PocketSmith Budgeting Software Review(2023)

Detailed Read

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Before diving into how PocketSmith can help you manage your finances, it’s important to understand the benefits of budgeting apps like PocketSmith.

If you are struggling with financial problems, a budgeting app can be extremely helpful.

• Do you find it challenging to manage your finances?
• Do you find yourself struggling financially and relying solely on your paycheck to get by?
• Do you find that you exceed your budget on a regular basis?
• Are you interested in managing your finances instead of letting them control you?
•  I don’t want to manage daily accounts manually or with semi-automated tools such as Excel or Google Sheets.

In the market, there are many free budgeting apps that you can use. However, conducting a thorough analysis of PocketSmith’s product features is crucial before making any final decisions on alternative solutions. By doing this, we can evaluate the features offered by the competitors in comparison to PocketSmith.

What is POCKETSMITH ?

PocketSmith is a comprehensive personal finance software that offers various tools to help individuals create a customized financial plan. This product turns your phone into a personal financial assistant, helping you make the right decisions every time you spend money. The product aims to simplify tracking financial assets, and liabilities and forecast future spending. PocketSmith allows for easy expense tracking through automatic categorization of bank and credit card transactions or manual input.

PocketsMITH Key Features and Benefits

Below is the list of essential features of Personal Finance Software Does PocketSmith have It?
Expense Tracking	Yes	Security	Yes
Income Tracking	Yes	Mobile Accessibility	Yes
Budget Creation	Yes	Data Export	Yes
Expense Categories	Yes	Debt Tracking	Yes
Bill Reminders	Yes	Investment Tracking	Manual
Goal Setting	Yes	Tax Planning	Yes
Financial Reports	Yes	Multi-Currency Support	Yes
Transaction History	Yes	User-Friendly Interface	Yes
Bank Account Integration	Yes	Customization	Yes
Manual Transaction	Yes	Savings Goals	Yes
Customer Support	Yes	Collaboration	Yes

Below is the list of essential sub-features of Personal Finance Software Does PocketSmith have It?

Net Worth	Yes	Planning Different Scenarios	Yes
Budget Calendar	Yes	Flexible budgeting (Any date range)	Yes
Label Transactions automatically	Yes	Create Custom Dashboards/Reports	Yes
Transaction Search	Yes	Cashflow Forecasting	Yes
Migrating from Other Budget Apps	Yes

PocketSmith sets itself apart from other budgeting software as it is very easy to get the answers you are looking for. The user interface and the rich toolset allow you to focus on what’s important to you right now and put aside overwhelming financial details you don’t need. Make customized dashboards and reports for different situations and people. Let’s discuss the key or standout features that can help you in managing your money.

1: Cashflow forecasting

Forecast estimates your future spending, income, and account balances based on your past spending, upcoming transactions, reminders, and budgets. This feature is extremely useful for planning for near-term goals and ensuring you have sufficient funds in the right accounts.

Where can this forecasting feature help you : 

• Anticipate when your account balance is about to fall below a specified threshold.
• Planning for a big expense like a child’s higher studies, marriage, etc.
• Prevent unnecessary overdrafts and minimum balance fees.
• What are the consequences of a decision made today in the years to come?

2: Budget Calendar

The budget Calendar feature and the cash flow go hand in hand. By adding budgets, you can observe how your projected income and expenses influence your financial outlook on any date in the Calendar, whether it’s in the upcoming weeks, months, or even spanning up to 30 years into the future. 

When you’re looking for a quick overview of your budgets and financial forecast for any given month, using the calendar feature can be immensely helpful. Plus, the forecast graph offers a visual representation of your past and future actual balances compared to your budgeted balances. This can give you a better understanding of your financial situation and help you plan accordingly.

You can add multiple secondary scenarios to an account, alongside the primary scenario, to allow you to model and compare different sets of potential decisions. Examples like An increase or decrease in your mortgage or rent payments, what if I want to plan it with my main income and not consider side hustles or vice versa?

