Online Budgeting Software

Create and track budgets, manage debt

Quicken Online and Mint excel at showing you your big financial picture; if you primarily want help managing debt and sticking to a budget, you might consider some other services.

Buxfer, launched in late 2006, is a bit different in that it can manage group expenses, so that roommates and travel buddies can keep track of who has paid what, and of resulting IOUs. Users can even pay their friends through the website, using Amazon Payments (Amazon Payments imposes a fee on people who receive money using this service, though not on senders). Buxfer has a free basic membership that gives you five accounts, so up to five people can create budgets and track expenses. If you need to include more accounts, an upgrade to unlimited membership costs $2.79 per month. Buxfer also performs account aggregation, creates spending reports and sends out alerts and weekly financial reports via email and text message. Reviewers like its budgeting tool. It lets you create and track budgets and allows you to use tags to better categorize expenses. You can assign more than one tag to a transaction; neither Mint nor Quicken Online lets you split transactions between categories. Buxfer can automatically download transactions and update your accounts, but, if you're worried about security, you don't have to provide user names and passwords; you can manually upload account information.

Because of its capacity to track group expenses, and because its reports are very basic, reviewers say that Buxfer is best suited to roommates, college students and groups of friends who vacation together. It tracks only bank and credit card accounts in addition to IOUs. Don Reisinger of CNET says Buxfer's primary strength is its simplicity. Buxfer is one of PCMag.com's picks for best free software of 2009 in the finance category, and Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine includes it in their article titled "The Six Best Budgeting Sites." You can log into the Buxfer site directly, or you can link the application to a Google account, your Facebook page or a number of other web applications.

If you want software that's closer to Quicken Online or Mint in functionality, Mvelopes (*est. $130 per year) offers account aggregation with automatic updates, and connects to over 14,000 financial institutions. In addition to bank and credit card accounts, it tracks IRAs, 401(k) accounts, stocks, mutual funds, mortgages and auto loans, so it can provide an up-to-date calculation of your net worth. The software also offers online bill pay. The distinguishing feature Mvelopes offers, however, is its envelope budgeting tool. The tool allows the user to allocate income to specific expenses and savings accounts using virtual envelopes. User can check the balances from their mobile phone. The idea is that if you allocate all of your income to specific envelopes, which represent expenses and savings accounts, you're less likely to overspend. Mvelopes also calculates how much you need to save each month for upcoming one-time expenses, like a vacation or down payment.

PC World named Mvelopes (which was formerly called Finicity) one of their 100 Best Products of the Year in 2006, and The Wall Street Journal, while it doesn't offer a comprehensive review, recommends Mvelopes to those who want software that has "stood the test of time." However, Mvelopes is expensive, and we found a lot of complaints about usability and costs.

A review on the website of Forbes columnist Sramana Mitra, for example, says of Mvelopes, "It's complicated to use and needs a serious redesign for better user interface." PC World's Tom Mainelli stresses that although he likes the service, "there's a bit of a learning curve" and some functions are "somewhat complicated." Some users posting to Epinions.com complain that the bill pay feature sometimes malfunctions and pays an expense twice in one month. A number of users on that same thread, however, cite satisfaction with the software and with customer service.

When signing up for a free 14-day trial of Mvelopes, you have to provide credit card information and choose a plan (two years for $190, one year for $130 or three months for $40). If you don't cancel in time, your credit card is automatically charged for the entire length of the plan you specified. A lengthy discussion thread on Epinions.com has scores of user posts, dating back to mid-2006, dedicated to billing and refund policies. Some customers complain that they have had trouble canceling their subscription within the trial period; others who canceled a few days past the deadline simply feel it is unfair that they should be charged the full price even though they intended to cancel. On the other hand, a number of happy customers defend Mvelopes, saying that the company is upfront about the policy. The Mvelopes COO even responds in the forum and posts his phone number, encouraging customers to call him. About.com reviewer Shelley Elmblad gives the software only three-and-a-half out of five stars because of such concerns. (Note that ConsumerSearch is owned by About.com, but the two don't share an editorial affiliation.)

Those with concerns about Mvelopes may prefer PearBudget (*est. $3 per month), which offers a 30-day free trial for which you do not have to provide a credit card. PearBudget, which originated as a downloadable budgeting spreadsheet and expanded into a full-fledged financial site, also uses an envelope-based budgeting system, and although it isn't reviewed by as many sources as Mvelopes, reviewers and users are generally positive. PearBudget does not aggregate accounts, but rather requires that the user manually input transactions. PearBudget then calculates how much the user must put aside each month and tracks whether the user is sticking to the budget for regular expenses. PearBudget generates simple reports that show actual spending, income and savings compared to budgeted amounts.

Reviewers praise PearBudget for its simplicity, and say that the customer service is also excellent. About.com's Shelley Elmblad, for example, says she recommends PearBudget "for its simplicity, ease-of-use, and accuracy," and reports that she found its customer support to be "extremely responsive." According to a review on Beingfrugal.net, Charlie Park, who created PearBudget along with his wife, answers emails personally and is available on Twitter as well. The Beingfrugal.net review also says that PearBudget is "the simplest budgeting software" the editor has ever reviewed.

Another option is You Need A Budget (YNAB), which isn't actually an online service. Rather, YNAB is downloadable software. The basic version, You Need A Budget Basic (*est. $25), comes in a spreadsheet format, and allows you to create and track budgets; you'll need Microsoft Excel (or Open Office) on your computer in order to use it. You Need A Budget Pro (*est. $50) is a Windows-only application that lets you import bank information, create custom categories and create reports. You can read more about YNAB in our report on accounting software.