5 Reasons to Use a Personal Finance Management App

Oftentimes, these problems aren’t caused by a lack of income but rather by a loss of control over your financial life. Many might find the well-meant (but impractical) advice about writing down expenses on paper, cash envelope systems, or creating spreadsheets in Excel unattractive. These are likely to put off most people rather than getting them interested in personal finance.

Thanks to modern tools, however, managing money can be easy, convenient, and even fun! In recent years, several personal finance management projects and mobile apps have been created. Some offer expense tracking and budgeting, while others follow the development of investments and assets. We tried them all, but none of them met all our requirements. That prompted us to create our own.

We're proud to introduce Finbot, your personal finance guide by Finax. At Finax, we believe that the path to a better life leads through getting your personal finance in order. Whether you're looking for security and the ability to sleep peacefully or financial independence, Finbot will make your day-to-day money work easier and help you achieve your goals.

Why use Finbot?

• Liberates you from recording in Excel or on paper
• Manage all your accounts in one place
• Creating and sticking to budgets has never been easier
• Better prepare for future expenses
• Because it's free :)

1. Liberates You from Recording in Excel or on Paper 

It probably won’t be surprising to say that the first and most crucial step is to ascertain the current state of our funds. Most of us know that we should regularly track and review our income and expenses, yet we often fail to put it into practice.

Knowing what's good for our health or money is one thing. Taking the necessary steps regularly, whether it's playing sports, eating healthy, or responsibly managing the family budget, is quite another. Many have repeatedly tried to make such changes.

"A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went."
John Maxwell

Whether you used to record your expenses in Excel or a notebook or tried using your bank's mobile app, these attempts have probably always ended up the same way – you got tired of it, and life went back to the blind-driving rut.

Finbot performs this boring daily agenda for you. You won’t have to do almost anything to categorize your expenses and update your set budgets. Simply open the app to check your current balance and transactions for the last period. It’ll instantly show you how much you've spent on each expense category, such as housing, transportation, or food and restaurants.

For expenses that Finbot can't (yet) categorize automatically, you can easily create your own rules based on several conditions – store name, recipient IBAN, etc.

2. Manage All Your Accounts in One Place

An objection that your bank already provides an overview of your expenses might have come to mind while reading the previous point. However, there's a catch. Today, it's common to have bank accounts with more than one bank.

Sometimes, it is a combination of a Slovak (primary) bank with a foreign neobank like Revolut or N26, or you have an account in one bank and a mortgage in another. There are many reasons and possible combinations. For example, I have accounts in 3 Slovak banks and one in Revolut for payments abroad. Can you imagine opening each app separately and manually transcribing the data into one Excel spreadsheet? I don't know about you, but it doesn't seem like the best use of time to me.

Many 1-person households face this problem, not to mention families with two incomes and 2-4 bank accounts. Instead of laboriously opening app after app and adding up income and expenses into one chart, you can again leave it to Finbot. It can connect with all your banks and compile your expenses into one graph automatically. Use the time you save to take a walk or spend it with your family or friends instead.

3. Creating and Sticking to Budgets Has Never Been Easier

Once your bank accounts are linked and the current financial condition is known, treatment follows. The best cure for most personal finance ills is a budget. A sensibly set budget does not ignore the future in favor of the present, but neither does the opposite.

Necessary living expenses (housing, food, transportation, etc.), as well as entertainment, hobbies, travel, and charity, should all find a place in it. Saving, early repayments of toxic debts, and investing for a better future are also not to be missed.

Once budgets are created, Finbot will automatically categorize all expenses into the categories you chose. You can then check at any time how much money is remaining until the end of the month in each category. If necessary, you can tighten the budget even further for the following month (e.g. by slashing expenses on eating out) or, conversely, increase it if it has been set too ambitiously.

Creating and sticking to a budget may seem like a trivial matter, but it is extremely efficient. The ability to spend less than you earn over the long term is a prerequisite for building wealth. Try to gradually aim for investing at least 10-20% of your net income. We've written a separate blog about the wonders that long-term investing of savings can do.

4. Better Prepare for Future Expenses

Driving by only looking at the rear-view mirror doesn't sound like a good idea, right? That's how banking apps work, as they simply put your expenses into the appropriate categories (some don’t even manage that). What they lack (and this constitutes their substantial weakness) is a forward-looking perspective. In real life, we often need to plan financially for a longer period than 1 month.

Finbot, therefore, offers the ability to plan any future income or expenditure. Whether it's the purchase of a new car, increased spending over the Christmas period, or a summer vacation, all upcoming expenses and incomes can be planned easily. For example, a clear chart will show you how much money you will have in your account after New Year's Eve.

Of course, Finbot will automatically search for regularly recurring transactions such as mortgage payments, utility bills, Spotify, or Netflix. Don't close your eyes to reality, rather prepare for it.

5. Because It's Free :)

Intelligent investors don't pay for Finbot. If you are a Finax client, please use the same email address you are registered with at Finax when signing up.

For non-clients of Finax, we offer the opportunity to try Finbot for 90 days free of charge. After 3 months, you can opt for a monthly subscription for 0.99 euros or a more convenient annual subscription for 9.99 euros. Or simply become a Finax client, invest at least 20 euros, and get Finbot for free :).

Our new Finbot mobile app is now also publicly available. You can find it in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store:

Please note, however, that the initial registration (setting up a Finbot account) must be performed via the web version of Finbot at the following link: https://app.finbot.eu/auth/register?lang=en.

We hope that Finbot will accompany you on your journey to healthy personal finance. Tracking expenses, financial planning, and building wealth don‘t have to mean exhausting hours with your nose buried in complicated spreadsheets.

Finbot is now regularly used by more than 2,000 Finax clients from Slovakia and Poland. Join them and take control of your financial life!