14 Financial Management Tools that Every Business Must Have

Does keeping up with the financials of your business seem like a never-ending task?

Then you probably are not using financial management tools. From invoices to day-to-day expenses, business finance tools can simplify and streamline financial management. Financial tools can help manage your savings and track expenses.

What are Financial Tools?

Financial tools for business help maintain the financial health of the organization by planning, organizing, controlling, and monitoring financial transactions. For profit maximization and cost savings, a steady cash flow needs to be maintained. By using the right tools in financial management, businesses can keep a tab on the inflow and outflow of cash and budget future expenses.

Not just for managing business finances, there are several money management tools available for managing personal expenses. No matter the size and type of the organization, or the purpose, using financial management tools is key to smooth business operations. From analysis to expense tracking, finance tools can be used in several ways.

Financial analysis tools are highly useful in evaluating the market and enabling businesses to make informed investment decisions. Expense tracking tools help businesses and individuals keep a tab on expenses and flag off expenses that exceed pre-set limits. Accounting software automates functions like financial planning, cash flow management, budgeting and managing a budget, budget deviation analysis, credit, and collections.

When do you Need Finance Management Tools?

The financial health of an organization depends on how well finances are managed. However, using manual financial systems has several disadvantages low accuracy, inability to scale up, tedious steps, and limited visibility. Indicators that warrant the need for financial services tools are listed below:

Time-consuming: when existing financial processes are tedious and consume productive hours of employees, it is time to adopt corporate finance software tools. Tedious financial processes bring down the productivity of the business.

Complex processes: conventional finance processes require a lot of attention and employee involvement.

Scalability: as the business expands, the volume of financial transactions increases proportionally. Manual finance tools are unable to scale up to the demands of the business.

Manual errors: financial documents prepared by manual systems are riddled with human errors. Improving the accuracy of financial systems requires the process of fintech automation.

Less visibility: manual finance processes provide limited visibility into financial transactions. Finance software provides complete visibility into the status of financial transactions.

Manual business processes are inadequate to meet the demands of growing businesses. Financial management tools help overcome these challenges and improve the productivity of the business.

Choosing the Right Financial Services Tools

Financial management is the differentiating factor between a successful business and a struggling one. There are several cloud-based tools used in finance systems. The selection of strong business tools depends on several considerations listed below:

Balancing the budget:

Gaining better financial planning, control, and visibility is among the main reasons for adopting financial tools. The finance tools must make financial budgeting easy and efficient. The tool must be able to create budgets for any scale of operations.

Ensuring the safety of business:

As financial transactions move away from paper to online platforms, the security, and safety of financial data increase. The financial tool must manage access to sensitive financial information efficiently. The finance management tool must provide granular roles for access control.

Ensuring scalability:

A financial management tool must evolve with the growing needs of the business so that costs of converting into a new system as per new business requirements can be avoided.

Switch to the cloud:

The choice of using on-premises or cloud-based finance management software is made depending on business requirements. Some businesses opt for a cloud-based approach for real-time updates and anytime/anywhere availability of records and workflows, while others opt for on-premises financial management systems to have full control over the processes. The software must be flexible to support both types of installations.

Automation and efficiency:

Cloud-based financial management software saves businesses time and costs. Choosing automation software like Cflow from Cavintek modernizes the finance process and boosts the efficiency of approval hierarchies.

Ease of use:

The financial management software must be easy to install and use. Software that demands intensive training is not preferred as it would eat up the productive work hours of the finance team.

The decision on the financial management tool needs to be made based on considering all of the above points and business requirements. Business finances can be complex and intimidating, but the right financial management tools can simplify and streamline financial management.

Examples of Financial Management Tools

Several finance tools examples are available for various finance processes. The list of financial management tools given below is essential to running your business, spanning from account management to budgeting to expense management.

Financial planning: financial planning involves developing strategic plans, identifying financial resources, and obtaining and developing resources to achieve business goals. Generating relevant and realistic budgets is a function of financial planning tools.

Cash flow management: the cash flow statement is a very important financial statement. Managing cash flow ensures that the business has enough cash to pay current bills. A cash flow management tool automates the generation of cash flow statements.

