Best Financial Planning Software For Individuals

The best financial planning software provides detailed insight into your money and puts you in the driver’s seat of your finances. Whether you’re just getting started with personal finance or a seasoned pro, superlative software builds on what you already know giving you the freedom to create a plan that works for you.

The best financial planning software for individuals is the one which helps them to track their expenses, pay bills online and set up budgets, hopefully leading to a more organized life.  

Best Financial Planning Software For Individuals

• Best Overall: Quicken
• Best for Budgeting: Mint
• Best for Habit Building: YNAB
• Best for Zero-Based Budgeting: Mvelopes
• Best for Taxes: TurboTax
• Best for Investing: FutureAdvisor
• Best for Investment Advice: Personal Capital
• Best for Spreadsheet Management: Tiller Money

BEST OVERALLQuicken

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Having been around for several decades, Quicken is one of the most established personal finance software on the market. You can use the software to manage various aspects of your financial life from budget creation to debt tracking, savings goals, and even investment coaching. The software features Excel exporting, which allows you to manipulate and perform additional calculations on your data. One of the more advanced features includes bill paying, which allows you to set up payments for your bills right from the software. You can even use it to track the value of your assets to have an accurate calculation of your total net worth. The app is robust enough to manage both your personal and business expenses and even handles property management functions like rental payments from tenants. Quicken offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. The software starts at $35.99 per year and is available for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android.

BEST FOR BUDGETINGMint

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Mint is one of the most popular budgeting and expense tracking tools. You can have the software pull in your bank and credit card information to analyze your spending and pinpoint areas where you can cut back to improve your finances. For more accountability, Mint allows you to set up alerts for things like due dates and low balances to keep you on track. These features help you avoid expensive fees on late payments and overdrafts from your bank account. If you’ve set up budget categories, Mint will give you real-time information about the amount you can spend on things like food and gas. Mint is free to download and use on iOS and Android devices, as well as desktop.

BEST FOR HABIT BUILDINGYNAB

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You Need a Budget, or YNAB, is a personal finance software that’s aimed to help you improve your financial literacy as you manage your monthly budget. As you create your budget and manage your daily finances, the software provides you with tutorials that will help you tackle some of the tougher financial topics. If you’ve been struggling with bad financial habits, YNAB can help you break those through a few basic financial management rules.

The software automatically links to your bank account, integrating your spending information for analysis and budget tracking. You can keep tabs on how you’re tracking toward your monthly budget and take action if you’re overspending. It doesn’t include any investment tracking capabilities. YNAB offers a 34-day free trial that allows you to use the software while you decide whether it’s right for your personal finance goals. The full software is $14.99 monthly or $98.99 annually.

BEST FOR ZERO-BASED BUDGETINGMvelopes

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The traditional envelope budgeting system helps you stick to a budget by using envelopes to manage your money. Once you’ve broken down your budget, you put that amount of cash into different envelopes. So, if you budget $100 for gas for the week, you place that amount in a “gas” envelope. Once you’ve spent that $100, that’s it. Mvelopes takes this same approach to budgeting, except that it’s done digitally on your phone and computer rather than with physical cash.

Choose the financial goals that are most important to you, then add your bank accounts and set your income. Mvelopes will help you create a budget and set up your “envelopes.” The software tracks your spending and shows you what you’ve spent from each envelope to keep you on budget throughout the month.

The basic version starts at $5.97 per month, and you can try Mvelopes for 30 days for_, free when you enroll in the premier plan at $9.97 per month.

BEST FOR TAXESTurboTax

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You may not necessarily need TurboTax to manage your finances throughout the entire year, but when it’s tax time, the software can come in handy. While it’s one of the pricier tax preparation tools, it’s also consumer-friendly, walking you through your tax preparation to help you accurately file your tax return. Entering your tax information is fairly simple—you can import your W-2 information from your employer or take a picture of it and the software will transfer the information into the form.

If you’ve used TurboTax in previous years, the software will remember your personal information and ask whether there have been any major changes. The most basic version lets you file your federal and state return for free if all you use is form 1040 with no attached schedules.

On the higher end, TurboTax Live connects you with a tax expert to give you personalized advice and answer questions about your tax return. Paid versions of TurboTax include a feature to help you uncover deductions you may not have known were available to you. While you can use TurboTax on the web, you can also download the software to your device for added security.

