Personal Capital vs Mint vs Quicken vs Money dance vs Countabout are all potential options to help you get a better grip on your personal finances or tidy up your investment portfolios.
That said, deciding which one meets your requirements can be confusing. So let's break it down.
With personal bookkeeping software costing anything from zero dollars up to as much as 100 per year, it's important to know your needs and limitations before you invest.
Inadequate financial tracking software can lead to financial headaches, overspending, poor money management, and ultimately, unfulfilled financial goals. A relatively small investment in the appropriate software can have a substantial positive impact on the health of your finances.
(This is an interesting article on what you learn from tracking your finances over along period of time.)
If you're looking for some basic budgeting in your finances, there are various software packages with tracking tools that allow you to track your spending every month and even set aside specified amounts if you're saving for a particular financial goal, such as a house purchase or a wedding.
At the other end of the scale, stock market investors will need higher spec software with tools that will allow them to track their full portfolio, comparing it with the current market and possibly even integrating with their financial firm.
The major player at this end of the personal bookkeeping software spectrum is Quicken, one of the best-known and most frequently used money management tools on the market.
With multiple features to help you manage your financial situation, it continues to remain a favorite tool for anything from basic budgeting to tracking savings and investments.
Quicken (Mac & PC)
Quicken is one of the most significant money management software packages on the market.
You may have heard about Quicken separating from Intuit roughly three years ago and since then have improved the flagship version, but also created a lighter cloud based version called Simplifi.
Features
- Manages your account balances, investing, personal budgeting, and loans.
- Monitors the performances of your brokerage accounts extremely. It has transactional level detail for brokerage accounts, providing data as good as your brokerage website. But it's better because it can combine all your accounts into one view.
- The home and business version allows you to also incorporate your business accounts and have A/P & A/R. Your invoices can get paid by credit card as well!
- The home and business version also has a real estate management component. It offers a full suite of functions to manager your real estate and rental property portfolio.
- Basically, Quicken does more than any other software I have been able to find.
Pricing
Quicken allows for long-term planning giving its users the best bang for their buck. Some argue that it is expensive but with its provided features you can save money by thinking smarter about your finances.
They also offer plans at different rates to help you manage whatever finances you need control over.
Thoughts
Quicken appeals to both those who need guidance with personal budgeting and those with large investment portfolios to manage. Quicken also has an incredibly user-friendly mobile app for around-the-clock convenience.
The downside of Quicken is that it is not a fully cloud based product. That said, it does have a cloud “side to it”. You can perform all functions on the desktop app, but sync your data to the cloud and access it via a browser or the app.
Many of the basic functions you can perform on the cloud side as well. So it's “almost” a fully cloud-based product. I think it will be fully cloud-based eventually.
But beyond software, master your finances with our comprehensive courses. From setting up a solid financial independence roadmap to understanding real estate and managing your business finances, our courses are designed to turn you into a pro at handling your money and shaping your financial future.
Personal Capital
While Personal Capital has budgeting facilities, it is mainly an investment service with an advisory team on-hand to guide you and manage your investments.
While the Personal Capital personal bookkeeping software is free, they have a Premium Service whereby you can avail direct investment management from the Personal Capital team and guidance from a personal advisor.
Features
- It offers Individual securities.
- Personal Capital has free, comprehensive investment management tools.
- Dedicated financial advisors are at your assistance whenever you need it.
- They provide advanced tax optimization strategies.
Pricing
Signing up for Personal Capital is free. However, for accounts up to $1 million seeking financial advice and wealth management, you pay a flat, all-inclusive annual management fee of 0.89%.
Thoughts
A free and easy-to-use personal finance software that syncs up all your accounts into one location. Personal Capital creates summaries of your spending, net worth, and most importantly, your investment portfolio.
What most people find to be the best asset in the software is the wealth management service that is provided with the paid version.
Moneydance
In the personal bookkeeping software game, Moneydance would be considered Quicken's primary, if not somewhat lesser-known competitor. On the market for over 20 years, it matches all Quicken's features with a few extras of its own.
