Budgets, Bills and management of pay tools...

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tripp

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#223961 26-Oct-2017 08:47

Hi all

Currently I have my budget setup in excel and hate to think what I spend on toys and other expenses each fortnight.

So I am really looking for a tool/app/website that will do the following

1) I am really lazy so something that import feeds from my bank accounts would be good <-- not a must have but really nice to have

2) Remind me when a bill/sub is coming up (i.e. spotify, netflix etc).

3) Have an app or a smart device friendly interface

4) Able to deal with more than 1 bank account

5) Be able to deal with credit cards.

6) Free is good but willing to pay around $5 - $10 a month.

7) If it is feed base from my bank accounts/credit cards it should have some smarts around it for category of expenses or learn from past transactions.

Many years ago i looked at heaps (from kiwibank) but that seems to be long gone.

Any ideas would be great :)

I have done a google search etc but most of them are US based with no support for NZ.

phrozenpenguin

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#1889736 26-Oct-2017 09:39

https://www.pocketsmith.com

NZ Based, I know it does all you request except 2) - which it might do, I've just never used it.

tripp

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#1889740 26-Oct-2017 09:52

phrozenpenguin:

https://www.pocketsmith.com

NZ Based, I know it does all you request except 2) - which it might do, I've just never used it.

Thanks will look into it :)

alasta

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#1889802 26-Oct-2017 12:48

I recommend YNAB. In terms of your requirements:

1.) I believe ASB allows a live feed of data. Otherwise check that your bank allows you to export an OFX file which you can then import into YNAB. I do this weekly and the workload is minimal.

2.) You can schedule transactions if they are a regular fixed amount. The system will prompt you to budget for these expenses, and will automatically identify and clear the payment when it pops up in your upload file.

3.) Yes, the app is very usable.

4.) Yes, you can have multiple accounts and you can specify particular accounts as 'off budget' for things like Kiwisaver.

5.) Yes, the system will ensure that you allocate enough money to pay your credit card in full each month. If you are not able to pay your credit card in full each month then I would suggest investigating how the system would require you to deal with this.

6.) There is a subscription fee roughly around $5 a month I think. I believe you can trial it for free.

7.) Yes, it learns the correct categorisation based on past behaviour but I recommend reviewing all transactions anyway as I find they occasionally get categorised differently from what I wanted.

I highly recommend dedicating some time to learning and implementing it correctly rather than rushing it, particularly if you don't have a lot of experience with financial analysis. Having a decent budgeting tool and using it effectively will reap huge rewards in the long term.