Budgeting and managing a budget: a well-planned budget presents what a business expects to spend and earn over a specific time period. Creating operating budgets, project budgets, and cash budgets can be done easily and accurately using budgeting software.

Expense management: Monitoring employee expenses on the go is part of the accounting software. Expense management software speeds up reimbursement claim validation, processing, approval, and payment. Using expense management software ensures that businesses don’t spend more than they need to.

Payroll management: Payroll management requires accuracy and consistency, even the slightest error may prove costly for the business. Payroll management tools must be able to grow as the business evolves and integrate with existing accounting software.

Inventory tracking: Tracking inventory from multiple locations requires powerful tools that help save time and money. Automated inventory management provides real-time inventory visibility and the ability to track inventory from purchase order to sale.

Tax preparation: A business tax software imports data from POS systems, downloads data from inventory systems, and provides complete data to accountants for the purpose of tax preparation. Financial information systems for small businesses must integrate with other business systems to get a complete picture.

Personal Finance Management Tools

Account spending tools for personal finance management are used by individuals to track and manage their expenses and savings and make informed investment decisions. Creating monthly budgets and expense trackers helps individuals track their progress on monthly goals for money management and savings. Here are some examples of financial management tools for personal money management.

Expense management:

Tools like My Spending Report and Budget Watch (from Wells Fargo) help in tracking each transaction made by an individual. Transactions like credit and debit card purchases, bill payments, etc. are tracked in real-time by these tools. The tool sorts the gathered data into familiar categories so that the person gets a complete financial overview of the expenses.

Budgeting tools:

The data gathered on personal spending history is used to create a monthly budget. Once a budget is created, all financial transactions and progress are tracked and updated at the end of each day. The budgeting tool provides an overview of what’s left and which transactions have exceeded the budgeted amount.

Smart saving tools:

The savings tools are used for creating personal savings goals on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. These tools are equipped with visual tools like customizable alerts and interactive charts that inform individuals of their progress.

Retirement planning:

Retirement planning can be greatly simplified by using appropriate finance tools. These tools help you set realistic savings goals that are customized to your expense and saving capacity. Based on the expense and income data, these tools provide a realistic plan for pursuing the goal.

Top Financial Management Tools for 2023

Financial management tools are used by businesses to perform various accounting and finance functions in a streamlined manner. Effective financial management helps businesses become successful and grow in their respective fields. As per the latest review of Top Financial Management Software by Software Testing Help, Personal Capital, Future Advisor, and Quicken are among the top software for financial management. The curated list of top financial management tools that businesses can consider for 2022 is given below:

1. Document360

Document360 is designed to help you with financial knowledge management systems tailored to the unique needs of financial services. This user-friendly platform efficiently captures, organizes, and stores diverse information like policies, procedures, customer onboarding documentation, procurement documentation, compliance documents, and regulatory guidelines. With an easy-to-use platform, financial professionals can create better documentation and improve client onboarding journeys. Document360 serves as a centralized repository, providing a comprehensive solution for effective knowledge management in the financial sector.

Features:

• AI-powered search returns context-sensitive results in milliseconds and Eddy – the AI Assistant understands the user’s query and provides personalized support.
• The platform offers a workflow feature that fully configures and customizes the documentation process.
• With a simple drag and drop categories and subcategories to easily organize the article structure.
• Offers rich analytics to understand end-user engagement with your documentation and make data-driven decisions.
• Maintains confidentiality by ensuring controlled access to sensitive information through access control features.

Pricing: 

• Free Plan
• Starting price – $199 per project/month

2. Mint

Is a personal finance management tool from Intuit with both free and paid versions. It is one of the most popular budget management apps today. Mint aids users in tracking their expenditures and saving money, guiding them to make data-driven financial decisions. Mint offers its users a shared space where all their financial accounts can be brought into one junction and provides effective management of them. With this effective management, they can have access and transparency into their spending, budgeting, and investing. 

Features:

• The Mint application is free to download and use
• The platform offers a bill payment tracker, subscription management, and budgeting
• Customized notifications and alerts
• Access to free credit scores 

Pricing:

• Free version
• Paid version – $4.99/month

3. Mvelopes

Owned and developed by Finicity, Mvelopes is a mobile finance application that provides scope for envelope budgeting to efficiently categorize the users’ expenses, plan and prioritize budgets in advance, and also have an account of money left each month. This enables the users to have a strong hold on their spending decisions by giving them information on where they stand in tier budget expenses. 

