Tracking and management go hand in hand when it comes to success in many areas of life.
When it comes to finances in particular, tracking your income, assets, investment growth, and key wealth indicators such as net worth is vital to effectively managing your finances.
But what’s the point of effective financial management?
Effectively financial management enables you to maximize your capital so you can achieve your life’s goals.
From saving for retirement to stacking up cash fast to replace that high-ticket appliance sooner rather than later, goals large and small typically require some effective financial tracking and management to be reached.
If you have life goals to achieve (and who doesn’t?) and would like a little boost getting there, keep reading for tips on how to start thinking about financial management apps and financial tracking apps as well as our curated list of the best tools that today’s market has in store.
How to Choose the Right Financial Management Apps and Financial Tracking Apps
Before you start comparing features to choose the best financial management apps and/or financial tracking apps, you have to know why you’re even shopping for them in the first place.
In other words, what are your financial goals?
When you’re done pondering that one, you also want to determine what your goals are for the actual tools you end up choosing to help you reach these goals. Do they need to be easy to set up on your own? Where do you draw the line when it comes to fees? Do you travel a lot and need them to keep up with you in every new country?
And one last thing to think about before we go diving into our list of financial management and tracking apps: What assets make up your wealth?
You probably have a few bank and brokerage accounts — but are they all based in the same area with the same currency, or do you need tools that can keep up with and/or convert between multiple currencies? Are you invested in cryptocurrency? Are your assets a mix of physical (like antiques and real estate) and digital (like domain names and trademarks)?
It’s important to re-familiarize yourself with the intricacies of your unique asset mix and have a broad view of your financial situation when using the following list to shop for the tools that will help you track, manage, and hopefully even improve it.
7 Financial Management Apps And Financial Tracking Apps You Should Know About
From hands-on investors with wide varieties of asset types to those who love to put things on autopilot or only need help in areas such as budgeting or saving, here are seven fundamental financial management apps and financial tracking apps — as well as alternative choices for most — that can help you build a strong wealth management process and meet your life goals.
Put Saving on Autopilot: Digit
Digit is automatic withdrawal for the 21st century.
Instead of moving a fixed amount of money out of your bank account every month, Digit is an app that connects to your bank account to analyze your spending and set aside a safe amount on a daily basis.
Users can define different goals to save toward, set up payments toward debts such as loans, and even use Digit’s automated investing feature.
Digit also offers what it calls “guardrails” such as overdraft protection, a maximum savings limit, and a pause feature for users who want a little more control over the process.
Alternative: Acorns
Acorns is similar to Digit in that it all started by rounding purchases up to the nearest dollar and saving the change. Today, Acorns’ most affordable tier still focuses on investing these “Round Ups'' as they call them. However, the tool has developed into a financial ecosystem that can even help users open a checking account and save for retirement.
Day-to-Day Budgeting and Expense Tracking: Mint
Mint is one of the most well-known tracking and budgeting applications.
Mint enables users to add U.S.-based bank accounts, credit cards, and information for other assets so they can clearly see how they’re spending over time and across different categories (think home, food, medical, etc.). This financial overview also helps users create and keep a detailed budget.
Other features include a saving goal creator, unusual spending notifications, payment reminders, a tool for catching hidden fees, and more.
Alternative: YNAB
You Need a Budget (YNAB) is a tool built from a financial management philosophy that centers on four rules: Give every dollar a job, embrace your true expenses, roll with the punches, and age your money.
The YNAB app ecosystem — which stretches across web to mobile, smart speaker, and beyond — enables users to hyper-focus on every dollar of their incoming and outgoing money to plan ahead for and be able to afford all of life’s expenses and goals.
White-Glove Management for U.S.-Based Assets: Personal Capital
Per Empower Retirement that acquired it in August of 2020, Personal Capital is “ … a digital-first registered investment adviser and wealth manager.”
While hands-on investment advice and management are how Personal Capital generates revenue, it’s the free features that bring most users to the app.
The “free” version of Personal Capital is a self-managed wealth management application from which various U.S.-based assets and accounts can be viewed and managed. It offers traditional wealth management features including a net worth rundown, a 30-day view of cash flow, and more.
The downside of this version of Personal Capital is that it’s ultimately a sales funnel for their white-glove asset management services, which start at $100,000 in assets and costs .89% in fees up to the first million.
Alternative: Vanguard
Vanguard pulls no punches. It’s a straightforward investment advisory company that’s typically recommended for investors who are interested in white-glove wealth management at lower costs and for longer terms. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not for serious investors. With Vanguard, users get a dedicated advisor only after racking up $500,000 in assets. But compared to Personal Capital, it’s more affordable — charging about .30% to manage assets up to $5 million compared to Personal Capital’s .69%.
Hands-Off Investment Optimization: Betterment
Betterment is a great alternative to the above for people who are interested in financial advisory at a more affordable rate and don’t mind letting technology take the wheel.
Betterment is what’s known as a robo-advisor (an automated, digital financial “planner”) that relies on algorithms instead of human experience to make fast yet calculated investment decisions.
In addition to automating investments for big-ticket items like homes and education, Betterment also puts their smart algorithms to work on retirement accounts, short-term savings accounts known as “Cash Reserves,” and a checking account.
Alternative: Wealthfront
Similarly, Wealthfront is an automated investment firm that offers investment with the help of robo-advisory, a cash account, and planning for big-ticket purchases. Unlike Betterment, Wealthfront offers a line of credit and has an asset minimum (of $500), but has fees around .25% versus Betterment's .25% to .40%.
Flat-Fee Active Financial Planning: Facet Wealth
As an alternative to both wealth advisors above, for a human touch without the high or unpredictable costs when it comes to financial planning, flat fee financial advisors are where it’s at.
Facet Wealth supplements human financial advisors with digital ones to create personalized financial plans that line up with client life goals. The cost savings of this hybrid plan cuts costs so they can serve clients with no minimum portfolio requirements and at a flat fee.
Alternative: Your Local Financial Advisor
Flat-fee, or “fee-only,” financial advisement hasn’t always been popular but is gaining traction lately. This is a service model that more small, locally-focused financial advisory firms are likely to offer. So, if you’re interested in a more intimate experience than Facet Wealth can provide, look local
Crypto-Focused Financial Tracking and News: Blockfolio
Blockfolio is a cryptocurrency portfolio tracker with support for over 10,000 types of cryptocurrency (digital currency) across more than 500 crypto exchanges (a marketplace for buying and selling crypto).
Blockfolio’s Markets tab automatically ranks cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and helps users monitor their portfolios with details about each investment’s profit/loss trends, cost basis calculations, price candlestick charts, news, and more. Customizable alerts help users take action when opportunities that meet their specifications pop up.
Alternative: Delta
Similar to Blockfolio, Delta is a crypto-focused investment tracker that gives a detailed view of portfolio holdings and provides notifications when an asset a user is following changes significantly.
The difference is that Delta has branched beyond crypto to start providing tracking, profit/loss reports, and more information on stocks, ETFs, bonds, and more.
All-in-One Financial Management for Hands-On Global Investors: Kubera
Unlike the above financial management apps and financial tracking apps, Kubera is a totally all-in-one wealth management tool that enables the engaged investor to track and manage their complete portfolio no matter the asset classes.
With Kubera’s easy-to-use platform, a user can track and manage their bank, brokerage, and cryptocurrency accounts (see everything we connect to here); traditional assets; physical assets; and even digital assets — and monitor their value in any major currency.
Stock and crypto investors can add Kubera’s tickers to their dashboard to track the leading individual stocks and cryptocurrencies.
And when adding your homes, vehicles, and web domains to your Kubera dashboard, we will feed in the latest market data about each to make sure the value of these asses — and your entire portfolio — is always up to date.
Check out the value of all the above investments, keep an eye on asset allocation, and monitor net worth growth with Kubera’s lovely charts and visual analysis features.
Another unique component is our beneficiary management and Safe Deposit Box feature that enables users to safely store and transfer their portfolio as well as important financial documentation to a trusted beneficiary.
To provide all these features, we charge a simple subscription fee so we don’t have to sell personal information or push annoying upsells.
Which Financial Management Apps and Financial Tracking Apps Will Meet Your Needs?
We hope our rundown of these seven essential financial management apps and financial tracking apps — as well as backup options for most — will help you build a strong wealth management platform that you can use to achieve your life goals.
Whether you aren’t sure where to begin, you have a lot of different types of assets to monitor, or you just like to be involved with your asset tracking and management — the best place to start is with Kubera.
Why? Because Kubera is the only financial tracking and management tool built from the ground up for modern investors, by modern investors.
