Financial Budget Planner Recommendations?

Nitefly

Nitefly

Nitefly

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Joined
24 Sep 2005
Posts
37,713
Hi there

I have a family member that needs help with finances, which are legitimately complicated. I’m trying to help them manage this with excel spreadsheets but it requires quite a lot of foresight to anticipate shortfalls etc. I’m sure there must be either software or an app that can visually help better than my spreadsheets.

Any ideas? Many thanks in advance. Sorry if this seems a lazy request but I am very stretched in terms of my thinking power and time so please forgive my request for an instant answer.

Cheers.
 
bloodiedathame said:
How about something like Moneydashboard?
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Potentially, sounds good!

To add more info, we are talking several thousand pounds coming in and out at irregular intervals across multiple accounts on different dates, which is a nightmare to visualise, so this is beyond something ‘basic’ (by reference to my own basic financial management).

Thanks.
 
Microsoft Money allows you to enter different amounts for bills and income in the budgeting section. Alternatively you can just fill in as many future bills and income as you wish. Has the ability to do graphs too.
 
Excessive spreadsheets or software are not useful, you or they should make the most simplistic sheet for the purpose.

The purpose of which is simply to have categories and then later be able to see how much is spent on each category. As a demotivator tool mostly.
 
Nitefly said:
Potentially, sounds good!

To add more info, we are talking several thousand pounds coming in and out at irregular intervals across multiple accounts on different dates, which is a nightmare to visualise, so this is beyond something ‘basic’ (by reference to my own basic financial management).

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Genuinely the only thing here is Excel. Start with a basic time series with a worksheet for each month. I can share my own personal finance calculator if you like, but it certainly requires effort.
 
Nitefly said:
Potentially, sounds good!

To add more info, we are talking several thousand pounds coming in and out at irregular intervals across multiple accounts on different dates, which is a nightmare to visualise, so this is beyond something ‘basic’ (by reference to my own basic financial management).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

The good thing about moneydashboard is that you link it to your accounts and it pulls everything in for you. Then you can tag your expenditure, create some rules and see where your money is going. I found it very helpful to visualise how much I was spending at the pub vs at the supermarket!
 
bloodiedathame said:
The good thing about moneydashboard is that you link it to your accounts and it pulls everything in for you. Then you can tag your expenditure, create some rules and see where your money is going. I found it very helpful to visualise how much I was spending at the pub vs at the supermarket!
Click to expand...
It's good for a lol and a :( but it doesn't really help anything I found. Irregular amount forecasting is hard. It is just about pretty pictures and mining your data to sell on.
 
I use YNAB. Very good system. It uses zero based budgeting for each month.

It used to be a one off cost but now has moved to a subscription based model.
 
Before using software/apps - Can you not simplify the complication? I.e - do they require so many transactions? What can be cancelled? Changed etc?
 
I use moneyhub - it connects to your banks and gives you spending trends and helps with forecasting / budgeting (it looks at what you've spent and trends accordingly, you can also add anticipated spends to the forecast to give you a cashflow forecast, quite cool). All the transactions are automatically captured and you can categorise them - you can then quickly see where you've gone over on budget. Of course you have to pay, but it's worth it, I can't live without it now.
 
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