horizontal bars that show where your spending is currently compared with your budgeted amount. Green means you're doing OK, and red means you've gone over your self-imposed limit. You can tweak each budget as you learn more about your spending habits by clicking up and down arrows.
Other applications, like Quicken, consider a budget to be a comprehensive table that contains all categories. The software also lets you view your budgets by a variety of time periods (monthly, annually, and so on).
Setting goals, like trying to establish an emergency fund, isn't rocket science. You specify the amount you're trying to save and your target date for achieving it, and the application tells you how much you have to save every month to achieve it. NerdWallet, for example, lets you link your goals to the appropriate spending account so your progress is automatically tracked. Quicken Deluxe includes additional planning tools that help you accelerate debt reduction, plan for taxes, and establish a comprehensive lifetime financial plan.
None of the sites we reviewed offer bill-paying tools, but some let you at least record bills and bill payments, because those can figure into your personal finance picture so significantly. Mint is especially good at this. You can set up a connection to online billers or enter offline bills automatically. The site alerts you when they're due to be paid and lets you record payments manually if they don't get downloaded as cleared transactions from your bank.
An Important Number
An excellent credit score is gold. Beyond helping you get approved for a credit card, mortgage, car loan, etc., it often helps minimize the interest rate you'll pay. So it's important to know not only what it is at any given time, but also to understand how it gets calculated and what you can do to improve it.
Credit Karma and NerdWallet, both free websites, can meet all of these critical needs. Credit Karma is especially comprehensive and efficient here. It pulls your score regularly from two of the three major bureaus, and gives you access to your credit reports.
One of the ways you can improve your credit score is to use financial products—credit cards, mortgages—that have attractive interest rates and other benefits, making it easier for you to pay off debt as quickly as possible. The three free websites we reviewed (Mint, Credit Karma, and NerdWallet) help pay for the services they provide by displaying ads for products that might appeal to you based on your credit profile. You can also browse marketplaces for additional candidates.
Of course, frequently cancelling credit cards to get new, different ones can affect your credit score. Still, it's good to learn about these suggested products so that when the time comes, you'll know what the best options are.
Other Considerations
You may only want to use a personal finance site for day-to-day income- and expense-management, budgeting, and goal setting. But financial sites like Quicken and Mint let you track all of your assets, including homes, vehicles, and investment holdings. If you keep your financial data updated, the applications keep a running tally that, when combined with your debt, give you your total net worth.
You probably don't need advanced tools when you're away from your computer or laptop. But when you're out spending money, it's good to know how much you have. All of the solutions we reviewed offer both Android apps and iOS apps. They don't have all of the features found on the browser-based or software versions, but you can at least check your account balances, view and add transactions, and see graphs illustrating numbers related to things like spending and cash flow. You may also be able to get your credit score and check the status of pending bills.
Are all of the applications reviewed easy to use? The short answer is yes. Credit Karma and Mint are the most user-friendly, incorporating state-of-the-art interfaces with can't-miss navigation tools. NerdWallet tries to blend editorial content on personal finance with credit score and limited income/expense-tracking tools; these dual purposes make the site somewhat confusing until you understand how the two co-exist. CountAbout is certainly easy enough to use, but its user interface looks outdated. And because Quicken has been around for so long and offers so much, its user experience is a little uneven. This blending of old and new content can be a little jarring when compared with a solution built from the ground up to live online.
Each of these personal finance solutions offers something the others don't. But their skill at delivering the tools consumers need, and the cost at which they offer them, varies widely. Mint has won our Editors' Choice before, and it does so again this time for free personal finance services. Quicken, on the other hand, wins the Editors' Choice for paid personal finance services. We'd absolutely send people first to Mint if they're considering online personal finance because of its usability, its thorough selection of tools, and the feedback it provides users who keep up their end of the bargain by visiting it regularly. And, of course, it's free.
If you're looking to keep your life further organized, you can also check out our roundup of the best to-do list apps.
Best Personal Finance Services Featured in This Roundup:
Best free accounting software
Read on for our detailed analysis of each app
Whether you're a freelancer or a full-time business owner, a graphic designer or a greengrocer, if you're running any kind of business you really need some kind of accounting software to stay on top of things – as we discovered, the age-old system of throwing everything into a drawer and panicking at tax return time isn't the best way to go.
But that doesn't mean you need to invest huge sums or learn something hopelessly complicated. The best free accounting software is easy to use and enables you to see how well you're doing and who owes you money.
When it comes to highlighting our favorites here, we considered not just available features, but also professional reviews and user experiences.
1. ZipBooks
Modern interface
Advanced features bundled into paid tiers
ZipBooks offers accounting software that has a contemporary interface along with a robust feature set. It promises to make accounting easy so the user can save time, and get on with other tasks.
The Starter tier is available for free. It provides unlimited invoices to an unlimited number of customers, making it less restrictive than some other free accounting offerings. It can also be used for unlimited bookkeeping, and can accept payments from credit cards and PayPal.
Paid tiers begins at $15 (£12) per month, and includes most of the features you'll ever need. However, if you need really advanced ones such as smart tagging, with advanced reporting and intelligence, it will cost $35 (£30) per month. For $125 per month you can even get your own supplied bookkeeper to provided analyses and recommendations.
Download here:ZipBooks
2. Money Manager Ex
Straightforward enough for home use, as well as small businesses
Plenty of features
Another superb open source tool, Money Manager Ex is well designed and packed with enough features to rival premium software. It's easy to understand, and you'll have your accounts and transactions set up in no time. Money Manager Ex's simplicity makes it a particularly good choice for sole traders or your own home finances.
