Accounting software
If you want to use your Mac to organise your finances, you need a good budgeting package. We look at six of the leading options
Hard work and good fortune aside, the key to financial security is knowing where your money is and understanding where it’s going.
We all have a range of daily expenses, from mundane essentials such as mortgages, rent and insurance, to frivolous treats like lattes, days out to the zoo and cinema trips. If you find yourself running on red while trying to settle the former, it’s often because you’ve been too liberal with the latter. The trouble is, it’s not always easy to see that.
The odd £2 here on coffee or tea, catching the bus instead of walking, buying a paper when you could read the news online… each is an expense, which together can quickly add up, and although none – on its own – will greatly affect your ability to save for a house or provide for your child’s future, it’s often the small, unremarked expenses like these that have the most insidious effect on your financial health.
Tracking them all in one of the six apps on test here helps you identify the areas you can cut, plan a strategy for the last few days before your next pay cheque arrives, build a budget and track stocks or shares in an online
Tracking your income and expenses can give you an enormous sense of satisfaction
portfolio. Don’t be put off by the idea of working with digits and budgets. It might sound boring, but once you start tracking your income and expenses, you get an enormous sense of satisfaction and wellbeing. These apps make it easy, and by knowing exactly where you stand you’ll have a clearer picture of what you can and can’t afford each month.
We’ve tested each application with real data in the four key areas that have the greatest impact on your financial health. Each took non-US currencies in its stride, and many cut out a lot of the heavy lifting by importing transactions directly from our bank or share portfolio. In less than a day, we’d managed to set up our accounts in each, which means you should only need to set aside a couple of hours to do the same with your own. Nik Rawlinson