Suggestion for a Bill Manager or Financial App

[draiko913]

I'm in need of a bill reminder or financial application that does a few specific things. I've been looking around and haven't found one that does what I'm looking for, or if it does, I haven't figured out how to get it to work.

I would like an app that allows you to set up all of your bills (one time and recurring) and also enter your pay dates. Then on payday, it will give a reminder of all bills and amounts that are due between now and the next payday. So for example, if I get paid on 7/1 and again on 7/15, on 7/1 it will tell me that I need to pay my mortgage, car and cable bills that are due between the 1st and 15th, and then on the 15th will tell me everything that is due later that month prior the my next payday again on 8/1.

 

[anon(2909270)]

Loot is an ok Financial app. You can set all your reoccurring charges in there as well as credits to your account. Its not very pretty, but does the job for me.

 

[Kage_]

Check out mint.com. It's a web service that gathers all of your account into one place so you can budget and monitor them all. I've used them for three years now with no problems. The main thing I had get over is granting access to my account to the site. There is also an android app to interface into Mint.

Kage_

 

[maildroiddev]

what kage said, use mint.com

 

[TDAY#AC]

Mint is the best I have used. It alerts me when my credit card is due. I don't know about other bills though. But it has a good user interface online. The app is ok too.

 

[anon(2909270)]

Mint sounds very good, but only available to the US.

 

[azjerry]

FYI, Mint doesn't work reliably with several of my accounts:
- my credit union has a captcha when logging in so it's never able to auto update. I have to go to mint.com and manually login to get it to update

- Discover card account occasionally fails to auto update requiring me to manually login through mint.com

- no connection to my retirement account

What I do:
On my PC I've set up an Excel spreadsheet listing all my bills/payments and when they're due. Once a week I go through that and mark off the payments as I make them. Docs 2 Go allows access on my Droid.

 

[barrysanders20]

I use Billski to remind me of my pay dates.

http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/finance/billski-bill-tracker_dbxp.html

 

[lwoodsjr]

Easy Money is pretty good. I'm hoping someone comes up with something that syncs with a desktop app.

 

[techiechick]

I like Pageonce. I think it will do the trick for you.

 

[doctorlove316]

I like Pageonce. I think it will do the trick for you.

I also use Pageonce. I had it on my BlackBerry and now I have it on my Droid. Works great for me.

 

[Minx]

I agree with Barry. I use Billski. Not sure if there are reminders, haven't needed them, but does a great job of showing all your due bills. I also use Pageonce to keep me posted on all my accounts but I don't think it has reminders..at least the free version doesn't.

 

[draiko913]

Here's what I've run across so far... Mint is a fantastic service and a nice app, but most of my bills can't be added through it. Too bad because I love the detailed analysis and auto connection to my bank. Billski isn't too bad but seems like I can only set a certain number of days ahead to remind me. Pageone and Easy Money I haven't had time to try out yet.

The big key feature that doesn't seem to exist in any of the apps mentioned or that I've found in the market is the ability to sync up against pay periods. Although you'd think that I would know how much is due between this paycheck and the next, I have several bills that fluctuate amounts so knowing exactly how much (after I've updated the bill amount of course) I need to pay towards bills from this paycheck would be extremely handy.

So at the moment, the search continues! Thanks for all the suggestions so far though, definitely some good apps out there.

 

[WarER4X]

FYI, Mint doesn't work reliably with several of my accounts:
- my credit union has a captcha when logging in so it's never able to auto update. I have to go to mint.com and manually login to get it to update

- Discover card account occasionally fails to auto update requiring me to manually login through mint.com

- no connection to my retirement account

What I do:
On my PC I've set up an Excel spreadsheet listing all my bills/payments and when they're due. Once a week I go through that and mark off the payments as I make them. Docs 2 Go allows access on my Droid.

+1

I've found Mint to be more of a pain than anything. It's biggest potential advantage is also it's poorest functioning feature... the graphing/budgeting. Mint rarely categorizes my expenses/purchases correctly and, while I know that I can go to the website and do it manually, it sort of defeats the purpose of having Mint in the first place. Plus, Mint has so many categories and sub-categories of expense types, it makes my head spin trying to consistently categorize certain expenses. You can create your one custom categories, but they don't get assigned to any expenses automatically.

I also got annoyed by Mint because it kept emailing me alerts about every little thing that happened to my accounts. I attempted to turn off those alerts in my account, but it took no less than four tries before the changes finally stayed and I stopped getting all of those alerts. I still have the same problem with my profile info. I enter it, but it's always gone the next time I return.

