How to make a budget planner app?

What are Budget Planner Apps?

From utility bills to going Dutch at dinner with your friends- the ease of doing online payments is unmatched. With the convenience of online transaction processing, the need to track expenses with a budget planner app is growing. This is not only a great financial habit but also helps in understanding your spending habits. 

Expense tracking apps allow users to keep a record of their expenses and receipts to maintain a budget. According to Google’s survey, 55% of the respondents download a budget planner app to make a specific task easier. The varied reasons for downloading budget planner apps indicate the popularity of budget app development.

Source: Google 

The majority of people are aware of the value of retaining business receipts in case of an audit. Paper receipts have the drawback that it is simple to misplace a significant record with the lack of a budget planner app. Users can save space and time by putting receipts and bills right away into an expense tracker app.

Thanks to the popularity of e-commerce payment gateways, today expense tracking apps can track receipts and organize your spending. Users can track the performance of investments, send invoices, make a budget, reconcile accounts, check credit, and more. The majority of the best expense tracker apps are cost-effective or free as they provide extensive features. 

With efficient expense tracking software, the accurate recording of revenue and expenses can achieve optimal financial management. The various budget planner apps can track expenditures with the help of a variety of software solutions. Users can stay within their budget and make wise investments by using budget planner apps for their spending.

Benefits of using Expense Tracking Apps

The basic goal of expense tracking software is to find and get rid of inefficient spending patterns in your life. Additionally, maintaining control over finances like saving and investing will come from continuously keeping track of costs. Through expense tracking apps, users can track expenditures with the help of a variety of expense tracking software.

1. Financial Control

Being out of control when it comes to personal finances is not something anyone would aspire to. With the help of some of the best expense tracker apps,  keeping track of every financial transaction is easy. Essentially taking control of everything that involves money is possible with the help of budget planner apps. Thus, you can be aware of how much money is available for spending because of budget planner apps.

2. Focuses on your Goals

Using some of the best expense tracker apps, users can rest assured that their money is going toward set financial goals. Paying off debt, creating an emergency fund, beginning a savings plan, or making investments for the future are some examples. Users can stay within a budget due to expense tracking software and make wise investments.

3. Establishes Future Goals

Everyone has financial goals but without using budget planner apps,  there is no accountability for a poor financial choice. Some of the best expense tracker apps keep you accountable, if you wish to save money, invest, or pay off debt. By using budget planner apps, you can meet your financial objectives. The accurate recording of expenses with expense tracking software is necessary for efficient financial management.

4. Reviews Budget Decisions

With expense tracking apps, you can minimize or eliminate some expenditures once you are aware of your spending habits. Usually, some of the best expense tracker apps highlight the expenditures you can avoid and thus, save money. Some examples are cutting back on household expenses, switching to a less expensive vehicle, or creating a food budget. App developers should ensure that when they create a budget app, users are able to track such expenses.

5. Sense of Accomplishment

According to a survey by the American Psychological Association in 2020, every 6 in 10 adults grapples with financial stress. Some reasons for this are upcoming bills, lack of means to afford what one wants, and worries about financial stability. There is a ton of expense tracking software available that makes it quick, simple, and even enjoyable to track financial habits. In the process of budget app development, some of the best expense tracker apps like Mint or YNAB help achieve this.

Features of Expense Tracking Development process

1. Income and Expenditure Expenses

Expense tracking apps should be able to track business spending and any other income. It is important to plan ahead to maintain healthy cash that can track eligible deductions too. Developers must incorporate this feature when they create a budget app to reduce taxable income. 

Moreover, tracking separate personal and corporate funds is yet another feature that developers can include in the budget app development process. Transactions from your banks, mobile wallets, and credit cards should be imported via an expense tracker app. Expense tracking apps ought to provide you with a clear picture of your income and outgoings. An important feature to keep in mind when developers create a budget app is to see if your spending is manageable given your income.

2. Organizing Receipts

One thing to keep in mind when solving how to make a budget app is to ensure an organized record of receipts. Budget app development should facilitate recording receipts you receive or pay for. Developers must remember that when they learn how to make a budget tracker, organized filing of receipts is important. Using cloud storage for these receipts can make a budget app more efficient. The use of this feature in the expense tracking app is especially advantageous for employees who travel for work. As a result, a lot of expense tracking software is made to work effectively with numerous linked accounts and different devices.

3. Tax Deductions

After you enter your income and expenses, expense tracking apps should classify the taxes that need to be paid. Knowing which business tax deductions are available is usually beneficial in an expense tracking app. Developers learning how to create a budget app must include information about tax deductions in the budget planner apps.