3: Scenario Testing

The platform offers scheduled budgets called ‘scenarios’ that you can assign to your account. These budgets create a projected cash forecast with daily closing balances. Every account comes with ‘primary scenarios,’ which are the regular budgets that enable you to forecast your account’s balance into the future. Additionally, you can add ‘secondary scenarios’ to model what-if scenarios and explore different financial outcomes. This feature is incredibly useful in helping you to plan accordingly.

You can add multiple secondary scenarios to an account, alongside the primary scenario, to allow you to model and compare different sets of potential decisions. Examples like An increase or decrease in your mortgage or rent payments, what if I want to plan it with my main income and not consider side hustles or vice versa?

4: Quick Transaction Search

Have you ever struggled to find a specific transaction in PocketSmith? You’ll be happy to know that the platform has a Transactions Search panel that allows you to easily search for transactions based on various criteria. By defining the parameters of a search, you can quickly find the transactions you need. And if you frequently use the same searches, you can save them for quick access.

Other Notable Features

• Multi-currency support.
• Creating Custom dashboards
• Multi-currency
• Reports and analytics

Getting Started with POCKETSMITH

Getting started with PocketSmith is similar to other budgeting apps – just follow these 3 simple steps.

1. You have two options: create a new user ID and password, or log in using your existing Google Account.
2. They will display a few options (Choose one of them)
   1. “Bank Feeds” – Although this feature is available, it cannot be accessed as a free user.
   2. “Bring your own data “ –  Migrate from your old budgeting app (they support few), uploading data from bank accounts. 
   3. Advance Mode – Existing users or more of a blank slate and figure out once you are in.
   4. Demo Mode – To understand the features.
3. Start budgeting

My advice would be to do the following before even going to step 2 or 3.

• Take some time to come up with a future plan. Determine your goals and start with 2-3 simple ones that can be built upon later. 
• Begin with an emergency fund as your first goal, then move on to other goals based on your thought process. 
• Jot down upcoming or future expenses for the next 12 months. 
• Learn about investing, retirement savings, and other financial matters. Dedicate an hour each day to reading articles or watching videos related to finances and improving your plan based on others’ input. Keep learning! 
• When creating a budget, be honest and don’t put off any financial tasks for later. 
• Tools can automate tedious tasks, such as syncing your bank transactions to your PocketSmith account. You don’t have to use the categories that PocketSmith provides by default. Instead, organize the categories to match your monthly spending habits.

pocKETSMITH Pricing and Plans

PocketSmith Offers different types of pricing

Free: Limited features ., for eg., 6 months projection and no bank feeds.  – 

Foundation: USD 9.99

• Automatic bank feeds
• Email support
• 6 connected banks from 1 country
• 6 dashboards
• 10 years projection
• Unlimited accounts
• Unlimited budgets

Flourish: USD 16.66 

• Automatic bank feeds
• Email support
• 18 connected banks from all countries
• 18 dashboards
• 30 years’ projection
• Unlimited accounts
• Unlimited budgets

Fortune: USD 26.66

• Automatic bank feeds
• Priority email support
• Unlimited connected banks from all countries
• Unlimited dashboards
• 60 years projection
• Unlimited accounts
• Unlimited budgets

Please refer to the website PocketSmith for the updated pricing.

POCKETSMITH vs. Competitors

Comparing PocketSmith with others would be an exhaustive topic that I would cover in a separate article. Maybe I will pick only the top 3 in this segment and start comparing them in the other article. The key selling point I would think for PocketSmith is to have a great cashflow projection, Budget Calendar, and intuitive Web UI.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

PocketSmith is a well-thought-out product that serves the purpose of understanding where we stand (Net Worth) and what future hurdles we might face if we spend on something today. The Foundation plan itself has all the features that an individual would require to manage his money but before even subscribing to any we should have a mindset to make use of its full potential and be self-disciplined.