For many of us, the hustle and bustle of everyday life simply does not allow time to balance check books and track every dollar spent. And here, my busy friends, is where the wonderful world of phone applications come in. Personal finance apps are springing up by the dozens, aimed at helping you keep track of your financial health. So, why not use an iPhone app — if you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user — to track your expenses while on the go?
For your convenience — and my own — I tested three personal finance apps, iBear Money Lite, Money Trackin’, and Tap Expense Lite, to see which is best for tracking your money. Take a look:
iBearMoney Lite
By far the best personal finance app out of the bunch, iBear offers a comprehensive tracking system for expense and liability tracking system as well as well as the ability to manage assets, portfolios and liabilities — which may be a little too comprehensive for some. You can also create a budget that includes a detailed chart showing your progress.
On first usage, navigating the feature-rich site can be cumbersome. For example, after inputting my biweekly income expenses and categorizing my money, I then realized that there is an actual “salary†category. However, since I already deducted my expenses, I could not delete the “check cashed†category I initially created. As a result, the total amount of “cash†was listed in two categories, one of which appeared to be overdrawn simply because I could not combine the two categories.
Overall, this is an app I’d likely continue to use. It also comes with a cash flow report that aggregates all your personal finance information you’ve written, though the layout of the report can be a bit confusing.
Price: Both iBear Money Lite and iBear Money are free. The iBear Money app is available with an iPhone 3.0 software update.
LFM Money
While not as visually appealing as some of the others, LFM Money allows users to track their daily and monthly spending. With this app you can aggregate all your accounts and transactions. Again, on first use it did take more time than I would have liked to figure out how to input my transactions. What would be a helpful function is allowing users, after selecting a category, to add the expense or to at least be able to view the price.
Once you get the hang of the app, it’s simple and straightforward. This would be great for college students or those with a simple financial picture, i.e. not tracking a portfolio or liabilities. If you’re working with a more complex financial picture, such as multiple sources of income or expenditures beyond the typical household needs, you may want to consider another app.
Price: FreeTapExpense Lite
By far this is my least favorite of the three. Though this app is easy to navigate, the categories are limited. You can add additional categories such as rent/mortgage, taxes, car etc. but who has time to do that? Some, may however, find the customizable
categories helpful if their expenses are atypical. A bonus for this feature is the full report that displays your income and expenditures in an easy to read list. Users can also customize the report to display their finances in a more preferable manner. You can also export the data as an Excel file or CVS file which is a great way to transfer the information to your personal computer for record keeping.Price: Tap Expense Lite is free. Tap Expense is $4.99.
For more information on these applications, as well as others, access the Applications store via your iPhone, iPod Touch, or the iTunes store. Also, BlackEnterprise.com reviews apps for the small business owner.
Renita Burns is the editorial assistant at BlackEnterprise.com.