Many banks and brokerages offer free online bill pay services, but some charge a fee for this service.Choose the Right Personal Financial Software to Manage Your Money.Shelley Elmblad was a personal finance software expert for The Balance, and has experience researching and teaching savings strategies over 20 years.Whether youre new to personal finance software and you need to know what money management benefits you can expect, or youre looking to switch to another software of the same type, this list of features and benefits will help you to understand what features you need to have in your software.
At a glance, personal finance software shows the balances of all accounts that you choose to track. As purchases and payments are entered into the software or downloaded from banks and other financial institutions, the software does the math to reflect accurate account balances. If you use an online personal finance app, balances will update at least once a day. Personal Finance Software Reviews Cnet Mac Desktop SoftwareIf you want to use Windows or Mac desktop software, find out if the software will update accounts automatically each time you start using it, which is preferred for accuracy and convenience. While automatically downloading transactions is a very secure procedure, its not comfortable for everyone. If you are uncomfortable with this process, choose financial software that lets you import transactions after they are downloaded to your computer, or enter transactions manually. Most financial software lets you schedule reminders for bills, paychecks, deposits and fund transfers, a feature that helps a great deal with avoiding interest and fees charged for late payments. Many software choices can send reminders to your cell phone, smart phone, or through email. At a minimum, an alert should appear right in the software when bills are coming due. For any alert to work with personal finance software, you will need to set up scheduled transactions for all bills that you expect on a regular basis. This feature is usually found in Windows and Mac financial software, but not as often with online apps. When an account is reconciled using personal finance software, transactions are checked off in the software with a mouse click when they match the financial statement. All the math is done for you and determining if your account balance matches the bank, credit card company, or other financial institution is much faster. ![]() After a budget is set up, you need to assign budget categories to income and expenses in your accounts. The software should have a memorized transaction feature so you only need to assign categories to most transactions once. While almost all personal finance software includes a budgeting tool, if you primarily use the software for budgeting purposes, consider dedicated budgeting software. Transaction categories for taxes are included in some financial software, and you can always set up your own tax categories, which are then used when you prepare your return to generate a report on tax deductions, estimated taxes paid, and other items. If you categorize income tax-related transactions from paychecks, charitable donations, and other tax-deductible expenses, annual income tax preparation gets much easier. Run a tax report for the year to get data for your tax return, or even easier, transfer data to tax software. If you arent diligent about using tax categories consistently, you should not use them at all to avoid income tax return errors. Some financial software will let you pay bills online directly through the software while automatically entering transactions into accounts at the time payment is made.
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December 2020
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