Edit: Updated link direct to budgetbakers. (Download app, lifetime feature is available when clicking on BUY PREMIUM).
One of the best personal finance apps around with over 140,462+ votes on Play Store (4.6/5).
Connect all your bank feeds and know exactly where you stand. Tracks all income/expenses automatically.
Works with nearly all Australian banks, credit cards and PayPal.
Lifetime license cost $47.99 and means you avoid paying recurring fees each year.
Platform can be accessed via Android/iOS or Web.
What are these personal finance apps and how can they help me?
I've used quite a few of them, e.g. spendee, moneybrilliant, getmoneytree, mint and found BudgetBakers is one of the best. Couldn't believe they are running a lifetime deal at the moment with 15% off. These deals don't come around often because it cost them monthly fees $$ when using 3rd party bank syncs (Yodlee).
So in a nutshell, you download app, select your financial institution from a list, supply your accountid/username +password and these apps use a 3rd party service (e.g. Yodlee) to connect to those accounts to automatically download all transaction items. It then tries to auto-categorize the items into categories like Shopping, Internet, Gas/Power, etc. You can generate reports that show all your income/spending per week, month, year, etc. Lets you keep tabs on your spending and earning.
Is it safe?
Yodlee handles millions of bank accounts for some of the largest financial firms, so I would say it's safe enough.
Other app features:
- You can create filters, so if the app doesn't auto categorize correctly, you can for example make it so that all "IINET" transaction keywords go into "ISP category" and say all "FOXTEL" transactions get put into Entertainment.
- You can define your own categories
- You can define your own labels
- You can use multiple currencies, although I would recommend choosing AUD as base.
- You can set pin on the app
- Each account has it's own tab, so you can choose to show income/expense report from all the accounts you hold or say just generate a report for PayPal only.
Seriously, this app is pretty good. Quicken is charging Aussies $180/year for virtually the same thing. (Yes, you can do more in Quicken but people upgrade and pay each year to keep their bank feeds active).
Another good free alternative (less features) is PocketBook - https://getpocketbook.com/
Any 3rd party that requires me to give my banking details over is a big no. I’m pretty sure it’d be written in your internet banking Ts and Cs that you can’t use 3rd party apps for security reasons.