Keeping your finances under control is always a major priority, and going digital is usually the best way to do it. When you keep only a paper-based system for tracking finances, it’s very easy to misunderstand or just not remember various things. The main focus is to start using digital tools that make it easy to track everything, and you can’t miss any detail. In the end, it’s the better, more consistent and professional solution, and it can indeed make a huge difference.
Why should you consider going the digital route?
Digitalization can prove to have a lot of advantages. For starters, it can automate tracking, and you can also automate savings as well. Plus, it’s a lot more accurate because it helps eliminate human errors. And, of course, you can have access to real time data when it comes to investing and spending. It can also help a lot when it comes to encrypting and protecting your data, which you can’t really do with paper-based solutions.
Plus, these tools also help you set goals, and you can track how close you are to your goals, which is super important. Add to that the fact that you can easily connect every single detail in a single dashboard, then you can see why digitalization will be very useful.
Budgeting tools
Managing your budget can be frightening and also rather challenging. But the upside here is that there are certain tools that are very useful in this situation. Mint is a great budgeting tool that connects to your bank account and it will help categorize transactions, view spending summaries and so on. It has limited customization and the free version has many distracting ads, but it’s still worth a shot.
Then, we have YNAB which delivers stellar hands-on budgeting. It can help you establish goals, track how you pay off your debt, not to mention it has very good reports. PocketGuard can be another good tool you can use, it’s more simplistic, but it does allow you to categorize expenses, not to mention it delivers subscription protection, too. All in all, having digital tools that make it easy to create a budget and manage goals can be extremely useful!
Savings apps
Keeping track of your income and expenses is extremely important. Yet at the same time, you also want to learn how to set money aside. A very good tool for this is Qapital, as it automates savings with help from creative rules. It allows you to link checking accounts, and it motivates you to set money aside.
Oportun (previously Digit) will study your spending and income, and then it automatically helps you save some money. Unlike other tools, it can be great for micro-savings, and paying bills. Although, once you pay your bills, you want to use a utility bill generator to create a copy of that bill. That way, you know you already paid it and everything is fine.
Lastly, we have Acorns, which is great for rounding up spare change from your purchases. Aside from doing that, it also invests the amount automatically, which can prove to be very beneficial for something like this.
Bill payment tools
Prism can help consolidate bills, it will track if you paid everything, and if you didn’t, it will notify you. Such a tool is great because it will perform automatic payments, and it keeps the payment history. You can use it to avoid late fees, and it has a great interface as well. Rocket Money can be good in this situation, mainly because it can find subscriptions, track any bills and also negotiate some better rates. Many of us deal with hidden or recurring charges, and such an approach can be a very good idea to consider.
Investing your money
Another good rule of thumb is to try and invest your money wisely, the best way that you can. Robinhood is a popular tool that has the potential to help you invest your money. You can invest in crypto, ETFs and stocks. Empower will deliver investment advice, but it also has budgeting features, which is something to keep in mind. You can manage your financial goals, while also doing cash management and having a retirement calculator on-hand.
Managing debt
Whether we like it or not, we all deal with debt from time to time. The best thing that we can do is to manage our debt properly and focus on staying away from late fees. Tally is a good app here, because it will automate card payments, and it will optimize the way you pay those off. It can help you save on interest rates, while making it easier to repay the debt.
Undebt.it is free to access, and it uses the avalanche or snowball method that allows you to pay off your debt. It’s detailed and easy to use, it can be very motivational, and you can adapt it to your requirements. That makes it a game-changing solution for a lot of users.
Business/freelancing tools
There are some great tools businesses and freelancers can use, and they can help speed up your workflow. QuickBooks is great for managing taxes, expenses and invoicing. You can also use it to create reports. Having professional-grade accounting is great, and it can help more than expected.
And then we have Wave, which delivers invoicing and free accounting. The dashboard for this tool is very comprehensive. You can easily create invoices on the spot, and scanning receipts is also rather easy to do. Sure, it lacks goal setting or budgeting, but it can prove to be inherently challenging.
All-in-one platforms
While some people might want specific tools, there are also people that want to focus more on complete solutions. And in those situations, it does make sense to use Simplifi, for example. It allows you to manage goals, bills and income in a single place. And then, you also have Monarch Money, a very good app for investing, budgeting and goal tracking. Having it all in a single place is rewarding, but it can also be very tricky to handle for a beginner. But in the long run, this is the right approach.
Choosing the right budgeting tools
When you choose this type of tool, a very good idea is to define your goals. You do want to start small, and then evaluate usability. Once you do that, you can check integration and review security features, for example. Of course, it also makes sense to set a budget and stick with it. Then, you can check for any app or platform-specific features that you might be interested in. Do that, and it will be worth the effort.
Conclusion
Going the digital route can be a very good idea, since you can have a record of all your documents, not to mention you can access them at any time. The ability to store them in the cloud makes them even more worth the effort. That’s why it’s highly recommended to opt for a digitalized approach, as it will help more than expected. It gives you lee-way when it comes to how you track and manage bills or income/expenses, while also controlling everything at any given time.