For managing bills, nothing beats my handy-dandy Excel spreadsheet. It's not as fancy as Mint tries to be, but then again, that's part of what makes the spreadsheet so nice; not too complicated or time consuming.

Mint could be good, but in its current state, I think it takes way too much time and effort to manage if you really want to benefit from all it has to offer. One big, but simple, improvement would be batch assignment of expense types, but I digress.

-SR-

 

[hodedofome]

+1

I've found Mint to be more of a pain than anything. It's biggest potential advantage is also it's poorest functioning feature... the graphing/budgeting. Mint rarely categorizes my expenses/purchases correctly and, while I know that I can go to the website and do it manually, it sort of defeats the purpose of having Mint in the first place. Plus, Mint has so many categories and sub-categories of expense types, it makes my head spin trying to consistently categorize certain expenses. You can create your one custom categories, but they don't get assigned to any expenses automatically.

I also got annoyed by Mint because it kept emailing me alerts about every little thing that happened to my accounts. I attempted to turn off those alerts in my account, but it took no less than four tries before the changes finally stayed and I stopped getting all of those alerts. I still have the same problem with my profile info. I enter it, but it's always gone the next time I return.

For managing bills, nothing beats my handy-dandy Excel spreadsheet. It's not as fancy as Mint tries to be, but then again, that's part of what makes the spreadsheet so nice; not too complicated or time consuming.

Mint could be good, but in its current state, I think it takes way too much time and effort to manage if you really want to benefit from all it has to offer. One big, but simple, improvement would be batch assignment of expense types, but I digress.

-SR-

You can create rules to make a certain transaction always fall under a certain category. I've had mint.com, went to mvelopes.com (good but not as nice UI) and back to mint.

As far as being reminded when bills are do, just sign up for auto-pay

 

[cdjh]

Here's what I've run across so far...

The big key feature that doesn't seem to exist in any of the apps mentioned or that I've found in the market is the ability to sync up against pay periods. Although you'd think that I would know how much is due between this paycheck and the next, I have several bills that fluctuate amounts so knowing exactly how much (after I've updated the bill amount of course) I need to pay towards bills from this paycheck would be extremely handy.

So at the moment, the search continues! Thanks for all the suggestions so far though, definitely some good apps out there.

I'm reviving this thread because my forum search brought me here and I have the same basic needs as draiko913. I'm looking for something to basically manage my paychecks. Sounds like I'm a 3rd grader who needs to be told what to do, but after years of working, paying bills, and trying different software, I've realized how terribly helpful this would be.

I'm blessed enough to have regular bi-weekly paychecks so I know the exact amount. There should be a software solution that will forecast bills due during each pay period based on pay dates (weekly/biweekly) and bill due dates (monthly) synced against the calender. This does not seem that hard. But every software I come across wants to set up monthly budgets paying no mind to the actual calendar and when paychecks come in. This is ok, but i'm not paid monthly.

I think the frustrating thing is that what I'm looking for is basically the definition of "living paycheck to paycheck" and that is the big no-no of all budget solutions. But that is how I live. I'd bet that is how most of us live.

Can anyone recommend a software that is more like a "paycheck manager / bill forecaster" than a monthly budget solution?

 

[Corey]

I have the same trouble with Mint as others have had. It can be very finicky. I tried setting up budgets, but it keeps lumping in certain payments (car, and one of my credit cards) in to other categories, regardless of how many times I try to manually update it.

The (sort of) work around solution that I've come up with is actually the simplest for me to manage. I set up a calendar on Google Calendars with my bills and paycheck. My paycheck is every other week and stays the same. Almost all of my bills remain the same as well. It didn't take all that long to set up. I use Smooth Calendar widget that displays my budget dates, so I know what's coming up and when. All the details are on the calendar entry, so I know what's set up to auto pay and what I have to deal with, along with amounts and contact information. What's nice is that Google Calendar allows you to set a termination date on recurring items, so once my car loan and personal loan stuff reach the termination date, they won't show up on my calendar.

It's not the greatest solution, but it's turned out to be the simplest and most efficient for me so far.

 

[BuddyLee]

Pageonce ... and recently they got an amazing update ... one of the three or four apps i got installed I didnt mind paying for.

Pageonce is solid...

/thread

 

[dan54]

I use pageonce also but not to set up payments.. Just to look at my accounts and due dates. Pageonce also sends you an email when bills are due in 3 days

 

[bclinger#IM]

AnMoney