With the New Year quickly approaching, the timing couldn’t be better to get your finances in order. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way from writing down every transaction made, saving paper receipts, and opening paper bills. Today, the best mobile solutions for your finances can help you monitor your bank account, track personal and business expenses, and keep an eye out for suspicious activity.
Here are four tips and finance apps to help you get started:
1. Understand what you have and what you owe.
- Mint (iPad, iPhone, Android; Free) – Listed as Mac App Store’s Best of 2012 app for its friendly, simple and attractive interface. Mint is an extension of the mint.com website. It connects to your bank accounts to track and categorize expenditures. And, you can also manually enter pending and cash transactions on-the-go, so that your accounts are always up-to-date.
Once you register your accounts, monthly budget, cash flow and investments on the website, Mint gives you an instant overview and instantly tracks them for you. And, since your information is managed online you can consolidate all your transactions across multiple accounts into one view. Mint also sends you a notification if you’re about to hit the budget limit you set for yourself.
2. Monitor your daily expenses.
- CASH SmartWatch ($140) “A watch for watching your budget.” It’s the first wearable personal finance tracker on the market right now.
Here’s how it works: Set up your budget on CashSmartWatch.com by entering your details into the free budgeting application (it also gives you recommendations on what you should be spending in different budgeting categories). As you spend on various things throughout the day it will notify you if you’re on or over budget. When you get back home sync it with your computer (Mac or PC) Â to get a clear picture of everything you are spending.
And for the fashion conscious, the watch comes in three styles–sport, dress, and casual with a variety of strap options–from clean  faux croc to a sophisticated stingray band.
3. Track, pay, and monitor your accounts and expenses regularly.
- Prism (Free)Â a great bill management solution that keeps all of your bills in one place and allows you to pay your bills directly from the app for free. It helps you manage your daily finance and keeps track of the due dates then sends automatic bill pay.
4. Expensify is ideal for business people. You can scan receipts, track your mileage, link debit and credit cards to oversee your spending habits, and even create expense reports.
Happy Saving!