The company Markswebb Rank & Report tested 11 of the most popular Russian-language applications to tracking and planning your personal budget and choose the best. Applications are available in the online catalog of programs Apple.
The first step to save money – review of their own spending, say financial advisors. It’s best to do with services PFM (Personal Financial Management), which are automatically estimate your expenses and present them in a convenient form for analysis. Russian PFM-application can be divided into two groups – banking application built into Internet banking, and services of independent developers.
The problem banking applications is that in most cases they analyze the costs of cards and accounts in a particular Bank, while most Russians usually use the services of several credit institutions, and often spend the cash. At the request Quote RBC Agency Markswebb Rank & Report have selected the most popular application for personal accounting software for the iOS and Android platforms and tested them.
The major drawback of independent mobile PFM services is the need in most cases to make all the data manually. For example, none of the developers analyzed Markswebb Rank & Report application could not establish a normal working recognition SMS banks about the transactions. Farther than others have gone Easy domestic Finance and “Zen money”.
Both programs allow you to import Bank statements in multiple formats. However the introduction of these data is possible only in synchronized with the mobile web version. To do it correctly on the website Easy Finance was far from the first time. In addition, it is necessary to possess skills in Excel.
And to configure automatic logging operations in the application “Zen money”, you must make sending e-mail on completed transactions from the Bank to the email address provided by the developers of this project. So you can automatically log in the application of card transactions, for example, Citibank, VTB 24, Bank “St.-Petersburg”. Just the service offers synchronization cost data in some way with eight banks.
Developed in the West MoneyWiz and Money Pro allow you to import the data of Bank statements in OFX format developed from the format for exchanging financial data Microsoft. It is quite popular among American and European banks, but is rare in Russia. Although, for example, the Bank gives you the ability to download account statements in three formats, including OFX.
In the remaining applications will have to create an “account” the Bank account to which you need to enter data on income and expenditure. In some you can account for expenses and income in cash, Bank cards, deposits and other financial products.
The most complete and convenient setting options accounts offers a “Zen money” and Money Pro, believe in Markswebb Rank & Report. In other applications, for example, “big Spender” and Spendee, all expenses are accounted for without reference to specific accounts. Such applications according to Markswebb Rank & Report will be convenient for those who mainly uses cash and not use credit cards.
In all applications by default have a list of categories of expenditure that can be edited by adding new categories and deleting them. According to the test results Markswebb Rank & Report finds most convenient applications for the settings categories and sub-categories of expenditure (for example, in the category “Car” is the ability to create new sub-heading “Service”, “Gasoline”, “Insurance”, etc.) CoinKeeper, Home Budget, and MoneyWiz Money Pro.
In MoneyWiz and Money Pro among other things allow you to split the transaction into parts assigned to different categories of expenditure (for example, the amount spent in the supermarket, can be divided into several categories). In addition, you can add to debit transactions comments and photos.
The most complete and handy tools for visualization and analysis of collected data on expenditures suggest the application CoinKeeper and Spendee – they can look at the distribution of costs by category in a pie chart, you can track the dynamics of expenditure by month in each category.
The opportunities of exporting cost data backup and data sync with other devices are the most functional app Home Budget, “money” and MoneyWiz.
“In the end, the most convenient and visually appealing we found 5 services,” says CEO Markswebb Rank & Report Alexey Skobelev. Here they are:
- Spendee is suitable for students and those who hardly use banking services.
- Zen Mani and CoinKeeper is an attractive and convenient application for easy tracking expenses. For those who use simultaneously in cash and several Bank cards.
- MoneyWiz and Money Pro is a complex application with lots of options. For those for whom the functionality is a priority over convenience.
In addition to the cost analysis applications often offer to set specific goals – to save the necessary amount of money for example, a car or to create a financial “cushion” for 6 months.
Application developers (in this case, Easy Finance) quite learned advice of financial advisers. This is about the need to have just in case the amount for the six months comfortable existence is one of the most popular. Like the Council to monitor their spending.
PFM services is a useful tool for analysis and minimize daily expenses, but to save up for their long-term financial goals is not enough. “It is necessary not only to save, but also understand how to properly invest the accumulated funds. This question is answered personal financial planning, which analyzes the individual financial situation of the person”, – says Director of customer service financial group BCS Anton Grabaron.
Yet PMF services are not too popular among Russians. According to managing Director for e-business PSB of Algirdas of Samanas, the service of the Bank for personal financial planning “Smart money” connects every fifth user of the Internet Bank. The service “My expenses”, which became available to users of the Internet Bank “Alfa-Click” in December 2013, monthly is 12% of customers, says the head of development and innovation of Internet-Bank Alfa-Bank Yury Tchernyshev.
