Subscribe to our Best Free Personal Finance Software
|
In a Hurry?
|
 Go straight to the Quick Selection Guide |
|
Introduction
|
|
Personal finance software helps users to set up a budget, monitor income and expenditure, keep track of bank account balances and check on other assets, liabilities or net worth, etc. Some useful freeware products also assist users, either as individuals or family units, in making monetary decisions with the various financial reports which can be generated easily with the software at a click of the mouse. |
|
Discussion
|
|
On the downside, it does not track stock price movements automatically and some brokers only support online downloads of files compatible with Microsoft Money or Quicken so the users have to update them manually. The program does not provide encryption of files but the users can rely on third party encryption software to keep files confidential and secured if necessary. It will also take a while to either start up or close down the program. |
|
|
|
|
|
Other freeware products to be reviewed:
Looking for online money management? Mint is an attractive personal finance on-line service. It helps budgeting and keeping track of your finances. Users need to create a Mint account before adding bank, credit card, home loan and investment accounts. However, I'm hesitant to give my banking details to any service in the cloud even though they promise "We ask for your online banking user name and passwords, but we do not see or store that information." Rudder let users review all accounts in one place, get bill reminders, budget and manage cash flow. It is an email-based system with similar privacy issues. My details COULD be adequately protected but how do I KNOW that they are and always will be? I need a credible guarantee that if my ID, password, account numbers and credit card numbers are somehow compromised through their service, that they will make me whole. And if you ever close your account, how do you know your data has been securely erased from caches, files, backups, etc.? I'm just not willing to (literally) bet the bank just to build some charts of my budget or an email summary of my accounts. That said, these offerings really do look like promising planning tools for the less paranoid. |
If you're looking for a quick education in double entry accounting, look no further than 
|
Related Products and Links
|
|
You might want to check out these articles too: |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
2.2.9 (stable release) 
Open Source Freeware (includes program code) 
Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, BSD, GNU/Linux
|
Editor
|
|
This software category is in need of an editor. If you are interested in taking it over, please email Elizabeth, our editorial co-ordinator with a little bit about your background and in particular, whether you have any commercial affiliation with products in this category. If you are currently logged in, you can contact Elizabeth directly by clicking here, if not then click here. |
|
Tags
|
|
financial software, financial applications, free personal financial applications, freeware, free personal accounting software |
Back to the top of the article
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Please rate this article
A friend told me about this little free budgeting website, I have been using it for about half a year now and it is too good to be free as I heard another user saying. For those not wanting to disclose bank account access info and personal identity while managing finances on the web, this little website gem offers the easiest budgeting tool I have seen with budgeting, expense tracking and cash put aside setup all on one simple page, it also gives you 5 transactional accounts with unlimited transactions for stuff like loan management, it is packed full of great guides and budgeting tips all free of charge and advertising too.
On the web at:
http://www.myexp.org/OOTD_gate.php
Happy budgeting
Has anyone heard of Small Business Accounting package? It's supposed to be a comprehensive set of excel spreadsheets but the web site for download is no longer active. Didn't know if someone had it on a mirror site somewhere.
for those of you in Brasil (or in need of something specific to this country and it's quirky banking industry) I recomend Habil. It is complete in every way, it is free, it has a personal finances version and a business version, both with a free version.
For simple expense tracking and budgeting there is also Piggybudget. It's freeware, and written in Java.
here is a great free software you should try: http://www.budget5000.com :)
Mint is only US banking at the moment.
I like to recommend The best free personal finance software moneyStrands online! provided by Strands
Only covers US banks right now.
Of the ones listed, I like AceMoney. More polished and cleaner, easier-to-use interface compared to GnuCash. Also runs notably faster.
However, to be honest I've now become more of a proponent of just giving up these "personal finance" products with all of their proprietary formats and just use Excel. I have run the gamut of personal finance software for over ten years, primarily Quicken with occasional brief shifts to MS Money. And if that decade has taught me something, it's that this is one area of the software industry that is a never-ending hamster wheel of expense and disappointment. Quicken has been rotten for many years now; it consistently gets abhorrent user ratings but has somehow survived and thrived by churning its product and getting "upgrade" revenue every year. MS Money was just as bad (worse in fact, and anyway now dead). All of these free programs have a niche to fill as a result, but believe me, get burned once on a proprietary file format or some weird glitch and you'll never want it to happen again. Thus my move to Excel. Incredibly powerful tool and now ubiquitous. Just takes a bit more knowledge and "manual labor" but it is nowhere near as much as most would think offhand.
Money Manager Ex is very similar to AceMoney. However you can track multiple accounts and import/export from Excel (CSV) as well as QIF.
I've been looking to try the free version of Cashbook Complete, called Cashbook Home which is scaled down to just the cashbook and budget features.
Unfortunately when I run the installation file Avira finds a virus "APPL/ACL Set". Not knowing if it's a false positive I deny access and the software does not install.
Anyone else tried it?
http://www.acclaimsoftware.com.au/pricing.htm
I think it's slightly strange that an individual with the expertise and knowledge to properly utilise the more advanced functions in some of the programs mentioned above, would be frugal enough to look for a free program to carry out such an important job!
Sure, that's the point of this site, but there is a bit of a difference between looking for a program that will convert a youtube clip into something you can put on your phone, to a program that helps you manage thousands, or millions of dollars etc! If that were me, I think I'd fork out for a copy of Quicken!
For most of us who don't fall into the financial expert category, simplicity and presentation are far more important factors than, say, managing a portfolio of derivatives!
I would like to add R6 Bill Tracker to the list.
Bill Tracker is an open source and free personal finance application for managing bills. You can download it at http://www.r6software.com
GNU Cash is wonderful though a bit slow!
