Personal Finance apps For Smartphone

Upon reviewing personal finance apps for iPhone and iPad, it's time to take a look at budgeting apps for the Android phone and tablets.

As an Android user, I struggled to find an app that did all I wanted it to do but didn’t cost money. It took some installing and uninstalling but I found a few worth mentioning. All of these apps can be found in the Google Playstore.

Money Manager by Realbyte Inc

Money Manager is an optimized application for personal account management. Household account management is complicated. But we make it simple by simplifying the things that are complex. The default settings will get you started, and once you get used to it, you can alter the settings according to your needs with the highly flexible and customizable functions available. - Super easy and simple to enter data anytime, anywhere.

 View your spending tendencies graphically.  The pie chart of expenses is really handy to see in full colour where your money is going and the ability to transfer money from accounts to cash is useful to keep track of how much you should have in your bank account and how much in hand.

View statistics by simply entering the data. - Search and calculator functions. - Set up sub-categories and main categories as necessary. - Manage all your accounts at once. - Use multiple currencies. - Check weekly, monthly, and annual statistics. - Use calendar view. - Use budget planning features to plan weekly, monthly, and annual budgets. - Change the start date of the month.

Applying double entry bookkeeping It facilitates efficient account management. Automally double entry bookkeeping. PC manager function You can view The New Money Manager application using Wi-Fi or 3G.

You can edit and sort the data by date, category or account group on the screen of your PC. In addition, you can see fluctuations of your accounts indicated on graphs on your PC. Budget management function You can manage your budget. It shows your budget and expenditures on a graph so you can compare the amount of your expenditures against your budget quickly. Credit Card / Debit Card management function when entering a future payment date, you can see the payment amount and outstanding balance on the accounts page.

You can connect your debit card to your accounts so that expenses are automatically recorded under a specific account. Passcode You can speficy a desired time lapse before the app requests a passcode. Automatic money transfer and frequency functions You can set up automatic money transfers between your accounts and configure the frequency of those transfers. Sort expenses by recipient You can sort your expenses by recipient and view this information graphically.

 Payment Profiles You can easily enter frequent expenditures by creating payment profiles. Backup / Restore You can backup and restore your data via email, iTunes and iCloud. Multiple currency support you can have individual entries in multiple currencies, and configure each account to calculate the total balance in your desired currency.

The only downside to the free version of Money Manager is that the budget setting is almost useless as it does not warn you when your expenditure is nearing the budget limit.

Easy Money by Handy apps Inc

Easy Money is also a great app to use. Much like Money Manager, you can track your balance in hand, account and on credit card. As a bonus, you can also set reminders to go off to let you know when a payment is due. Keep track of all payments made and income received. The app is no frills. It doesn’t have the pie-chart graphic that tracks your spending like Money Manager but having it will definitely help in keeping bill payment up to date.

Easy Money for Android will allow you to install and use for free up to 30 days after which; you will have to pay for it. The disappointing thing is that nowhere in the description do they tell you it is only a trial. It is a leading app though so if you don’t mind paying USD10 this is a good app to have.

Expense Manager by Marcus Hintersteiner

If you want to simply track your expenses with NO other feature, try this app. The app allows you to keep tabs on what you’ve spent daily and records it in a nice bar chart format. It’s simple enough and visual look at amounts can give you a clear idea of where your money is going.

Expense Manager’s key selling point is the very simplicity of it. If you’d like more features, though, you will have to pay USD$3.33 to unlock the full version. The full version will give you statistics, income management and a look at fund distribution.

This app allows you to record your expenses easily. Optionally you can assign a category to your expense in order to get detailed statistics and helpful insights.

Features:

- Simple Design

- Ad-Free

- Record expenses

- Assign categories

- Manage monthly overheads

- Manage categories

- Set a monthly limit

- Homescreen widget for even faster usage

- DashClock Integration

- Expense History

- Spreadsheet Export

- Group your expenses by week, month or year

- Backup/Restore Feature

- Record incomes (In-App purchase)

- Detailed Stats (In-App purchase)

- Expense Distribution (In-App purchase)

IOU by S Tubin

IOU specialises in tracking debt – no other financial information such as income and budgeting. You simply add money you owe to other people; money they owe to you and how much you or they have repaid.

IOU’s a useful app to track loan debt but nothing much else. It’s simple and pretty much no frills. Don’t expect massive calculations of repayment tenures or interest but it will remember numbers you don’t. It’s available for Android, iPhone and Windows Operating system phones.