Most Popular Personal Finance Software

There are a few different personal finance software programs on the market today. However since personal finance isn't a well known type of software, sometimes people will simply buy the most popular personal finance/budget software.

This can sometimes be a mistake though. This is because there are some really good home finance software packages which have great features and are available at a relatively low price, however they aren't as well known as some of the bigger names.

And some of the more popular programs out there aren't as good as the lesser-known ones. Thus whilst buying the most popular personal finance software might seem like a good idea, it might be more sense to choose the best on the market instead.

The choice of personal finance software is made especially hard considering that the fairly popular (and good quality) Microsoft Money was discontinued in 2009, and other popular software (for example Quicken money management) has stopped selling to certain markets, i.e. in 2006 they stopped selling to the UK market.

As a result of this, many people started buying Home Accountz instead. However is Home Accountz a good piece of software, or is its popularity mainly due to lack of choice? (At the time of writing, it's the bestselling piece of personal finance software on Amazon)

This article will look at three of the most popular home budgeting software programs and look at whether their popularity is well deserved, or instead whether it's simply the result of lack of choice/consumer awareness.

Home Accountz

As mentioned above, the Home Accountz (formerly called Personal Accountz) range seen a rise in popularity in 2006 when many people (especially in the UK market) switched to it from Quicken's software. On the face of it, this software has all the features you would want from a personal finance/budget software, and more: download and import bank and credit card statements, easy-to-use interface, automated direct debits and standing orders, graphics and charts, automatic budgets, forecasting, updates in real time and more.

It's mainly aimed at the UK market though (however we're reviewing it here due to lack of choice of other such software in the UK market) hence it might be difficult to purchase this in the US and other countries. The company who create this software are fairly active and happy to listen closely to their customers though, which is always a good sign.

However unfortunately, Home Accountz (like Personal Accountz before it) doesn't have great reviews: for example, at the time of writing, 36% of Amazon.co.uk customers have given it a bad review (compared to 48% giving it a good review, and the rest are neutral). Hence you might like this piece of software, although be aware that it has its problems.

Microsoft Money

This was seen by many people as the best personal finance software out there. Hence it was a big surprise to its many (happy!) customers when Microsoft announced that they would stop producing new versions of it in 2009. The Microsoft Money Plus software in 2008 has all the main features (including online banking support) which you would expect, however in 2009 Microsoft released Microsoft Money Plus Sunset which removed the online banking features.

Hence if you mainly want a personal budgeting software for offline purposes, then Microsoft Money might be okay for you. But be aware that they are no longer making new versions of it, and the latest version has no online banking support which means that the millions of people who bank online should unfortunately look elsewhere for their personal finance software.

You Need A Budget

Screenshot of You Need A Budget Screenshot from Amazon.com showing reviews of the You Need A Budget software

After two somewhat bad (or at the very least, unfortunate) reviews, we come to the popular You Need A Budget software. This is mainly available in the US market, although it does thankfully offer features to change the date format and currency hence British consumers will thankfully not have any difficulty in using this software in the UK. You Need A Budget comes with all the features you would expect (just like Home Accountz), although unlike Home Accountz it's also been getting really good reviews!

In-fact, check out the screenshot (taken from Amazon.com on 31st August 2010) for a brief look at the reviews of this software. Clearly this is a very popular piece of software: it has all the features you would expect (and more!) and also great reviews. We'd recommend that you considering purchasing this if you are looking for personal finance software.

Thanks for reading. If you are interested in a more detailed analysis of some of the best budgeting software on the market, please check out our What's the best personal budgeting software? article.


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