This tools.Juggling multiple accounts is a big job that comes with big challenges, like building an asset allocation plan, tracking performance and logging into multiple accounts. Every Dollar allows you to connect all your accounts and keep an eye on your finances in one place, similar to most apps on our list.Detailed budgeting is best left to other apps, although Prosper Dailys money-tracking component is useful for keeping an eye on overall spending. This one follows a zero-based budget approach, which means that it gives every single dollar a purpose in the budget, hence the apps name.In my opinion, Personal Capital is the best overall investment tracking solution available today.Begin by opening a free account, and then link your various financial accounts to the Personal Capital platform. Personal Capital’s Free Financial DashboardPersonal Capital offers a free financial dashboard that I’ve used for many years. Let’s take a look at five investment tracking apps available today that I consider to be the best.
![]() The retirement planner enables you to add specific income events, such as Social Security and planned pre-retirement savings. It does so using the following investment categories:How Does Personal Capital’s Retirement Planner Work?Personal Capital offers a robust retirement planner that incorporates all of the holdings in linked accounts, along with spending data from the linked bank and credit card accounts. It tracks your investment performance over time, comparing your returns to several benchmarks.Personal Capital also organizes your investments by asset class. It displays your investments by account or by individual holding. It classifies your investments between retirement and taxable accounts. Focusing on its investment tools, Personal Capital provides the following high-level information: The tool then shows you the amount of fees you’ll pay over time and the effect they will have on your portfolio returns. In my case, fees totaled 6 basis points. How Does Personal Capital’s Fee Analyzer Work?Personal Capital’s retirement fee analyzer calculates your overall expense ratio across all of your investments. The tool also provides a detailed cash flow table through your assumed life expectancy. For example, you could create two different scenarios with different spending levels.With these data points, the retirement planner calculates the chance your portfolio will support your retirement goals. You can also create multiple retirement scenarios that can then be compared. ![]() It breaks out your investments by sector, stock type and even by region. It shows you the investment style box of your portfolio for both stocks and bonds. Where Morningstar really shines, however, is with its Instant X-Ray feature.Instant X-Ray gives you detailed information about your portfolio’s asset allocation. It shows you your portfolio’s total return by month and year, and compares it to a benchmark of your choice. The tool provides basic data about each of your investments, including its current price, daily changes in value and its percentage weight in your overall portfolio.Morningstar’s Portfolio Manager also provides robust data on overall portfolio performance. Ronyasoft poster printer keyYou can use its Portfolio Monitor with either membership, although some tools require a paid membership. That’s due in part to direct ownership of Apple stock, but also to the heavy weight given to large companies like Apple in index funds that are also part of my portfolio.Morningstar offers both a free and paid membership. In my case, Apple represents just over 13% of my portfolio. This can be particularly useful for those who invest in mutual funds. Specifically, it can project future cash flows of a portfolio through retirement, and it’s this feature that I’ve found to be the most valuable.Specifically, eMoney Advisor will project cash flows throughout your retirement based on a number of data points and assumptions. Similar to Personal Capital, eMoney Advisor aggregates all of your financial data by linking your accounts.While the interface is not as polished as Personal Capital, eMoney Advisor does provide a wealth of information, and its portfolio analysis is quite sophisticated. As a result, I have access to this tool. While I manage my own investments, I do use an advisor to discuss questions from time to time. It also shows total expenses, which can include not only annual expenses adjusted for inflation, but also one-time expenses you plan to incur during retirement. For each year, it shows you your total income, investment income and planned retirement distributions. It enables you to set an amount for annual spending in retirement, and then adjusts it for inflation.The resulting cash flow report is broken down by year. ![]() Best App For Tracking Personal Finances Manual Enter YourWhile a Google Sheets spreadsheet requires you to manual enter your portfolio data, Google Finance functions can automatically update the market price of each security.The spreadsheet that I use is particularly well-suited when it comes to rebalancing a portfolio. Build Your Own Spreadsheet in Google SheetsIf you would prefer not to link investment accounts to an online tool or software app, Google Sheets offers an excellent way to track your investments. It’s functional, but not polished. The software looks like it hasn’t been updated in a long time. You can review the asset allocation at the portfolio level, the account level or by individual security.The one downside to Quicken is its user interface. In this, you get access to the data offered by Morningstar without having to manually enter your portfolio.Quicken also enables you to set a target asset allocation and then compares it with your portfolio’s actual asset allocation. The compensation we receive for those placements affects how and where advertisers’ offers appear on the site. First, we provide paid placements to advertisers to present their offers. This compensation comes from two main sources. To help support our reporting work, and to continue our ability to provide this content for free to our readers, we receive compensation from the companies that advertise on the Forbes Advisor site. In this short video (created for my own personal finance site), you’ll find a helpful tutorial on how to use the spreadsheet.The Forbes Advisor editorial team is independent and objective. The sheet allows me to see the target allocation for each asset class, along with variance from target based on the market performance of my portfolio. Second, we also include links to advertisers’ offers in some of our articles these “affiliate links” may generate income for our site when you click on them.
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