At first I think it is too complex and slow, so I try others. But none satisfies my needs. So I return to GNU Cash. It becomes so easy to manage my little budget. It's perfect for me except for slow start-up time. And though I use it a lot, I only use 1/3 of its functions at most.
Personal Finances Free at http://www.financessoftware.com/ seems like a very basic but highly usable program.
I think this post is yet another example here, of a category that doesn't recognise the importance of simplicity, for the average user looking for free software. :-(
Great job at analysing more advanced free personal finance software options however!
This does look interesting and more than adequate for basic day-to-day budgeting (which is exactly what I'm looking for) ... but it's not freeware, it just offers a 30 day free trial. After that, you need to fork over your dough or stop using it.
There are 3 versions of the program: Free, Home and Pro. The Home & Pro editions come with a 30 day free trial. The Free version is freeware, there is no expiry date on it's use.
I have tried the Free version and it's so stripped down it's pretty useless. For example, you can't even import data into it from a CSV file, something I'd see as being a core piece of functionality.
Money Manager Ex has much better interface, much more user friendly than GNUcash. Portable version also available. I've been using it for 4 months and love it. Switched from Microsoft Money because I wanted a portable personal finance program.
I agree, Money Manager Ex is a much more usable and suitable program for most.
Yes it is very nice but there is no menu for liability/loan
so the structure will be better if
Bank Account
Asset
Investmnt
Liability
You may find Grisbi of interest for this.
If you live in The Netherlands (or speak Dutch) Yunoo, a Utrecht-based startup, may be just the social/personal finance solution you're looking for.
After many search and tried everything i've found... jGnash!
I agree
I Tried Acemoney Lite / Grisbi / Money Manager Ex / ... at the end i like Homebank it's simple
Hi, just arrived and looking for a starter model for basic cash flow. Tried IngenMoney Pro http://www.tucows.com/preview/343094 with rolling calendar and automatic income distribution calculator and proved too complicated for me so gave it back. Will try from mentioned above.
Cheers
MikeM
Doesn't look like it's been updated since June 2003 and it's not downloadable from their website though you can still register it there.
The Money Manager EX web site says "experimental support for Mac OS 10.5" Exactly what does that mean? Anybody tried this program on a Mac?
I had MS Money2004 on my old laptop, but can't find the disk to transfer it to my new laptop. Do any of the free Personal Finance Software packages take the MS Money backup file and import it in?
MMEx version 0.9.4.0 just released today, http://www.codelathe.com/mmex
Nothing beats BS1. Simple, intuitive, fast, lean, and (yes), free.
BS1 is included under business management software.
For those who found personal finance software but need a home inventory software, I found www.knowyourstuff.org to be capable (and free). It's offered by the non-profit III.
I looked at several apps about 6 months ago, decided to put the effort into moneydance - definitely the slickest app in many ways. IMO - Still a work in progress, needs more and better reporting. Developers spend a lot of time on online/financial interfaces whereas there's a need to firm up the basic double entry functions.
moneydance is not freeware.
This article is for the best FREE personal finance software.
There are quite a number of personal finance applications free for use, some are listed by you. Some others are listed by Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Free_accounting_software
I spent several days trying them out one by one, for what I need is just as follows:
1. support proper double-entry transactions.
2. suitable for personal finance use, including bank accounts and investments.
3. support full financial reports and easy to use.
I end up with using GnuCash, which is closest to the commercial software Microsoft Money, and drop the others.
It will be interesting to know if you can find any other freeware to be better than GnuCash, I would love to try and use it if I am convinced.
Try New Dawn personal financial organizer. It covers reporting, budgeting, cash flow and reconcilliation as well as supporting multiple bank, credit card and other accounts - and its freeware. Go to www.newdawnpfo.com.
Thanks for the tips.
Eqonomize! and HomeBank are personal finance packages... the others are geared for business.
As always, I encourage users having experience with these applications to contribute the knowledge as these programs tend to be "sticky" and take many months of practical use to form useful opinions on.
I recommend to try Busywin UL 3.5 which is one of the best free accounting software with inventory tracking from Busy Infotech.
You can download it from below page.
http://www.busy.in/index.php?p=fas
Shailesh
Thanks,
In South Asia, South Africa, Europ, BUSYWIN is the No. 1
Busy Fan
11 is too many. This site should be evaluating and recommending only the few that are best of breed, not acting as a directory for every damn piece of software that fits the category. If site visitors are expected to install and test 11 pieces of software to find which one is best, there's really no point to the site anymore at that point, is there.
Agree and that's why Gnucash is my choice. However, there is never a one size fits all solution for programs with rich functionality and that's why I encourage feedback on other software.
BanqueManager2009 is a great product and its staff is very reactive.
The software works under Windows and it is in french.
Since the release 3.0.9.50 (october 2008) the software adopts an interface like MS office 2007.
Possibilities :
Multiples accounts (checking, credit cards,...).
Bank reconcilation (OFX and QIF format).
etc...
never found any software with so many others possibilities.
Have a look to this forum
http://forum.banquemanager.net/index.php where you will able to download BM2009
and it is free for a private usage.
Is there an english version?
I checked out Money Manager EX, while it looks great, it lacks credit card / loan accounts, which is a huge thing to not have. I hope they keep developing it so that it has the credit card tracking, loan tracking, etc.
I'm using money manager ex. very good and I have my credit cards in there (use chequing; just fine) and you can do a loan that way to. just add your credits and debits. it works on usb.
imoney lite
For those with a single financial account the freeware version looks very easy to use: http://www.imoneysoft.com.
If you're not averse to paying $30, you can get an intuitive tool that handles multiple accounts. Personally, I find any freeware that is both limited to one account and that relies solely on manual entry of transactions too limiting to be useful in practice.
I think this is a great one, very user friendly.fortunately I only have one account.
Post new comment