BEST FOR INVESTINGFutureAdvisor

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If you’re a DIY investor looking for low-cost access to a financial advisor, FutureAdvisor is a great option. The investment software provides personalized recommendations to help you diversify your portfolio, which you can follow or not follow as you see fit. You’re eligible to sign up for the software if you have at least $5,000 in investable assets. FutureAdvisor manages the assets you transfer into the account for a flat annual fee of 0.5% of the managed assets, billed quarterly at 0.125%. When you transfer your assets into the account, FutureAdvisor works to consolidate them into accounts with its partners, Fidelity or TD Ameritrade.

BEST FOR INVESTMENT ADVICEPersonal Capital

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Personal Capital allows you to manage all your financial accounts in a single platform. You can include your bank accounts, mortgage, and other credit accounts, plus your investment accounts, to have your complete financial picture right in front of you. If you have multiple accounts—as most of us do these days—using Personal Capital can save you from having to switch between multiple screens to understand where you stand.

If you have a portfolio of more than $100,000, you can get personalized financial advice based on your goals. While you’re charged a fee for this service, financial advisors are obligated to provide you with advice that works in your best interest.¹

Use the software to tell whether you’re on track with your retirement and other investment goals. Even if you’re not quite ready to take advantage of the financial advisor, you can use Personal Capital to track your finances and investments in one place. There is no monthly fee, and the annual management fee is tiered based on the investment amount.

BEST FOR SPREADSHEET MANAGEMENTTiller Money

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Tiller Money lets you see all your money in one place by automatically updating your checking, credit card, loan, investment, and other account data into a customizable Google Sheet or Excel template. Tiller Money lets you choose from templates that organize your data for you or you can customize your spreadsheet to suit your needs. It’ll also send you daily emails with a summary of your recent transactions and balances. The service costs $79 per year or $6.58 per month, but you can take advantage of the 30-day free trial to decide whether it’s right for you.

free financial planning software for individuals

Mint

Mint is a free online budget planner from Intuit, the makers of TurboTax and Quickbooks. This app brings all of your financial data together, showing you an overview of your budget, spending, bills, and credit score. You can create your own budget, set goals and reminders, and sync your data between web and apps. Security is enhanced by encryption and multi-factor authentication. You can also use Mint to track your investments and portfolio.

Access Mint via the web or phone apps for iOS and Android.

GnuCash

GnuCash is desktop software; its features include tracking bank accounts, stocks, income, and expenses. GnuCash is based on double-entry accounting for balanced books and you can run a number of reports to see your financial data. GnuCash also offers small-business accounting tools that let you manage customers and vendors, handle invoicing and bill payment, and even payroll.

GnuCash is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, BSD, and Solaris. There is a companion app for Android that will let you track expenses on the go and later import them into the desktop software.

AceMoney Lite

AceMoney Lite bills itself as the best Quicken alternative. You can manage your budgets, track your finances in multiple currencies, keep an eye on your investments and analyze your spending habits. You can also do online banking. As this is the lite version, you’re limited to two accounts; the full version supports unlimited accounts.

AceMoney Lite is compatible with Windows and Mac OS X.

Personal Capital

Personal Capital offers free financial software for tracking investments and planning for retirement, in addition to its tools for cash flow, spending, budgeting and net worth. Personal Capital’s focus is on investments, showing you the performance of your portfolio over time and helping you make decisions for the future, so its budgeting components aren’t as robust as other software.

If you’re not an investor or prefer fine-tuning your budget to getting the broad view, Personal Capital may not be the best fit. However, if you want to save for college or retirement, its free tools will show you whether you’re on track.

Personal Capital can be accessed via the web or apps for Android and iOS.

Buddi

Buddi is an open-source budget software that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems and has been translated into multiple languages. Buddi can encrypt financial data with a password, and it’s designed to be easy to use even if you have no financial background.

Features include budgeting, tracking accounts, and personal finance reports, but you will have to enter transactions manually. Free plugins add more features, and the online user manual is easy to read and use.

Buddi is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Free Budget Spreadsheets

If you don’t need fully featured personal financial software and you’re just concerned about keeping a budget, there are some great free budget spreadsheet templates you can use with Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc or Google Sheets. Just download and open them in your spreadsheet software to get a handle on your cash flow.

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