From The Straits Times    |
free app for money tracking

free app for money trackingPhoto: 123rf

Being financially responsible gives you a peace of mind and no one loves debt. Living in a fast-paced culture, we need all the convenience and technology we can get to make financial management as easy as possible. Mobile applications are the easiest way to marry our lifestyle with financial management.

And since we are all for tracking how money is spent, we’re going to recommend you free apps so you don’t have to end up tracking this expenditure too. Besides, if the free apps do the tracking job well enough, why not? Don’t worry, all of them are available on Apple and Android.

It takes awhile to get used to recording our expenses, but persist for at least more than 21 days – that’s the number of the days psychologists recommend to keep going at something to make it a habit. So keep on keeping on, and you will reap the fruits of your discipline with fiscal clarity and health.

 

Dollarbird

free app for money tracking

Photo: Dollarbird

Amongst the six here, Dollar Bird has the simplest, and cleanest looking user interface.

Perfect for those who just needs the bare essentials, Dollar Bird is the no-frills app to help you track your income and expenditures to get you on track to good fiscal health and responsibility.

Cons: Not much, really. It is a pretty good starter app to get into the habit of tracking your finances.

 

Expensify

free app for money tracking

Photo: Expensify

Expensify is especially great for those who travel often for work.

If manual entry of your expenses is too taxing, you can use their SmartScan function to snap a photo of your receipts. The expenses can be further marked into categories like ‘Car’, ‘Rent’, ‘Taxes’, ‘Travel’ and the likes. Within each expense report, you can label them as ‘Reimbursable’ or ‘Billable’ and even add users (like your colleagues and bosses) to split the cost with, which makes it even more detailed so you can keep track down to the last cent.

Cons: Expensify has a learning curve to full understand its mechanics and functions. Howvever, the free edition of the app only allows you five Smartscans per month, and unlimited scanning will set you back US$6.48 a month.

 

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Seedlyfree app for money tracking

Photo: Seedly

Besides the basic tracking functions where you can input your income and expenses and further define them into categories, Seedly also allows you to sync to your bank accounts and credit cards.

After allowing Seedly access to your bank accounts (I did the SMS-OTP to verify), the app shows the combined accounts summary, making it super effective to track all your spending and savings at one glance. Seedly will also send you a weekly report to give you an update on your financial situation.

Cons: While Seedly has measures in place to secure your data, those particularly concern with cybersecurity and hacking should avoid this app. The synchronisation with the bank account also needs to be done regularly for it to update.

 

Toshl Finance

free app for money tracking

Photo: Toshl Finance

Toshl Finance is a comprehensive app that is also easy to use. As a user, you can input your income and expenses and place it into a graph to track the movement of your spendings.

For those who need greater financial discipline, you can use the Budget function and set a limit for your spending in various categories like ‘Food & Drinks’ and ‘Clothing & Footwear’.

Need reminders? You can set up notifications to remind you to record expenses because good habits take time to form. Finally, you can export the financial reports to your email for long-term recording.

Cons: Nothing much. Toshl Finance is the quintessential basic app for tracking your finances. Plus, it’s modern aesthetics with quirky monster designs make the app fun and less dreary.

 

 

Wally Next

free app for money tracking

Photo: Wally Next

The added edge that Wally Next provides is the ability to tag the businesses and locations that you spent your money at. You are able to tag your meal expenses to a restaurant in Paragon shopping mall, for example. This function allows you to keep better track of where and what you are spending on. The Groups tab also allows you to sync and share budgets, accounts and reminders with other users.

Cons: Wally Next is too comprehensive, it has many tabs where you can even track your foreign exchange, prepaid and digital wallet accounts, and there isn’t a way to hide these which leaves the app looking cluttered and slightly overwhelming.  

 

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