BankTree has vastly improved their software from their previous version. They have added features and functionality that make it much more competitive with other personal finance software packages. Customers from the United States are going to have some price issues with this product because the company that made it is based out of the United Kingdom. Fluctuating exchange rates can lead to the price being lower or higher on any given day. But, other than that, nothing else is lost in translation.
From setup to adding new accounts and viewing reports, this personal finance software is simple to use. Large icons dominate the top of every screen and direct users to different steps in the budget process. These icons, along with sidebar information, create an easy-to-use interface.
A detailed in-software user manual is provided, allowing any question that does arise to be immediately answered.
BankTree allows you to import financial files downloaded from your bank, which is a nice feature, but the top 4-ranked software packages allow direct connection to your bank or credit union. You can also customize payee categories, run reports, and schedule bills, but the program offers no bill pay services.
Based on several months of expenditure documentation, basic reports are generated and illustrated. Customized by keywords, account, payees or category, these reports make it easy to see where – and to whom – your money is going.
Reports are generated for the following:
- Account summary
- Monthly cash flow
- Account transactions
- Budget report
- Spending by category
- Monthly spending by category
- Spending by payee
- Monthly spending by payee
- Spending by payment type
- Investment gains and losses
- Un-cleared funds
Because BankTree is based out of the U.K., they highly recommend customers take advantage of their email support as well as technical support through Skype (their Skype ID is provided on their website).
BankTree also provides users of their personal finance software with an excellent in-software user manual with explicit sections covering all features and options and phone support (via a U.K. phone number).
Although this personal finance software does not offer specific archiving options for reports or charts, files are easily exported to Excel or as a QIF or CSV file and can be saved to a flash drive for later retrieval.
BankTree provides its users with a personal investing section that allows for investments to be manually entered and tracked. For stocks, any investment can be easily added, edited or deleted, simply enter the stock price, investment name, currency used and data source (Yahoo, Google, etc.). The price history for those stocks are then uploaded daily from your data source.
This personal finance software does not have dedicated tax section, but access to detailed pie charts and line graphs illustrating your yearly expenditures will be helpful when you're preparing tax papers and other information.
For those seeking finance software for personal investing purposes BankTree is the ideal tool for those wanting to know exactly where their money is going in order to cut back in certain areas, thus saving them money.
