Want to get your finances in order, but the thought of doing your accounting or following a budget makes you break out in a cold sweat? This free, easy-to-use software could be the answer.
The holidays are over, you’ve just returned to the office or started the new academic year, and you’ve made a big decision: this year, you’ll stick to your budget seriously. A great resolution that will undoubtedly bring you serenity in your daily life and allow you to effectively prepare for your future. That is, if you stick to it for more than a few weeks.
Because managing your personal finances rigorously is not a fun activity for anyone, except for a few accountants suffering from a severe professional deformation. Establishing a forecast budget, methodically recording each expense and each income, anticipating monthly withdrawals or annual adjustments, and taking stock of it each month can quickly become a purge.
Fortunately, there are computer tools that can greatly facilitate this work and help you keep accurate accounts, all (almost) effortlessly. To do this, you don’t need to be an Excel expert and spend hours building dashboards full of complicated and illegible formulas. Specialized applications exist, and some are even free.
Among them, one of the best known and most popular is Microsoft Money, a software that was once paid before being made available to everyone for free after the total cessation of its development by the Redmond firm. If this solution remains viable today, it must be admitted that it has aged a little. Another application, just as effective but more modern, is however worth a look: Money Manager Ex.
This completely free budget and personal finance management software offers all the tools needed to keep your accounts in order and has many qualities. First of all, the application has a simple, clear interface in French, as well as complete documentation… also fully translated into our language!
The application offers all the expected functions to track and manage your money effectively: recording and reconciling expenses and income, creating recurring transactions, budget planning with measurement of achievement gaps, ready-to-use graphic reports to easily analyze your finances, everything is there and easy to use.
Money Manager Ex is also cross-platform, and can be used on Windows as well as macOS or Linux, and even Android in a version adapted to mobile device screens. The project is also in active development, supported by an involved community, and regularly receives updates that add new features or fix bugs.
If you’re looking for a powerful, easy-to-use, and free personal finance app, then Money Manager Ex should be just what you need. And who knows, maybe you’ll finally stick to your New Year’s resolution and even find accounting fun… or not.