4. Data Security

Some of the best expense tracker apps should be able to grant secure access to your books to a third party. Developers learning how to create a budget app should ensure data security using expense tracking software. To cut down on errors, budget planner apps should grant access to particular features of the app. 

In budget app development, learning how to create a budget app requires features that ensure financial productivity without sacrificing security. To protect critical data, budget planner apps should define permissions for deposits, expense reports, balance sheets, and sales transactions.

5. Analytics and Insights

An important step in how to create a budget app is understanding the needs of the users. The purpose of expense tracking apps is to gain insight into one’s spending habits and rectify it. Developers in the budget app development process must include a function that provides personalized reports, graphs, and images. 

Users can use these reports to guide financial choices and teach us how to create a budget app that is useful. The best expense tracker apps offer detailed analysis to help users assess how well are their financial habits doing. This feature can show how to make a budget app that can predict future expenditures using previous and present reports.

How to Make an Expense Tracker App

1. Create an Outline

In understanding how to make a budget tracker, the first step is to ideate the budget app development. There is no dearth of expense tracking apps in the market. A new budget planner app won’t have much of an impact unless it has a user experience that people find engaging or useful. Thus, how to create a budget app depends on creating an outline of a budget planner app that stands out. To establish the expense tracking app’s scope, developers have to make a budget app that outdoes its competitors.

2. Conduct Market Research

It’s essential to conduct market research to learn how to make a budget app to understand the need of the market. Some of the best expense tracker apps have a clear understanding of the budget app development costs and requirements. When learning how to create a budget app, developers have to ensure the concept adheres to the accepted market trends. For budget app development, it is important to make note of how apps differ in terms of functionality.

3. Frontend App Development

An expense tracking software incorporates an impeccable frontend to the user interface for the users to interact with. The UI/UX is created during front-end development using the style that the design prototype finalized.  While learning how to create a budget app, developers have to integrate frameworks like React Native and Flutter. Web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS are typically utilized for front-end development.

4. Backend App Development

Building the right architecture and backend for the app is crucial when creating an expense tracking app. For those learning how to make a budget app, these two components affect both the security and budget planner app speed. An expense tracker app’s architecture corresponds to a variety of project elements that explains how to make a budget tracker. 

While learning how to make a budget app, developers may come across a variety of issues. Coding languages, databases, frameworks, user interfaces, or functionalities are part of how to make a budget tracker that is successful. Once you have finished creating the architecture of the expense tracking app, it is important to focus on the backend development. Setting up the expense tracking app and creating internal APIs to implement the app backend is part of the procedure.

5. App Testing

The final stages of learning how to create a budget app include the testing and evaluation phases. Testing is the most important component of budget app development regardless of the development style used

The main purpose of testing for an app project is to ensure that the app is free of bugs or errors. To ensure the best possible functional output and app performance under various circumstances and stress levels, it should also undergo functional, performance, and user testing.

List of the Best Expense Tracker Apps

1. Personal Capital

The Personal Capital expense tracking app is ideal for high-net-worth investors. You are able to monitor and categorize all of the purchases you make with your credit or debit card. Using your monthly cash flow and a breakdown of your monthly expenses, this budget planner app generates charts. The wealth management service and the free financial dashboard are two variations in this budget planner app. The free financial dashboard offers cash flow analysis and budgeting tools. You can use the expense tracking app to check your investments and plan your retirement.

Pros

1. Tools for managing investments that are free
2. Devoted financial consultants
3. Tax optimization technique

Cons

1. Expensive management cost

2. Expensify

Expensify is excellent for creating expenditure reports while on the move. It is available on iOS and Android smartphones. Expensify enables you to manually track expenses and take images of receipts, which is great for people who travel frequently. As an expense tracking app, it automatically interprets receipts and converts them into documented expenses. 

As an ideal example of how to make a budget app, Expensify lets you categorize your expenses, such as mileage, travel, and food. Individuals do not have to pay a penny for Expensify, while teams pay $5 per month. Due to its extensive features and automation abilities, Expensify is one of the best budget planner apps.

To create real-time reporting, this budget planner app can automatically capture, report, and submit expenses. Any modifications to the schedule are also provided right to your mobile device. 

Pros:

1. Users are able to upload receipts using scanning technology
2. Options for corporate credit card reimbursement and next-day direct payment.
3. Real-time alerts for travel information

Cons:

1. Matching receipts to expense reports require manual sorting.
2. Some customers are forced to post receipts more than once because the app freezes.   

3. SAP Concur

The ideal expense reporting tool for established small and midsize organizations is SAP Concur. This budget planner app offers workflows built-in for employee reimbursement, submissions and approvals, and invoice tracking. Furthermore, vendor payments, travel booking, and more are part of this expense tracking app. 

