Overview of mobile applications for personal financial accounting
For about ten years I used the same mobile application for personal financial accounting (cash organizer), first on windows mobile, then on android. Some time ago, I accumulated a sufficient number of complaints against him, so that I decided to explore alternatives. I decided to formalize the results in the form of an article, I hope that it will be useful to anyone else.
People keep personal financial records for various purposes: to pay loans, organize savings, reduce expenses, plan the dates of payments and receipts if there is hardly enough money to pay. My review of applications is not universal, I formed the criteria for comparing applications based on my own goals.
My goals:
Based on them, formed a set of criteria:
I also looked at the possibility of collaboration and work with several devices, as well as at cost, although I did not explicitly include these factors in the selection criteria. I did not study the tools for working with loans, since I do not use loans.
I selected applications for study through a search on google play, viewing the “similar applications” section in google play, recommendations from friends, searching for similar articles and reviews on the net. I read the descriptions for all applications, if I didn’t see anything interesting there, I skipped it, otherwise I added it to the list for study. The list, ratings and comments were maintained in the memento database mobile application. As a result, 21 applications appeared on the list. For all of them, I also checked accessibility on other platforms. But still, primarily focused on the possibility of use on android.
Next, I installed each application in turn on the phone and went according to my list of criteria, checking the availability and quality of implementation of each item in the application. I checked the first ten in detail, put down grades and wrote comments on each item. Since a detailed check took a lot of time, then I began to check the express method first: first I briefly ran through the application functionality and checked several key criteria. If I saw problems with them, I wrote a general comment on the application and deleted it. If there were no significant problems with them, then such an application has already been fully tested.
I present the table with brief results below. The integral score is calculated as a simple average of the criteria and is given in the reference order. For the correct choice, it is more correct to look at all the criteria and indicators separately. For applications studied by the express method, I did not consider the integral assessment. I placed a more detailed table with estimates for all indicators on googledox (export from memento database).
Comments by criteria:
I decided to focus on the Expense Manager application. If I encounter any significant difficulties during the use, I will look at the other three from the final list of favorites.
Based on the recommendations from the comments, I studied 10 more applications. Added them to a new table, see the link .
Another application worthy of being in the top: Handy money.
Meanwhile, following the results of 1.5 months of use, Expense Manager found a lot of bugs that prevent it from being fully used. I have not yet looked for their solutions on the forums and have not written in support, I plan to do this soon. If you can’t solve them, and if a new version of Money Wiz is not released, then most likely I will migrate to Handy money.
Goals and selection criteria
People keep personal financial records for various purposes: to pay loans, organize savings, reduce expenses, plan the dates of payments and receipts if there is hardly enough money to pay. My review of applications is not universal, I formed the criteria for comparing applications based on my own goals.
My goals:
- Quickly understand the amount of money in each account
- Analyze and improve cost structure
- Quickly find information when and / or for how much I bought something when such questions arise
- Control debts
- Analyze long-term financial goals
- In the future, implement additional ideas for personal automation: automatic purchases, price tracking, comparing stores and services, etc.
Based on them, formed a set of criteria:
- Accounting flexibility: hierarchy of cost categories, groups of accounts, multicurrency, projects, counterparties, regular payments
- Ease of data entry: widgets, SMS parsing, integration with banks, check scanning, automatic updating of exchange rates
- Reporting: designer, export, standard reports by categories and dynamics of expenses, account balance
- Analytical tools: savings forecast, cost forecast
- Debt and regular payment reminders
- Backup: local and cloud, schedule setting
I also looked at the possibility of collaboration and work with several devices, as well as at cost, although I did not explicitly include these factors in the selection criteria. I did not study the tools for working with loans, since I do not use loans.
Application Learning Order
I selected applications for study through a search on google play, viewing the “similar applications” section in google play, recommendations from friends, searching for similar articles and reviews on the net. I read the descriptions for all applications, if I didn’t see anything interesting there, I skipped it, otherwise I added it to the list for study. The list, ratings and comments were maintained in the memento database mobile application. As a result, 21 applications appeared on the list. For all of them, I also checked accessibility on other platforms. But still, primarily focused on the possibility of use on android.
Next, I installed each application in turn on the phone and went according to my list of criteria, checking the availability and quality of implementation of each item in the application. I checked the first ten in detail, put down grades and wrote comments on each item. Since a detailed check took a lot of time, then I began to check the express method first: first I briefly ran through the application functionality and checked several key criteria. If I saw problems with them, I wrote a general comment on the application and deleted it. If there were no significant problems with them, then such an application has already been fully tested.
Study results
I present the table with brief results below. The integral score is calculated as a simple average of the criteria and is given in the reference order. For the correct choice, it is more correct to look at all the criteria and indicators separately. For applications studied by the express method, I did not consider the integral assessment. I placed a more detailed table with estimates for all indicators on googledox (export from memento database).
| Title | Platforms | Integral grade (1 to 5) |
|---|---|---|
| Coinkeeper | Android, iOs, Web | 2 |
| Home budget | Android, iOs, Windows, Mac | 2.6 |
| Wallet | Android, iOs, Web | 2,8 |
| Monefy | Android, iOs, Windows | 1 |
| MoneyWiz 2 | Android, iOs, Windows, Mac | 3.8 |
| Easy finance | Android, iOs, Web | 1.8 |
| Homemoney | Android, iOs, Web | 1,6 |
| Finpix | Android | 2,4 |
| Home accounting | Android, iOs, Windows | - |
| Finance PM | Android, web | - |
| Money manager | Android | - |
| Bluecoins | Android | - |
| Clevmoney | Android | 2.6 |
| Expense manager | Android | 3.6 |
| Expense (iSaveMoney) | Android | - |
| Blitz budget | Android, web | - |
| Smart checks | Android, iOs | - |
| Alzex finance | Android, iOs, Windows | - |
| Finance Monitor - Costs and Incomes | Android, iOs | - |
| Cash Ogranizer Inesoft (my old app) | Android, iOs, Windows, Mac, Web | 2.2 |
| Cash Organizer Tritit (new version of the same application) | Android, iOs, Windows, Mac, Web | 2,4 |
Comments by criteria:
- In terms of accounting flexibility, cash organizer and Money Wiz 2 are in the first place. The rest contain various restrictions, but in some cases it is quite possible to work with them.
- In terms of ease of entering data, I did not find the ideal option for myself, but the closest applications were Wallet, FinPix and Expense Manager (expense manager). I especially want to note the Wallet application, which contains a unique feature: automatic import of data from a csv file sent to special mail. Allows you to make interesting settings with additional automation applications such as Tasker. What is missing is a similar function that works locally.
- In terms of quality and flexibility of reporting, ideal applications are: Money Wiz 2 and ClevMoney.
- From the point of view of analytical tools, the situation is rather sad. Most applications do not have any tools that simplify forecasting. Even such, in my opinion, an elementary function, such as indicating the interest rate on the deposit and the term with the automatic creation of the planned receipt, was found in only one application of all. In total, only 4 applications have moved off the ground in terms of analytics. The most interesting in this regard seemed to me the Expense Manager application (expense manager). There are also interesting tools in the Money Wiz 2 application, but they are mainly designed for trading in securities, and there is no accounting for the interest rate on the deposit there (although developers write on the forum that they plan to add in the future).
- I initially had the criterion of "control payments and amounts." I thought that I would find a tool to control the correctness of accrual and receipt of various incomes: salaries (including holidays and bonuses), cashback, interest on deposits and other investments. But in no application there were such tools. As a result, I reduced the requirements to reminders about regular payments and debts. In this regard, the Wallet and Money Wiz 2 applications proved to be the best.
- The backup implementation everywhere seemed to me not perfect, but it was best implemented in the applications Expense Manager (expense manager), ClevMoney and Home Budget.
My favorites
- Money Wiz 2. A very powerful thing, but there is no way to automatically import transactions from SMS. If not for this, I would choose it. It is possible to connect to the bank directly and take transactions from there, but for this you need to tell the application my login and password from the Internet bank, but I do not want to do this. However, they promise to add SMS imports in the future. If they add, I will probably switch to this application.
- Wallet Cool option to import data from csv. By all other criteria, it looks good, but each has minor flaws.
- Expense Manager Under my needs, it seemed the most advanced application in terms of analytics. Many other functions are also implemented at a high level, although in some it is inferior to other applications.
- ClevMoney. Promising application. Some functions are implemented very conveniently and at a very high level. But at the same time, there are a number of functions that are in so many other applications. If the developers continue to develop it, it has a chance to become the best.
Final choice
I decided to focus on the Expense Manager application. If I encounter any significant difficulties during the use, I will look at the other three from the final list of favorites.
Update 02/18/18
Based on the recommendations from the comments, I studied 10 more applications. Added them to a new table, see the link .
Another application worthy of being in the top: Handy money.
Meanwhile, following the results of 1.5 months of use, Expense Manager found a lot of bugs that prevent it from being fully used. I have not yet looked for their solutions on the forums and have not written in support, I plan to do this soon. If you can’t solve them, and if a new version of Money Wiz is not released, then most likely I will migrate to Handy money.