Whether you’re a business owner or a family that wants to manage their finances better, there are a number of different personal finance software’s you could use. In this article, I talk about the best free personal finance software for Canadians and my review on some of the best Canadian personal finance software.
Whether you’re a high earner or low earner you want to make sure you’ve got the best personal finance software on your side. When you start using one of the best free personal finance software out there, you’ll be able to take of your income and outgoing payments. Whether this is for fun or if it’s something you must do because you want to become a better budget planner – it really doesn’t matter.
PocketGuard
PocketGuard is an app that is designed to simply show how much you are spending. Users can sync their bank account in order for the app to calculate how much discretionary income will be left over after paying monthly bills. You can categorize expenses into multiple categories such as rent, groceries, and entertainment.
This app is free for users and includes all the standard features that you would expect a budgeting app to have. A cool tool is the “Lower Your Bills” feature which analyzes your bill payments and makes recommendations to alternatives where you could potentially be paying less.
YNAB
YNAB – Best Overall Personal Finance App
When it comes to seeing the big picture of my financial universe, for me there’s no better app than You Need A Budget. It helps you set—and then stick to—a budget and monitors your spending. It does all these things by linking automatically to your financial accounts, so it can provide an accurate, real-world overview of how much money you have (or don’t have) at any given moment. If you don’t feel comfortable giving the app access to your account information automatically, you also have the option of synching your accounts manually.
YNAB also prides itself on its mission to educate the world about the importance of budgeting. To this end, it offers a wide spectrum of free tutorials on money management and I always find the email customer service responsive and eager to help. You really do get the sense that the people behind the YNAB app are sincere about teaching others the value of smart fiscal planning.
At US$83.99 a year, it’s one of the most expensive personal financial apps out there, but I feel it’s money well spent. Also, YNAB offers a free 34-day trial period, so you can decide if the app works for you before you invest in it. Available for iOS/Mac and Android/PC.
Mint
Mint is by far the most well known and definitely one of the best free budget personal finance apps around.
If you’re looking for a way to link and view all your bank accounts in one place and take a closer look at your spending and saving habits, then this is the app for you. The fact that it’s free is a bonus!
Mint works by connecting to your bank (currently only works with U.S. and Canadian banks). By connecting to your bank, you’re allowing Mint to view and gather data so that it can categorize your spending and help you see where all your money is going.
Mint Is Personalized For Your Needs
- Create budgets that make sense today and set you up for success tomorrow.
- See bills and money together, so you know what’s due, when it’s due and what you can pay.
- Receive alerts for unusual account charges, and get custom tips for reducing fees and saving money.
- Get your free credit score and learn how you can improve it now to get the things you want later.
You can track almost anything with Mint: bills, debt, investments, credit score, and more. When you sign up for Mint, you’ll get a guided tour so don’t worry if this all sounds a bit much.
Mint is available for both iPhone and Android operating systems.
KOHO
KOHO is a reloadable Visa card and app that functions as a prepaid spending card, money-saving app, and is a budgeting tool. It is free and available on iPhone and Android.
The KOHO app and card offer the following benefits:
- Effortless budgeting with real-time insights into your spending (daily, weekly, and monthly) and savings
- Roundup feature that automatically saves your spare change
- 0.50% to 2% cash back on all your purchases
- 1.20% interest rate earned on your entire balance
- You can set savings goals (both personal and joint) and the app shows you how to reach them
- Directly pay your bills and receive payments e.g. payroll
- Free financial coaching
- Joint accounts and is a great budget app for couples
- Access a portion of your paycheque a few days early
The KOHO app is not your typical budgeting app. It does much more than that and can almost replace your bank. The average KOHO user is said to reduce their spending by 15% and save almost $500 in the first 3 weeks of using the app!
PocketSmith
PocketSmith offers powerful features for keeping track of your money, even when it’s scattered across multiple accounts, credit cards, and institutions. It unites all of your transactions in a single dashboard so that you always feel in control of your spending. You can set up some alerts to remind you when bills are due, create budgets that notify you when you’re close to overspending, and produce attractive reports to help you understand your financial circumstances.
Unlike many personal finance apps, PocketSmith can handle foreign currencies, showing your balance in both your base currency and the original foreign currency. It tracks investments, too, showing you their value even when they are held in silver, gold, or bitcoin.
Personal Capital
First of all, Personal Capital App is an award-winning personal finance app tool available only in the US.
Most of you might already that I’m from Canada, so I don’t have access to the personal capital app.
That means I use Mint to track my net worth. I’m planning to switch to YNAB shortly to try out their promotional offer for a month and see if it is really better than Mint like the website says.
However, I knew I needed to include it on the list. Every other finance blogger that I read always recommends Personal Capital as the best net worth tracker around, so it must be good!
With Personal Capital, you can link all your bank accounts for free to see a clear real-time view of your entire financial life.
- See your net worth
- Analyze your investments and spot hidden fees
- Set spending and saving goals
Wally
Wally is a budgeting app that allows users to track income and expenses in multiple currencies. One cool feature is that you can split expenses amongst friends, so you can have an overview of how much each person owes you.
There is no charge to use Wally, but they are looking to roll out an optional premium service soon that will require a monthly subscription fee. One of the downsides with Wally is that it cannot be linked to financial institutions; meaning that you will have to input each line item manually. Essentially, this app is a digital version of a handwritten budget.
Good Budget
Goodbudget is a budget app that offers both free and paid plans. The app works based on the envelope budgeting method and offers the following benefits:
- Sync and share budgets between various devices and family members
- Save gradually for big expenses and pay down debt
- Plan and track your spending
Goodbudget is available on your computer, Android, or iPhone. The paid plan which offers unlimited envelopes, syncing across devices, and 7 years of history costs $6 per month or $50 per year.
Conclusion:
When it comes to managing our personal money, nice software packages can be extremely helpful. Now let’s take some time to learn about the best personal finance software. Remember, there is no need for you to reinvent the wheel – some people spend their whole careers working on some of these projects. So why would you, when all of the above mentioned apps do their job well?