SAP Concur is a great example of how to make a budget app due to its easy customization. This budget planner app provides a range of products for small organizations, allowing you to accommodate growing accounts. Users can download the SAP budget planner app for free from the iOS or Android app stores.

Pros:

1. Prompt review and approval of expense reports
2. Immediate credit card data import 

Cons:

1. More than one or two expenses cannot be entered at once.

4. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is popular as one of the best expense tracking apps because of its outstanding bill management tools. As a budget planner app, it can manage many invoices and vendors like third-party processors such as Apple Pay, and PayPal.

You can create recurring payments for bills and keep track of the ones you’ve made with checks. Additionally, you can set up suppliers, manage budgets, and pay several vendors and bills at once. Developers who wish to learn how to make a budget tracker must take QuickBooks as an example because of its features.

Pros:

1. More than 450 apps are supported
2. Create recurring payments
3. Tracks foreign currency invoices

Cons:

1. Users complain that taking receipt photos is difficult

5. Wally

Wally is a vibrant budget planner app with many useful expense tracking features. It is an iOS software and its basic version is free. Similar to other expense tracking apps, it lets you enter expenses manually and categorize them, or you can photograph receipts directly. 

Developers can learn how to make a budget tracker by using Wally as an example because of its excellent features. User can also track their income and receive monthly projections of their savings. Due to its focus on personal finance, Wally is great for people who run microbusinesses and side hustles.

Pros:

1. Easy-to-use app
2. Centralizes all financial data
3. Because it’s disconnected, banking information is secure.
4. It’s simple to quickly comprehend your financial situation thanks to graphs and charts.

Cons:

1. Add-ons could be expensive
2. Data must be manually entered

6. Mint

One of the top applications for personal finance tools is Mint as it is a fantastic choice for small enterprises. Keeping track of expenses, paying bills, and setting budgets is easy with Mint, a free app. As an expense tracking app, it also supports a large number of banks and lenders. 

A prime example of how to make a budget tracker, Mint offers plenty of features for both Android and iOS. Users can sign up for notifications about late fees, bill reminders, excessive spending, and more. Additionally, users can track spending according to categories which is a note for developers learning how to create a budget app.

Pros:

1. Easy of use
2. Email or SMS alerts for low balances, bill reminders, and unexpected account activity
3. Simple to customize and understand financial reporting
4. Automatic categorization of downloaded transactions

Cons:

1. Missing investment features
2. Obtrusive advertisements
3. Account synchronization issues
4. absence of a bill-paying feature
5. not compatible with multiple currencies

7. You Need a Budget

The You Need a Budget (YNAB) budget tracker app insists on tracking every single transaction. Because you may only spend what is within your income, the app helps you reduce debt. This makes the app extremely useful and can be an example of how to make a budget tracker app. 

Currently, this money management app is available for iOS and Android. The idea behind this app is that families should only spend what they have right now. YNAB’s clear objectives can influence developers on how to make a budget app efficiently. The app explains how to use it effectively and gives daily free courses and digital tips on areas like banking.

Pros:

1. Collects financial data quickly
2. Convenient data export
3. Individualized categories

Cons:

1. The charge of $11.99 monthly or $84 yearly
2. The inability to track investments
3. There is simply email customer service
4. No bill payment or tracking capabilities

Cost of Expense Tracker App Development

An important aspect of how to make a budget tracker is to understand the cost requirements. Since the app is made up of numerous features, frameworks, and capabilities, the development cost depends on a number of variables. Targeted operating systems, multitouch gestures, and operations, influence the cost and the process of how to make a budget tracker. Developers must consider several factors when estimating the price of developing expense-tracking software. 

App size, platforms available, integrations with 3rd parties, and UI/UX design tools are some features that are important in how to make a budget app. However, based on the features, the preliminary cost for expense-tracking software ranges from $20k to $30k. This cost includes the per-hour cost for developers, third-party API integration, cost of maintenance and support, etc. Developers who are understanding how to make a budget app should have the tools and experience for budget app development.

Conclusion

Each step in the construction of the expense tracking app, starting with its features, advantages, and development process is necessary. Despite the fact that these are tried-and-tested recommendations, an app project’s success ultimately depends on how well it is creatively executed. The control of money and its management is the center of the universe. As a business owner, you undoubtedly explore many options to generate the highest ROI for your company. Therefore, keeping track of your expenditures and creating a sound budget is crucial in the long run. 

Additionally, you must have a thorough understanding of portfolios, lending, borrowing, credit risks, investments, stocks, and equity if you want to streamline financial services and operations. CronJ can create the best expense tracker app for your business to monitor and manage your expenses. We choose the most effective strategy for developing your mobile app while taking into account all current financial market trends. Get in touch with us to learn more about creating an expense tracking app.