This free accounting software is a portable app, so you can save and use it straight from a USB stick without even needing to install it. There's an Android app for updating your accounts on the move, too.
Review and where to download: Money Manager Ex
3. GnuCash
A simple approach to bookkeeping
Boasts some payroll features
GnuCash is accounting software designed for individuals and small businesses, and was initially conceived as an open source alternative to apps such as Intuit's Quicken.
This app has been around since the late 1990s, and the most recent version is GnuCash 3.4. It's available for Linux, GNU, OpenBSD, Android, macOS and Windows.
It handles invoicing and credit notes, accounts payable and receivable, employee expenses and some payroll features too, and it's quite happy with multiple currencies, cards and accounts. Its sheer flexibility makes it our top choice when it comes to accounting software for kitchen table businesses.
Review and where to download: GnuCash
4. TurboCASH
A heftier accounting tool that will suit owners of SMBs
Big online community
TurboCASH is free accounting software that's been in continuous development since April 1985, and it's hugely popular in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia. It's available in 23 languages and boasts an online community of more than 100,000 users.
Designed for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), it's probably a bit much for freelancers or sole traders, but if you need something a bit more useful than a cash book TurboCASH can handle VAT, debtors and creditors, purchase orders, multiple companies and multiple users.
Home Accounting Software Free India
While TurboCASH is free and covers most of the basics needed with accounting software, there's a paid-for version available as an upgrade which provides more advanced features. This paid-for version allows for it be to run from the cloud, as well as providing budgets, payroll, PDF reports, and a ledger analyzer among other things.
Download here: TurboCASH
5. Wave
Slick, cloud-based free accounting that works well for freelancers
Nicely designed and put together
With more than two million users, Wave is one of the most successful online accounting services - and it's completely free for accounting, invoicing and receipts, although if you want personal technical support you'll need to pay for it. Payroll isn't included in the free service either, and you do get the occasional advert – just as you do with pretty much any free online service.
It's a very well designed and carefully thought out application, and while it's probably a little basic for medium-sized businesses it's a good option for sole traders, freelancers and small firms.
However, note that while Wave is free to use, you still pay per transaction, currently between 1.4%-2.9% plus a fee of around $0.25. For start-ups and businesses with low sales volume this may not matter, but for businesses with significant sales volume they may be able to find a more competitive pricing model.
Try it online: Wave
Home Accounting Programs6. NCH Express Invoice
Generate forms, invoices, quotes and orders in moments
Personal Finance Software
Useful range of reports
With versions for PC, Mac, iPad and Android, NCH Express Invoice caters for most kinds of businesses - and if you have fewer than five members of staff, you can have it for free without time limits or other restrictions.
Best Online Accounting Software
It's designed to create invoices, quotes and orders easily, to automate recurring ones and to send them by email or fax, and there's a decent range of reports to pore over. The free accounting software is really just a front-end for a web-based service, but that's no bad thing unless your business struggles to get a decent internet connection.
Download here: NCH Express Invoice
7. VT Cash Book
Minimalist bookkeeping that uses Excel for the grunt work
Can be used to prepare VAT returns
Best Accounting Software In India
It's not going to win any awards for aesthetics, but VT Cash Book isn't there to look good: its priority is to record day to day cash transactions with the least amount of fuss. It uses Autocomplete to speed up data entry, supports multiple bank accounts and bank reconciliation, can be used to prepare VAT returns and enables you to create profit and loss, balance sheets and ledgers.
The free accounting software installs alongside its companion program, the paid-for VT Transaction+, but you don't need to buy the latter to use the former.
Download here: VT Cash Book
8. Invoice Expert Lite Edition
A good option for anyone selling physical products
Handles invoicing and quoting
The free (Lite) version of Invoice Expert is limited to 100 customers/products, but it retains the features of the paid-for Advanced Edition – which retails at $69.95 (about £55) – including inventory and customer management, invoicing and quoting, purchase orders and inventory management.
This free accounting software is a little bit intimidating at first glance, especially in the template-editing screens, but it's straightforward enough. It's an American program but it uses your Windows location to set the currency, so it should adjust itself accordingly for those outside the US.
Download here: Invoice Expert Lite Edition
9. Adminsoft Accounts
A complete money-management toolkit for small business owners
Handles stock control and more
Adminsoft Accounts is a software accounting package that's powered by advertising to generate revenue, making it free to download and use. According to the website, more than 300,00 people have taken advantage of what is a surprisingly thorough free accounting system (and an refreshingly honest set of terms and conditions).
It can handle not just invoicing and statements but remittance advice, stock control, purchase orders, budgeting and some HR functions too. It's a UK program so the default is pounds sterling, but it works happily in other currencies too.
There is a paid-for version you can buy to run the software without advertising, with pricing starting at $259 (£199) for the main accounting software platform, with a slightly higher cost if you also want to include AutoManager or Shop/Cafe Manager.
Download here: AdminSoft Accounts
10. QuickFile
Free small business accounting in the cloud – no desktop software needed
Supports multiple currencies
Designed specifically for non-accountants, QuickFile offers multiple free tiers for small businesses while still delivering automatic invoicing, purchase/receipt management, quotations and multi-currency support. Add in a fully branded client area, and this makes for a professional solution at a hard to beat price.
It’s cloud-based rather than a software download, and if you like the free version you can upgrade to an ad-free, more advanced version with bulk invoicing, revision history and a host of power user features for a modest fee of $58/£45 annually.
Try it online: QuickFile
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |