Budgeting is a discipline that’s not often met with excitement. Many assume that budgeting is something reserved for companies or, say, freelance workers. However, personal budget software is just as important as corporate one — it’s a fundamental understanding of where money is coming and going.
Personal Capital (Free) Personal Capital is the best personal finance software for Mac and best of all, unlike Quicken it’s actually free to use. If you already use Intuit’s other budgeting tool Mint (see review later), you’ll really like Personal Capital because it’s got the same feel but with far more powerful investment tracking. The Macintosh (well knows as Mac) is a family of personal computers that was designed by Apple Inc. There are many apps for this family of personal computers, but we are going to talk about the 8 best finance apps for Mac and what their features app. You as user will choose the best option for you.
Between easy imports, fast wireless syncing and a sleek and polished look throughout, MoneyWiz is a top choice in the Mac personal finance field. Brendan Wilhide is a frequent Macworld contributor.
I started with this app with the free version, later after i realized the potential of this app i purchased the full version. Now i am not sure if it was a good investment. I used this app for pretty much all my finances as i always have them with me on hand and not stored on a computer back at home or the office. But after so many updates.
You may consider it to be boring, tiring, time-consuming, or difficult, but managing your finances well can help you achieve goals and stave off the stress of a rainy day. Thankfully, there are tools and apps on Mac which can help you get on top of budgeting, no matter how experienced you are.
Why Should I Use Budget Tracking Software?
If you haven’t done a budget before, you should start now. You never know when you might need a particular sum of money to solve an issue, meet a goal, or take advantage of a sudden opportunity.
Budget programs help you reduce the stress and uncertainty that comes with not knowing where you stand financially. If you don’t have a home budget software, you might be tracking towards a situation where you run out of money, without even knowing it. If you do have a budget, then you’ll have a documented plan of action to improve your situation.
Importantly, you don’t need any qualifications to do a budget, nor do you need to be good with numbers. Take advantage of the best budget software for Mac to help you take control of your finances without the hassle. Budgeting tools come in many shapes and sizes, so selecting the right one for you depends on personal preference and previous experience with managing money.
Handy tips for budgeting tools
If you’re ready to start your budget, it’s best to consider a strategic approach to ensure maximum utility. Too often, budgets sit collecting dust after being created, and sometimes the act of creating a budget could feel like enough to satisfy financial concerns — it’s not. Here are some tips for making the most out of your budget.
First of all, definitely use an app to help you manage a budget. App developers invest a lot of time and money into figuring out how their software can make your life easier and better, so rather than trying to understand all the nuances for yourself, let a dedicated app do it for you. There’s even some free budget software around, so you have very few excuses not to try!
If you run a business (or freelance on a side), a little bit of work each week means end of year taxes are a breeze. It’s not about doing a marathon of work in a few days, but making a habit to consistently do a little bit here and there. Try aiming for 10 minutes every few days. The best tax preparation software will also have reminders and notifications to help you achieve this goal.
It might sound contradictory, but budgeting isn’t always about getting the numbers 100% accurate. When it comes to tax preparation software — sure. But budgeting is mostly about understanding where your money is being spent and then using that information to make more informed decisions going forward. Therefore, make sure you categorize your transactions so that it’s easier to spot those minutiae differences and trends. The best finance apps should do this for you automatically.
In summary, you want to ensure you take advantage of the online budgeting tools available to you, aim to update your records frequently, and focus on categorization over accuracy.
Features of good personal budget software
The best personal budget software for Mac is easier to pin down when you know exactly what you’re looking for. Not all apps are the same — they vary by function and pricing. Generally speaking, there are a few key features you want to see in your budget software for Mac:
It should be simple and easy to add new records or transactions
Importing bank and credit card statements should be possible
Automatically synchronizing statements will take the edge off your manual inputting
Useful dashboards or visuals will help you understand your situation at a glance
You should be able to categorize your transactions into groups
Out of those five key points, the ability to import is often the most essential. Importing saves you the hassle of adding each transaction into the money management software line-by-line, which adds up to a lot of time. It’s hard enough already to schedule frequent updates to your budget, so if you can remove the largest friction point of manual entry, then you’re in a good place.
The best budget software for Mac comparison
When it comes to programs to help budget money, there are countless options. It’s easy to get lost diving deep into each budget software review, but here are some of the best available, ranging from beautifully basic to powerfully advanced.
You’ve probably heard of Quicken, given that the name has been around since the early 80s. Even then, it was known as one of the best tax software companies around. That says something about the strong product, which carries all of the basic functions you’ll need to manage your budget well.
Right away though, you might notice that the interface has become somewhat dated in comparison to the newer contenders out there. But one of Quicken’s praised features is the ability to download bank statements and have the records automatically categorized, which can drastically reduce the time it takes to input your information, so you can spend more time making sense of it. Sadly, the Mac version is somewhat limited when it comes to advanced features, unless you splash out for the Home and Business edition.
MoneyDance is very similar to Quicken in terms of its basic features, including the ability to create a budget with notifications for bills and invoices. It also allows you to make your own charts and graphs to monitor spending habits over time, which can be seen on the homepage for a quick glance of your activity. Out-of-the-box integrations with online banking services also make it easy to send payments.
Unlike Quicken, Moneydance has some more advanced features including an investment monitor, which tracks your investments and their fluctuations — a useful addition, although best for the intermediate to advanced user. The app also has a developer API system in place to allow extended functions, mostly good for power users. Importantly, security is not an issue, as Moneydance utilizes end-to-end encryption for your data to give you that extra peace of mind.
You Need A Budget, also known as YNAB, is budget tracking software that runs on both Windows and Mac via web — saving automatically to the cloud, which is a bonus for multi-platform users. It also features native apps for iOS and Android, so you can literally tackle your budget from anywhere.
The app itself follows a simple design language, which is perfect for beginners, but if you find yourself needing help you can sign up for a personal instructor. YNAB doesn’t let you slack at all, and if you start to stray from your budget, the app will raise a red flag through it’s built-in Accountability Partner.
Although YNAB doesn’t support the ability to download and automatically categorize records from bank statements, it could be argued that entering them manually helps the user pay more attention to where their spending is going. Still, it’s a more time-consuming process that might be problematic for users processing hundreds or more records each month.
MoneyWiz stays true to its name — a comprehensive budget software and investment tracker that’s packed full with over 400 useful features. View your financial situation quickly by browsing accounts, groups, or searching for individual records. Speaking of records, you can enter them manually or have them automatically sync with leading banks, cryptocurrency exchanges, and financial services for an accurate real-time understanding of your accounts.
With all of this data in hand, MoneyWiz can prepare and export over 50 reports to help you gain deeper insights into your finances. Your data could be accessed from its cloud-based app or straight from the native software for Mac. All in all, MoneyWiz is extremely powerful: accessible for beginners and interesting for the most advanced users.
Receipts is yet another money management software for Mac, and is specifically well-known for its clever handling of invoicing. Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, Receipts automatically reads and translates important information about your bills, such as amount, date, currency, and more (even if the text is in another language).
Besides, Receipts can issue payments for invoices directly using third-party providers, such as iFinance and BankX. The OCR technology alone makes it a strong contender against other more simple online budgeting tools. Not least, Mac users will be glad to see how this application was designed to look and feel like a macOS product. Using a familiar user interface could make life a little easier after all.
Between the five options above, you have a strong starting point for your budgeting tools depending on your experience. Remember that importing is one of the key features to look for in budget programs. Still, in order to find the best fit you might need to try a couple of different options.
Thankfully, both MoneyWiz and Receipts have a free 7-day trial that you can take advantage of by heading over to Setapp, an app subscription service for Mac that gives you access to over 150 macOS apps, including all the necessary budget tools. Getting MoneyWiz and Receipts at once? You won’t be disappointed.
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Moneydance is a budgeting tool similar to Quicken but only charges a one time fee of $49.99, rather than expensive monthly charges.
With Moneydance you can monitor your banking and investment accounts all in one place – using your computer and phone. It’s also possible to handle multi-currency transactions and pay your bills directly from Moneydance.
This in-depth Moneydance review can help you decide if this is the best premium personal finance app for managing your money.
How Moneydance Works
Moneydance is free for the first 100 transactions. After that, you can purchase the software for a one time fee of $49.99.
Tracking bank, digital wallet, and credit card transactions
Online bill pay
Categorizing transactions and budgeting
Monitoring investment account performance
Multi-currency transactions
Moneydance is a robust platform. Your entire financial universe assembles in one place. Moneydance can automatically download financial transactions and sort them into their proper categories. You can also build a custom budgeting strategy including importing your existing budget spreadsheets.
Accessing all your accounts in one place makes tracking your money simple. Your Moneydance charts and graphs give you a visual picture of where your money's going. The charting can be particularly beneficial for anyone with difficulty tracking spending.
Many budget-focused apps have mediocre investment tracking – at best. Moneydance can track your savings, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and other investments. Not only does it keep track of your investments, but it also displays the performance of each.
You can also pay bills from the app, as well as receive alerts to remind you when payments are due. The last feature can save you money by helping you to avoid late fees.
Like any personal finance app, there is a small learning curve to efficiently navigate the software. Moneydance is not frustration-free. There can be programming bugs with importing data files and syncing your accounts. But you will find that with any software.
Moneydance Download Options
Moneydance remains a “desktop-first” budgeting app and is compatible with these operating systems:
Windows (7+)
macOS (10.11+)
Linux
Mac Finance Apps Reviews
The Android or Apple mobile app is a good companion and syncs with your desktop using Dropbox. However, the Moneydance mobile app lacks many desktop features and other cloud-based apps are better.
Moneydance is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as iOS and Android mobile phones.
Moneydance Key Features
The many banking and investment features can make Moneydance the only personal finance app you use. Most apps specialize in either budgeting or tracking net worth and investments. It’s not often that you can do both with one program.
Online Banking
You probably have online banking through each individual bank but what if you have several accounts in two or more banks?
The Moneydance online banking can be a serious benefit when you have accounts at multiple banks. You can access each account from the same app.
Moneydance automatically downloads your transactions, then automatically categorizes them to help you track your spending. You can also make payments directly from the app.
Bill Pay
Some budgeting apps are excellent at tracking your finances and money goals. However, you must still use your bank app to schedule single or recurring online bill payments. Moneydance lets you pay bills from its platform using Direct Connect – the same program that Quicken and Quickbooks use.
Many national and regional banks support Moneydance for online bill payments and downloading transactions.
Home Finance Software Mac
Payment Reminders
You can use this tool to schedule either individual payments or recurring transactions. Use it and you'll never forget a payment again.
Moneydance Summary
This is your high altitude view – the big picture of your finances.
Some “all in one” finance apps excel at aggregating your account data but make it difficult to navigate your accounts.
The Moneydance summary dashboard provides these details:
Account balances
Upcoming and overdue transactions
Payment reminders
Foreign exchange rate information
While everything is summarized on one page, you can click on an account, or choose one from the drop-down list, to go directly to that account. There you can enter transactions, or reconcile your account.
Categorizing Transactions
Moneydance allows you to set budgets by category, for example, you may set a budget for restaurants. When a transaction comes into your checking account for a restaurant you can categorize that as such.
It’s also possible to assign “tags” to the transactions you categorize too. These tags can be handy when running budget reports and analyzing spending trends. For example, you might tag all of your expenses while on vacation as “travel”. You can then pull reports and see exactly how much your recent vacation was.
Account Registers
Here you can enter or delete transactions, or make any edits necessary. It's set up like a traditional checkbook, but it automatically calculates your balances and sorts your transactions. It also has an auto-complete feature for recurring transactions to save time.
Graphing Tool
The graphing tools enable you to generate visual reports tracking both your income and expenses.
You can create any type of graph you're comfortable with, and customize it with the desired date range and any other parameters you choose. Graphs can also be printed or saved on your computer.
Some of the available graphs include:
Account balances
Asset allocation for investments
Income and expenses
“Memorized graphs” (Customizable graphs that update continually)
Net worth
Budget Reports
You may also appreciate the in-depth analysis that budget reports offer. These reports can make it easy to track your personal or business figures.
Some of the potential budget reports include:
Account balances
Budget performance
Cash flow
Income and expenses
Missing checks
Reconciling transactions
Tag summary of categorized transactions
Transfers
VAT/GST applicable expenses and total tax paid
There are multiple investment performance reports you can run too. For instance, some of the investment-related reports let you track cost basis, capital gains, portfolio performance, and transactions.
Investment Tracking
Tracking your investments is where Moneydance departs from many of the pure budgeting apps. It enables you to follow your investments not only by updating the total value of your portfolio but also by providing the performance of individual securities.
Microsoft Finance App
You can track stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit, mutual funds, and just about any other type of investment.
You can customize investment tracking by setting it to automatically download daily security prices. It can also help you to perform cost basis computations, as well as to account for stock splits.
Foreign Currency Transactions
If you do any foreign currency transactions or have a foreign-based bank account, you'll really appreciate this feature.
There's no need to get out your calculator and look up daily exchange rates. It all happens automatically.
Moneydance Pricing
Moneydance can be purchased for a flat fee of $49.99. This one-time fee is an advantage over competing platforms that have monthly fees or a recurring annual fee.
You can make your one-time fee upfront, then use the app forever. Payment can be made by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, PayPal, or Amazon gift cards.
Each personal license is good for every computer in your household with unlimited use.
For businesses, Moneydance requests one license per computer or data file (whichever is smaller). You can share data files between multiple computers and only buy one license.
Free Trial Period for Your First 100 Manual Transactions
Moneydance offers a free trial for your first 100 manually entered transactions. You have full access to the app during the trial period. Once you reach that threshold, you can make the one-time payment and continue using the app. Or not.
The Moneydance app comes with a 90-day money back guarantee. If you're not happy for any reason, you can return the product for a full refund.
Upgrade Policy
After you purchase the software you get one free major release update. After your free update, you will receive subsequent updates at half price.
Quicken, and most other software packages, makes you pay full freight with each major upgrade.
Moneydance vs Quicken
Moneydance and Quicken are two of the most powerful personal finance programs on the market. Quicken offers a similar experience to Moneydance for PC and Mac. Both programs require a desktop download and their mobile apps syncs with your desktop file. Quicken dropped its cloud-only data storage a few years ago.
You might prefer Quicken as this program may sync with more banks and brokerages. And, Quicken offers chat and phone support while Moneydance only offers email support.
However, Quicken charges of yearly fee of either $34.99, $44.99 or $74.99 depending on your plan tier.
There are two great reasons to consider Moneydance instead of Quicken. First, personal households pay a one-time $49.99 for a lifetime license. The most similar Quicken plan tier costs $74.99 per year.
A second advantage of Moneydance is its customization potential. Developers can create extensions that don’t require you to upgrade to the latest version to enjoy. Quicken is more likely to require forced updates if you want to continue using their product.
One tidbit most long-time Quicken users may not know is that Intuit sold Quicken in 2016. A private equity firm now owns the platform but Intuit still owns the Quicken trademark. Intuit wants to focus their efforts on Quickbooks and TurboTax.
Here's our full review of Quicken.
Moneydance Pros and Cons
Moneydance Pros:
Reasonably priced: The one-time fee of $49.99 is quite reasonable for a personal finance app that does all that Moneydance can.
One-time fee: If you're looking for a budgeting software app, the last thing you need is another monthly expense for the app itself. Moneydance spares you the extra hit.
Not cloud-based: If you are worried about your data being stored in the cloud, Moneydance doesn't. It's stored locally. The Moneydance mobile app syncs with your desktop file to update your financial accounts in real-time.
License is for personal use and per household: You don't need to pay per install, pay per person using it, or how many computers you use it on. It's one license per household for as many computers as you want.
Free Trial: You can “test drive” Moneydance for 100 transactions. If you like what you see, you can pay the fee, and continue using it. If you don't, you can simply drop it and move on.
The 90-day guarantee: This gives you the opportunity to back out with a full refund if you decide you're not happy with the app, even after you complete the initial 100 transactions.
Digital reconciliation: You can balance your accounts and reconcile transactions, as well as detect fraudulent activity in any of your accounts.
Currency conversion: Not everyone regularly engages in foreign transactions, but if you do, Moneydance is the personal finance app for you.
Moneydance Cons:
Feels cluttered: The dashboard tends to be a bit cluttered and could be especially confusing if you have a large number of accounts included and are still learning the system.
Importing is tricky: This is not uncommon. To import data you need to make sure the data is exported into a QIF file, which is an ASCII text file generated by Quicken. QIF stands for Quicken
Interchange Format.
Limited customer service: Receiving a tech support response may take longer than with other budget software. The Moneydance knowledge base answers many FAQs and you have email support access.
Is Moneydance Worth It?
Moneydance offers a free trial for 100 transactions and a 90-day money-back guarantee, so you can give it a reasonable test drive to see if you like it.
There are so many different budgeting software apps out there and it often comes down to which you'll be the most comfortable with. Some are fairly simple in nature, like EveryDollar, and others are slightly more complicated, like Quicken. Moneydance could be the app that works for you. If not, here's our list of some great personal finance apps.
It goes beyond pure budgeting, by offering investment tracking and currency conversions. These will be more important to you if you have multiple investment accounts or regular foreign transactions.
If you'd like more information, visit the Moneydance website.