Personal Finance Software: Balance your Checkbook for Free/Cheap!

I was reading through my old postings, and noticed that I left a software category out of my posting about Free Internet Tools to Aid your Household or Small Business.  That category (ironically a personal interest) was personal finance software.  Many of you hear this and automatically think one of the following three thoughts:

• Balance my checkbook on a computer?  Yeah, right!
• I’ve kept a record of every transaction in an excel spreadsheet since the days of windows 95!
• You mean there’s more to personal finance software than just Quicken or Money?

Given the recent shift in American money-management habits from “spend” to “thrift,” I thought it would be worthwhile to cover a select few of the new options to help you track those bills and savings!  When creating the list of products to present, I came up with a list of features that really make personal finance software a valuable money management tool, such as:

• Easy to Use, and/or have GREAT help/support community
• Check Printing and/or Integration with Online Bill Payment
• Expense Categorization and Reporting
• Budget Tracking
• Integration with Online Banking (OFX or equivalent) for transaction download and/or reconciliation
• Data Security features
• Other features such as integration with tax software/reporting, and personal investing.

Using this list, I found the following software packages that seem to meet the requirements for money management:

• Mint.com (Free) – Great Online tool that allows you to get an overview of your finances.  Automatically imports your transactions from different institutions, and allows you to budget.  Does not allow you to pay bills or print checks – consider this more of a reporting/budgeting platform or your first step into Personal Finance Software.  iPhone App and Mobile Access features are available.
• Quicken Online (Free) – Similar to Mint, as it is really more of a reporting/budgeting tool.  However, the interface can be confusing and I’ve read some negative reviews.  Mint seems to be a little more polished.
• Quicken Starter Edition ($30, or $24 at Amazon) – A basic money management program that covers most of the features listed above.  However, to monitor your 401k/IRA Investments, you must upgrade to Quicken Deluxe ($60, or $22 at Amazon).  If you’re a Mac owner, you can also check out Quicken Mac ($70, or $41 at Amazon).
• MoneyDance ($40) – This client seems to be a less-bloated version of Quicken Deluxe.  It supports all the features I mentioned above, and is also available in Mac and Linux versions.  Definitely worth a look as an alternative to Quicken!
• LiquidLedger (Mac Only – $50) – Sorry folks, this one is for Macs only.  It also supports most of the features of MoneyDance and Quicken, but seems to have a much “prettier” interface and the ability to backup your files to .Mac.  If you like the “Mac” look or are already a .Mac user, this may be a better option for you.

As for myself, I use a combination of Mint.com and Quicken Deluxe.  I like using the OFX features of Quicken for reconciliation of transactions that I manually enter from my receipts (and have caught quite a few bank errors this way).  However, the budget tracking features of Mint.com earn top marks in my opinion!

Feel free to Contact Me if you would like help setting this up, have additional questions about any of the software I’ve mentioned!

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Related posts:

1. Personal Finance Software: Mint.com Supplemental
2. Quicken 2010 Reviews and Thoughts
3. Free Internet Tools to aid your household or small business!
4. Its 2009 Tax Time: Tax Preparation Software!
5. Small Business Contact Management Software – Know your Clients!