Features:

• Offers free trial to its users
• The platform specializes in debt reduction and offers personal financial coaching.
• It offers online learning resources to its users.
• It enables users to achieve real-time budgeting with digital envelopes. 

Pricing:

• Free trial
• Mvelopes Basic- $6
• Mvelopes Premier- $9.95/month
• Mvelopes Plus- $19/month

4. Personal Capital

Today known as Empower, it is a powerful budgeting app that is built on advanced tools for effective financial planning. Empower is one of the best budgeting apps, especially for investors. The platform offers an enhanced investment tool that can seamlessly link bank accounts, credit cards, as well as IRAs (individual retirement accounts), loans, etc. The dashboard gives a comprehensive view of all the personal finances of the users in one place.

Features:

• The platform offers a net-worth tracker for the users to track their financial value.
• Investing tools like retirement planners, education planners, and fee analyzers are freely accessible
• The tool offers data encryption that involves codes to access users’ information
• It also provides strong fraud protection through user authentication for identity confirmation. 

Pricing:

• Free version 

5. Future Advisor

FutureAdvisor is a well-known online investment robo-advisor platform that has the potential to automatically manage all the investments of the users. The application uses modern portfolio theory (MPT) that effortlessly helps to build and maintain portfolios that in turn elevate the users’ return.

Features:

• The platform offers direct management of taxable investment accounts for both individual and joint.
• It performs management of IRAs, including traditional, Roth, rollover, and SEP IRAs.
• Users can acquire personalized diversification through portfolios based on the user’s age, risk tolerance, and investment horizon.
• Recommendations for rebalancing will be given to the users that will be based on significant changes in the user portfolio. 

Pricing:

• Charges 0.50% per year of assets managed

6. Money Dashboard

Money Dashboard is considered to be a pioneer in personal finance and budgeting tools. The platform helps its users to understand and manage their financial expenses. On the Money Dashboard, the users can easily categorize the spending by proper tracking across all the accounts. There is also an automatic notification system where the users get notified when the account balance is low or they still have outstanding bills. 

Features:

• Users can easily connect all accounts and can see all of their money in one space
• The platform offers spending history where the users can track and have an account of all the expenditures
• Using this platform, users can create offline accounts if they are unable to connect to a specific investment or bank account.
• The application has the feature of a pay cycle where the users can set up payday. Users can track spending and budget from one payday to the next payday

Pricing:

• Free version

7. Moneydance

Moneydance is a simple and easy-to-use personal finance application that prioritizes the privacy of its users. With this platform, online banking, bill payment, budgeting, etc. The application supports multiple currencies, including cryptocurrencies. It also supports add-on extensions with the platform.

Features:

• The platform keeps the users’ data private, and encrypted, and is never shared with any other parties. 
• It offers detailed and visualized graphs and reports for deep insights into the users’ expenses. 
• The users can set up payment schedules for single and recurring transactions allowing no missing payments.
• The platform offers the feature Account Register which is used to enter, edit, and delete transactions in any account.

Pricing:

• Free trial
• Starting price – $49.99/month

8. Pocketguard

PocketGuard is a prominent application where users can get a comprehensive view of their entire expenses and cash flow. The platform supports the linking of bank accounts from a wide range of financial institutions. Customizable budgets can be created to cater to achieving an accurate financial understanding. 

Features:

• PocketGuard offers visually appealing reports and insights in the form of pie charts
• A notable feature of PocketGuard is the In My Pocket (IMP) tracker. It is a simple mathematical equation that will let the users know how much they have left in their pocket. The equation is as follows:

Estimated income – Upcoming bills – Financial goals – Spending/budget = IMP

• The application also tracks its users’ subscription services which will ensure that the users are not paying for something they are not using. 

Pricing:

• Free version
• Paid version
  $7.99/month
  $79.99/year
  $99.99 for a lifetime membership

9. EveryDollar

EveryDollar is an app that walks users through the budgeting process step-by-step. Assertively, the platform lets them have a strong grip on their financial handling. The application offers two versions, free and Plus. In the free version, that data has to be entered manually by the users, whereas, in the Plus version, the data entry is automatically achieved. 

