Home budgeting software in 2023?

[DHR]

It's come time to have a review of finances, my partner's been handling things with spreadsheets for years but to lessen the burden on her I'm in need of taking it on.

Outside of excel, Google docs etc. Do people have any specific recommendations for pulling together financial data from multiple sources, banks, cc statements etc.

Things have improved massively over the years with Monzo being an example but traditional banks don't appear to have followed suit.

Ideally I'm after doing analysis first on where stuffs being spent, e.g. here's the statement, categorise by retailer etc. but I instantly default to opening excel...

 

[Bint Box]

Any reason for moving away from Excel, it is very useful for analysis if you use the PivotTable functionality?
All that is needed for the PivotTables to work their magic is a decent source data sheet with plenty column headers to allow for the depth of analysis you require.

Years ago I used to work with some of the Sage accounting packages, they had a basic SOHO package called Instant Accounts which was a decent bit of software. I am not sure if it is still available or the price?

 

[DHR]

I'll be honest, I've never been a huge fan of Excel, I spend a lot of my day in it for various none finance related reasons, so returning home to look at finances and state at another sheet isn't a motivator! I know it's me not being able to harness the power of it mind.

I think for analysis I'll go down that route, it's just how to pull together statement data, which annoyingly mostly appears to be in PDF format from my account suppliers

 

[Bint Box]

...
I think for analysis I'll go down that route, it's just how to pull together statement data, which annoyingly mostly appears to be in PDF format from my account suppliers

You might be able to import the pdf data into excel electronically in a decent layout format, save manual entry?
Might take a few tries to customise the import process but once done it can be saved per supplier pdf template.

If you wanted to add a bit of automation you could set it up in a macro, activated on a button click.

 

[DHR]

You've inspired me to give it a bash @Bint Box

 

[Bint Box]

You've inspired me to give it a bash @Bint Box

Great stuff, hope you get it working nice and smoothly.
I am a fan of access more so than excel but for your household finance needs excel is plenty powerful and can produce some good quality charts and tables.

 

[Pho]

I use https://www.moneydashboard.com/

It's free, integrates with your banks and automatically pulls in your statements and categorises expenses etc. If you have things that it can't integrate with (say pensions) you can just manually create an account and periodically update it yourself.

It's powered by Yodlee, which I believe lots of companies already use to aggregate bank data anyway.

 

[Martynt74]

I use https://www.moneydashboard.com/

It's free, integrates with your banks and automatically pulls in your statements and categorises expenses etc. If you have things that it can't integrate with (say pensions) you can just manually create an account and periodically update it yourself.

It's powered by Yodlee, which I believe lots of companies already use to aggregate bank data anyway.

Same here, although i use it as @DHR wants to use it and have it more for data collation and then export to Excel and use that for analysis.

 

[DHR]

Thanks all, the money dashboard is exactly the shortcut I was looking for, i'll export to excel for messing around with further bits then.

Only disappointment being that the virgin credit card link mechanism seems to be broken at the moment, but its exactly what I was hoping to find. Great thread!

 

[Hyburnate]

I quite like MoneyHub as an option, perhaps that may work @DHR ?

 

[Participant]

I use https://www.moneydashboard.com/

It's free, integrates with your banks and automatically pulls in your statements and categorises expenses etc. If you have things that it can't integrate with (say pensions) you can just manually create an account and periodically update it yourself.

It's powered by Yodlee, which I believe lots of companies already use to aggregate bank data anyway.

Not heard of this before but it looks great. Will be looking more closely at the weekend.

 

[DHR]

I've only managed to add a few accounts today because of forgotten creds, and the virgin integration that was having issues, but, aside from all of that in impressed it's doing exactly what I wanted with little effort, then I can work on things in excel after. It's pretty cool.

 

[dlockers]

I use https://www.moneydashboard.com/

It's free, integrates with your banks and automatically pulls in your statements and categorises expenses etc. If you have things that it can't integrate with (say pensions) you can just manually create an account and periodically update it yourself.