It's particularly useful in foreign exchange transactions and uses handy visual displays to represent the current state of your finances.
Features
- Tracks the personal finances of each user.
- It provides online bill pay services.
- They support multiple currencies, including cryptocurrencies.
- Provides strong security for its users.
- Capable transaction management, such as budgeting.
- Moneydance handles investment tracking and reports.
Pricing
Today, Moneydance can be purchased for a flat rate of $65 with a 90-day money-back guarantee. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Thoughts
Moneydance is an excellent platform if you regularly engage in foreign exchange transactions or deal in more than one currency. Advanced features allow you to track the stocks and bonds on the market and you can set the software to update the value of your portfolio daily.
Moneydance is considered to be one of the most popular Quicken alternatives for Mac.
Mint
Mint is also a free platform, mainly directed at personal budgeting on a smaller scale. With Mint personal bookkeeping software, you can pull your whole financial life into one application and get a good cross-section of all your accounts, including personal, checking, credit cards, and even your PayPal account.
The primary function of Mint is budgeting, and it excels at this with features to alert you when bills are due, credit limits being reached and when you're achieving your pre-determined goals.
Features
- It pulls all personal financial information into one location providing an overview of current finances.
- Provides alerts to the user if too much is spent on ATM fees, budget is exceeded, if a bill is due soon, or suspicious account activity is detected.
- Most of Mint’s users are mobile and it's easy to use interface makes for a great experience.
Pricing
Mint offers a large part of services for free for users to track personal spending, banking, credit card and more. However, those wishing to upgrade to the premium plan of the credit monitoring software can pay $16.99 per month to subscribe to the Mint Credit Monitor.
Thoughts
With Mint’s mobile app users can easily access their overview spending, account trends and cashflow, view alerts and updates, and characterize transactions. Mint makes for an experience that is fast and incredibly easy for their users. Tracking your finances has never been more simple.
CountAbout
CountAbout is an easy-to-use online personal finance application. With no software to install, it is anywhere you have an Internet connection. Their platform is stable, secure, and totally private. It might be a good alternative to Quicken if you want a software that is cloud-based.
This is the only web-based personal bookkeeping software that imports data from Quicken and Mint. It also includes an app and widgets to compare monthly spending.
Another key distinction is that CountAbout is a completely advertising-free experience. Of course, to make that possible, there is an annual subscription cost.
If you have been frustrated with Quicken, you may want to try CountAbout. One reviewer called it “Quicken without the glitches.”
Features
- CountAbout can import Mint and Quicken data into its own software.
- Provides excellent transaction tracking.
- Includes customizable categories and tags.
- Supplies its users with good recurring transaction options.
Pricing
CountAbout offers a 15-day free trial of either the Premium or Basic version. Other than that, CountAbout's pricing is not like its competitors. Starting at $9.99 per year, you get access to everything except the ability to connect with online financial institutions. You will have to enter transactions manually, though you can import files from banks if they can produce QIF files.
Adding those direct connections brings the cost to $39.99 per year. In addition, no matter which level you choose, you have to pay another $10 per year if you want to add attachments to transactions, this is found to be unusual for any financial service. Simple invoicing tools (not commonly found on personal finance sites) cost $60 each year for either pricing tier.
Thoughts
There are many other personal finance apps to choose from. One advantage of CountAbout is you can import categories and transactions from your Quicken or Mint accounts — allowing you to pick up with CountAbout where you left off with the other software.
They also place a high value on online security. The software does not track your usage so your data is completely private. The only data stored about you is your encrypted email address.
Personal Capital vs Mint vs Quicken vs Money dance vs Countabout Conclusions
Everybody has different priorities when tracking their finances, and the various types of software will reflect this with different features and tools.
Whether you are interested in investment marketing, personal finances, or financial goal setting, finding the right piece of software can make all the difference to succeeding in your plans.
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