Features:

• Budgeting is one of the most important features of EveryDollar. Budget categorization helps users not overlook certain categories of expenses. The users can also add their personalized expense category. 
• EveryDollar platform allows users to set due dates for various payments. Reminders can be set to avoid bills going overdue. 
• The users can generate custom budget reports to acquire comprehensive and deep insights into budget handling.
• The platform offers an exclusive monthly newsletter with budgeting articles, tips, and tricks. 

Pricing: 

• Free version
• 14-day free trial
• Paid version
  $12.99/month
  $79.99/year

10. GoodBudget

GoodBudget is best for modern-day budget tracking. The envelope budgeting method will allow the users to track all the expenditures with their family and friends. Using this application, users can organize and prioritize their finances completely. Budgeting goals can be accomplished with ease. Spending and savings can be monitored more diligently. 

Features:

• The users can effectively sync and share budgets. The budgets can be put into action with the people they share the budget with.
• The users can seamlessly plan and save for big expenses. 
• The debts that users carry can be easily paid off using GoodBudget. The users can pay off the debt with a budget that works for them. 
• The application can generate reports to analyze income and spending trends.

Pricing:

• Free version
• Paid version
  $8/month
  $70/year + tax

11. Yotta

Yotta is popular for encouragement to save more. It is a free finance management application that offers rewards for each saving. The users get around 0.20% of their savings as a reward. Through this, they can also win around $10 million through weekly draws. In Yotta, the users are encouraged to put money in sort of a lottery where they have a chance of winning. 

Features:

• The users get the chance to win $10 million weekly.
• The platform encourages users to save money with a reward system where 0.20% of their savings are returned as rewards. 
• The users can make deposits to participate in the lucky draw.
• The users can withdraw the deposits anytime. There are 6 chances every month to withdraw.

Pricing:

• Free version

12. Albert

Albert is best suitable for wide features for financial management. Using such a finance management system, the users can efficiently manage their wealth, achieve savings goals, and get advanced cash instantly. There is also an option to reach out for advice for investors. 

Features:

• If the users are out of cash, the platform can provide them with advance money that can be repaid during the next payday.
• The system in Albert can seamlessly analyze income, spending habits, and user necessities, and automatically save the data. 
• The platform offers expert advisors for proper guidance in investing.
• The application offers its users a 0.10% annual reward on their savings and also a 0.25% reward with Albert Genius.

Pricing:

• Free trial for 30 days
• Albert Genius – $4/month

13. Quicken

Quicken is a personal finance management application that enables users to effectively and smartly manage their finances. The platform allows users to have a clear idea about their financial status and make smart decisions. 

Features:

• The users can optimize their savings goals 
• The platform provides space for managing and reducing debt
• The users can grow, multiply, and diversify their investments
• The users can build emergency funds to cover any unexpected need. 

Pricing:

• Personal
  Quicken SImplifi – $2.39/month
  Quicken Classic (Premier) – $4.19/month

• Business
  Quicken Classic Business and Personal – $5.99/month

14. YNAB

YNAB is a budgeting application that offers easy budgeting methods to its users. It aims to help its users spend smartly and not force them to spend less. It is an easy-to-use platform that offers a wide range of features.

Features:

• Through this platform, the users are navigated through more wise spending.
• The user’s previously set goals can be easily achieved with income tracking and cash flow. 
• The users can acquire financial reports through graphs and charts.
• On this platform, users can sync data across multiple devices and also share budgets with people they wish to share or save together. 

Pricing:

• Free trial 34 days
• Paid version
  $11.99/month
  $84/year

If you are looking at setting up a strong financial management system for your business, then you must consider one from the above list based on the requirements of your business.

Conclusion

Running a business successfully is not just about having adequate financial resources, it is about how well you manage your finances. Financial management tools help in tracking and managing financial transactions, making informed investment decisions, and creating budgets and saving plans. Automating finance management using cloud-based workflow automation tools like Cflow streamlines and simplifies accounting and finance management. To learn more about Cflow, sign up for the free demo today.