It's powered by Yodlee, which I believe lots of companies already use to aggregate bank data anyway.

Careful this voids your T&C's with your bank iirc.

 

[DHR]

I was on the fence about it for that very reason but I think open banking has taken things forward a little. Providing it uses open banking I think you're alright.

 

[Pho]

Yeah it uses Openbanking so I think it's fine.

I did remember reading about that issue years ago and held off, but I think all the banks have opened up more since. You're not inputting your online banking credentials into it, just linking it via your banks app or website anyway, so I assume they'd block it if they weren't happy.

 

[Hedge]

Emma app is quite decent too I thought.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I use https://www.moneydashboard.com/

It's free, integrates with your banks and automatically pulls in your statements and categorises expenses etc. If you have things that it can't integrate with (say pensions) you can just manually create an account and periodically update it yourself.

It's powered by Yodlee, which I believe lots of companies already use to aggregate bank data anyway.

Hoping you can answer my question. I use Sheets right now, and it works pretty well. The way I've set it up is that I have every bill in there and each month we contribute towards each bill, and build up for each annual bill. Does moneydashboard have that sort of functionality?

How much setting up does it need? I've tried stuff like this before and found that it was way more focussed on your day to day spending than on your bills. The way I see it, as long as our bills are paid, the rest of the stuff doesn't matter too much.

 

[Pho]

Hoping you can answer my question. I use Sheets right now, and it works pretty well. The way I've set it up is that I have every bill in there and each month we contribute towards each bill, and build up for each annual bill. Does moneydashboard have that sort of functionality?

How much setting up does it need? I've tried stuff like this before and found that it was way more focussed on your day to day spending than on your bills. The way I see it, as long as our bills are paid, the rest of the stuff doesn't matter too much.

I mainly just use it to keep track of all my different accounts in one place rather than for budgeting purposes as it nicely aggregates transactions across them all.

There's pretty much zero set-up. Once you've registered, you go to the accounts tab and link all your banks / credit cards. The linking process is basically just a case of it opening up your banking app (if doing it via their app rather than the website) and it requesting permission. Then it just automatically syncs your accounts and categorises things going forward. Sometimes it doesn't get the right category, e.g., it thinks my payments to Microsoft Azure is a holiday(?), but you can easilly edit it and have it create a rule to fix future ones, it takes a couple of seconds.

It will show you all your upcoming scheduled payments (e.g., bills, standing orders etc) against your scheduled income which is handy to track what you'll have leftover. And you can set-up budgets, e.g., for groceries, travel, to keep you on track each month.

But from what I can see I don't think it lets you set-up a future saving goal kind of budget for those annual bills you talked about. I think most banking apps let you create savings pots for those kind of budgets though?

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I mainly just use it to keep track of all my different accounts in one place rather than for budgeting purposes as it nicely aggregates transactions across them all.

There's pretty much zero set-up. Once you've registered, you go to the accounts tab and link all your banks / credit cards. The linking process is basically just a case of it opening up your banking app (if doing it via their app rather than the website) and it requesting permission. Then it just automatically syncs your accounts and categorises things going forward. Sometimes it doesn't get the right category, e.g., it thinks my payments to Microsoft Azure is a holiday(?), but you can easilly edit it and have it create a rule to fix future ones, it takes a couple of seconds.

It will show you all your upcoming scheduled payments (e.g., bills, standing orders etc) against your scheduled income which is handy to track what you'll have leftover. And you can set-up budgets, e.g., for groceries, travel, to keep you on track each month.

But from what I can see I don't think it lets you set-up a future saving goal kind of budget for those annual bills you talked about. I think most banking apps let you create savings pots for those kind of budgets though?

Thanks very much for the review. If you have accounts in multiple different places, I can see why it would make sense.

 

[SPG]

YNAB if it's still around.

I bought it 10 years ago, works a treat.