I wrote about some good personal finance apps the other day, but I wanted to discuss the so-called “personal financial assistant” applications today. Most of this software is meant to help people calculate the payback to use on fixed-rate loans.
That’s the debt most borrowers face, whether they’re trying to figure out how much principal to pay on their credit card debts, the car loans for their sedans, trucks, and SUVs, or the ungodly amounts they’ll be paying back on their mortgages or refinancing for a second mortgage.
Therefore, the fixed-rate loan is the sort of debt most people stress about. Since it’s often difficult and time consuming to sit down at the desk and calculate the best way to pay back old debts, having a helpful phone application to do the trick is an easier, less stressful way to handle your finances.
You can plan for your future economic well-being simply sitting on the subway heading to work, or while you’re waiting for you date to show up.
For the record, I’ll be focusing only on the operating systems for iPhone smartphones and iPad tablet computers today. I intend on revisiting this question in the near-future to dicsuss Android phone apps, because every consumer demographic has to account for what they’ve borrowed. Today, we talk about the iOS apps for personal finance.
Financial Assistant Apps
The “financial assistant app” works as a kind of aggregator, collecting information from all your savings and money market accounts and placing them in one location for your convenience. This might come from your bank account, investment accounts, credit card statements, and monthly bills. This information isn’t manually added like the budget trackers I talked about the other day, but instead is collated. This might cause lag time if your creditors or utility companies don’t send out their billing data right away, but many of these concerns can be rectified if you set up your preferences the right way.
You might not be comfortable having a mobile phone application being able to log into your various cash accounts and access your information. Certainly, if you hand your application password to someone, that’s going to be a problem, but that would be in any case. Aggregator tech has had more than a decade to perfect security holes and it’s proven to be reliable. Once you log out, the information is permanently deleted from your smartphone.
Personal Assistant Premium is an application from Pageonce which tracks all personal financial accounts. PersonalAssistant Premium allows you to add accounts to your settings from your iPhone. Setting up an account is simple and quick, while you’ll be able to include payments for your cellphone bill and any uses of your Amazon account. In a lot of ways, this product helps you keep a closer eye on your many cash transactions, which should help you spot identity theft easier than otherwise. The term “premium” describes the paid service, which offer more functionality and the ability to navigate without seeing ads and other annoyances. If you go with the free version, you’ll see advertisements at the bottom of the page and have a little less information overall.
Mint Personal Finance App by Mint Com helps you track your money, budget your monthly finances, and manage any accounts you have. Mint is meant to give you fast and easy access to account levels, bank balances, and other data sources. Mint is handy and useful, but you might not like that you have to register at Mint.com to have use of this option. You’ll notice when you log into the site account that it’s got a lot more functionality than the mobile application, so this download still has a ways to go. Still, it’s a good start for on-the-go business types looking to manage their finances while to and from work.
Loan Calculator Apps
MyPayment by Simpaddico allows you to calculate repayment of the loans you have, getting a better idea of how the amortization process for each loan will play out. Like so many of the lending calculator programs, you’ll be able to use “what if” technology to see what happens if you pay back a certain amount per month.
My Loan Calculator by CalcNexus.com lets borrowers figure up their fixed-rate interest payments, including the ability to hold three different loans at a time. This program lets you load in several variables and spit out an additional variable, such as payment, term, loan amount, and interest rate. Like the what-if programs, you can add more principal to your payments to see how this changes the balance of the loan. While you’ll need the app for your iPhone, you can also use the same program on the CalcNexus website (or use that site to test-drive the application).
Mortgage Calculator by SVT Software LLC is useful for potential homeowners, buyers, sellers, mortgage brokers, and realtors. If you’re a real estate broker who doesn’t like doing the math in your head, this application handles all the math work for you right away. While it’s called a mortgage calculator, you can also use it for fixed rate loans like maxed out credit cards and basic car loan payments. Users can input variables like insurance costs, monthly HOA fees, property taxes, and whatever else becomes an issue. MortgageCalculator is optimized for retina displays and multitasking, supports app-switching, and has a high resolution feature.
People using this feature can save loans you’ve been working on for later, has accurate data entry features, and an email quote function. Use the amortization table to look over your pametn schedule, decide on proper principal, and decide on the payment level your loan needs. You can back up your data for safekeeping for your iOS device with the iTunes file sharing interface. I should mention this is another great app designed by Steve Tran, whose company I’ve mentioned several times, but I’ve never discussed in person. Steve Tran is located in Greenacres, Florida and should not be confused with the French Canadian actor nor the classic kickboxer of the same name.
Loan Calculator Pro by SVT Software LLC is another financial calculator optimized for iOS which helps you calculate fixed rate loans such as credit card debt, auto loan information, or home mortgage loans. Track extra payments, see the interest you owe, and make fast calculations in instants. The SVT Loan Calculator was a Top 10 Finance App of the Year for 2010 on the iTunes websites. Both this and the above application are available for $0.99.
Apple Phone and Table Applications for Loan Calculations
These should get you figuring out the best way to pay back the loans you took out. While most people have their head screwed-on straight when it comes to their home and car debts, it’s often the credit card payments that give people so much trouble. When you borrow for a residence or vehicle, you tend to have it in your head you’ve taken out a big debt. Since borrowing from Visa, Mastercard, and Amex is like stealing from the cookie jar, you often have no idea how many cookies you’ve eaten. These iTunes operating systems applications help make the cookie jar a little more transparent, so you know what the damage is. Good luck paying off your fixed-rate debts.