Author Topic: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?  (Read 4892 times)

albireo13

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Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« on: November 20, 2015, 04:32:14 AM »
I was wondering what software folks like for tracking their finances?
I just starting getting religion recently after discovering the MMM website.
I'm a bit behind in all this and want to track my assets better.
Having it as automatic as possible is what I want.  I don't want to have to be manually entering data all the time.

I just started using Mint.  It seems pretty nice, although I've only entered my bank accounts so far.   

Btw, I am 60 and coming down the home stretch.  Hope to FIR in the next 3 years.

arebelspy

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2015, 04:51:33 AM »
Mint for tracking spending, Excel for tracking NW.
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boarder42

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2015, 05:54:33 AM »
i like personal capital for both.  ARS probably has to use excel due to his real estate empire.  but if you're just planning on index funds etc. personal capital is excellent for tracking both your networth and spending.  ( you will have to modify your home value it brings in b/c this comes from zillow and is notoriously wrong)

Vilgan

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2015, 07:24:27 AM »
Mint for both. Much easier. I don't like personal capital as much for spending, so only use it for judging asset allocation across accounts.

elaine amj

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2015, 08:10:07 AM »
Hmm....personal capital?

Right now we use a very badly formatted excel sheet and I wouldn't mind storing the info somewhere a little prettier. And if it makes it easier to track my history and comes up with pretty reports, that would be even better. I can't summon up the motivation to  jazz up the spreadsheet.

elaine amj

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #5 on: November 20, 2015, 09:36:17 AM »
I just checked out personal capital - looks like the typical user uses it like Mint - with automatic linking. how doable is it to use if I prefer to do it all manually? DH is paranoid about giving out all his bank passwords. I already have to do it all manually in my excel anyway so it's not that big a deal to update it every few months.

I also saw some talk about Gnucash. not sure which would be best just for tracking net worth.

I just started using YNAB for monthly budgeting and like it a lot. But we have a slew of investment accounts scattered all over the place and I'd like something a little more slick than my (very messy) excel spreadsheet to track my net worth. YNAB doesn't feel like the best spot.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2015, 09:55:55 AM by elaine amj »

tarheeldan

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #6 on: November 20, 2015, 09:44:14 AM »
I use Quicken. (And Mint so I can get a quick picture on my phone). Quicken allows much more granular detail and the reports are awesome. You've got taxes, retirement, investments, net worth, and each is easy to customize.  I probably spend 1-2 hours a month keeping it up to date; transactions download automatically but then I split them or fix categories etc. and track credit card points too.

2lazy2retire

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2015, 09:57:11 AM »
With regard to mint ( which I use) what is the position of banks and CC companies etc in regard to covering fraud losses as you are freely giving your login details to a third party?

seattleite

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #8 on: November 20, 2015, 10:20:44 AM »
I've used Mint and a bunch of different Mac applications and even tried writing my own web app for this two or three times but in the end I always end up going back to a plain old spreadsheet in Google Sheets.

Lame, I know.

But it's super flexible. I can run what-if calculations. And what I just discovered is that when my calculations get too complex I can write my own custom functions in javascript directly in Google Docs! I now have a pretty good approximation of forms 1040 and 6251 written as a combination of regular spreadsheet kung fu and some custom functions to hide the complexities of tax brackets.

As for entering in expenses, Google Sheets allows me to create a web form that enters in the data.

I know you don't want to be entering data in all the time, but it's really not that hard. I get an alert on my phone every time my credit card is charged and then I quickly enter in the info.

elaine amj

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #9 on: November 20, 2015, 11:37:31 AM »
Got all excited about Personal Capital - only to find out they don't support foreign currencies (boo). I have accounts and investments in both the US and Canada.

Back to square one.

Proud Foot

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #10 on: November 20, 2015, 12:15:45 PM »
I use Quicken to track all my finances, Personal Capital for just my investments, and Excel for investments and net worth.

I update my net worth spreadsheet monthly with information from Quicken and I update my investment spreadsheet whenever I have an investment transaction (typically 401k contribution).  Personal Capital doesn't mean much for me and I am sure I could do without, but it is nice to be able to pull out my phone and see the investment balances for all accounts at one time.

EOS

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #11 on: November 20, 2015, 12:21:58 PM »
I use Quicken. (And Mint so I can get a quick picture on my phone). Quicken allows much more granular detail and the reports are awesome. You've got taxes, retirement, investments, net worth, and each is easy to customize.  I probably spend 1-2 hours a month keeping it up to date; transactions download automatically but then I split them or fix categories etc. and track credit card points too.

+1

Quicken does all of that and some more.  It keeps track of my investments in different places as well. 

jms493

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #12 on: November 20, 2015, 12:25:15 PM »
I use Google Docs (Spreadsheets) from tracking certain stuff.

My monthly Budgets are set using EveryDollar.  Very simple program do do monthly budgets to ensure every red cent is accounting for each month.

Spork

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #13 on: November 20, 2015, 12:52:26 PM »

I use gnucash and have for 15+ years.

advantages:
* I think it is the most "technically correct" package I've seen.  It uses generally accepted accounting principles and double entry bookkeeping. 
* it forces you to really think of things correctly: expenses, income, assets, liabilities.  Other packages sort of clump things into categories ... and that has disadvantages
* if you're a bit of a hacker, it's a dream package.  It writes everything on the back end in XML or SQL.  It makes it very easy to do some really cool stuff.  I have hundreds of graphs I generate myself -- some going back 20 years (yes, that's longer than I've used gnucash, but I imported data).
* free, free, free
* runs on any platform but very well suited for Linux, since that's where it started

Disadvantages
* it's not as whizbang slick as some other packages
* it's auto integration for logging into accounts is going to be less than other packages.  (From a security standpoint, I see this as an advantage, but I realize not everyone sees it that way.)  It does have some abilities in this realm, but I have never used them, so I can't really comment on how well they work.

albireo13

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #14 on: November 21, 2015, 07:59:32 AM »
I forgot to mention that we have all Apple computers. Quicken is an option but I've heard that the Quicken for Macs is not very good.   Hmmmm ... Maybe I'll pick up a cheap laptop for running Windows apps.

Spork

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Re: Favorite SW for tracking net worth/finances?
« Reply #15 on: November 21, 2015, 09:13:24 AM »
I forgot to mention that we have all Apple computers. Quicken is an option but I've heard that the Quicken for Macs is not very good.   Hmmmm ... Maybe I'll pick up a cheap laptop for running Windows apps.

Not a fan of Intuit in any way... Not really a fan of Macs.  But Macs make pretty awesome hypervisors.  Your Mac is probably the optimal place to run Windows.