How to Track Your Net Worth Online

Planning & Saving
on July 5, 2012

Mobile technology is changing the world. Not only is a cellular telephone a gateway to the Internet, it is a mobile computer containing both financial data and even more personal information. In this day and time it is important to have access to financial data as quickly and neatly as possible. If you are looking for ways to track your net worth online, there are a lot of options.

The first question you might want to ask yourself is what type of data do you want available in an immediate manner. Is this an account that you will be accessing daily, weekly, monthly, hourly? Is it important to be able to access your information from a mobile phone. Will it be just you or an accountant viewing the information. It is important to know what you need before entering information for an hour and then finding out that it is just not going to meet your needs.

Tracking your net worth online is a tricky bit of business from time to time. One of the biggest names in financial data went through a good number of changes over the past few years. Microsoft Money used to be the name for all things monetary. This could couple with MSN Money and give a good all-around service. After 2009, Money became Money Plus, stopped its online services and discontinued linking with MSN. This is no longer a viable solution for this type of service.

While Quicken has been a good choice for handling financial data and its net worth calculator is a good one, accessing data online can be an issue. Plus, altering this information online is not really an option for Quicken. Due to the size of the company, it has usually started development of each new version at least two years in advance. At this point it appears as though they did not foresee the vast interest in Android and IOS applications. Perhaps the next version will be more appropriate.

A company called NetWorthIQ has a free service that has been getting a good amount of press over the past few months. There are a few paid add on services, but to track net worth the basic set up is just fine. There are a good number of charts and graphs that are available and the information can be accessed through the Internet just about anywhere. The company is geared toward some planning, but rather than set a large number of goals and milestones, it is more of an advice type of slant to the service. Upon first blush, it seems that the advice may also be more ad and service driven than appropriate for your situation.

If you maintain your own website or are able to, there is a plugin for WordPress that had some people talking a couple years ago. The plugin is free and does function, however, the group that put it together has not touched it in more than two years. This means that future updates to WordPress may render the plugin inoperable. The data is presented in a nice little package, but it is not really something that carries the same impact as the big guys. The main reason for using a system like this would be the amount of control that you have over the system. Rather than share a website with all its other users, a person could set up a VPS server for around $10 per month and literally have exclusive access to the system.

Another option for tracking your net worth online is Yodlee. They have been around for a little while and offer a variety of services. This one will institute other financial services into the mix, such as checking bank account balances and such. When it comes to net worth, the charts and graphs are pretty good, but you may find that you want a service with a few more options if your finances are atypical. Most of the types of transactions and assets fall into common groups. The software is geared more toward everyday use and a quick calculation of net worth that alters based on bank account balances. If you want the most up to date data, this may be the one.

BudgetPulse is a good service that comes on strong with the promise of free registration. This is a true point, but the company is a fairly new one and will most likely alter the business model at some point in the future. Their calculation of net worth is the absolute simplification of the idea. It is a straight forward assets versus liabilities system. The website uses a lot of pushes toward saving and preparing for the future. Setting up the accounts in the beginning will take a little time and altering anything other than information about account balances will require a few minutes sitting down at the computer.

While all of these are good options and there are many more, tracking your net worth online is something that is going to vary from person to person. There will be some that wish to spend hours calculating net worth and then observe some small changes and then others that are buying and selling property left and right as investments. Many of these services will integrate several services that up to this point have been separate for you. If you have multiple credit cards and bank accounts and tire of hitting six websites just to see an overall picture of your financial data, then these services will help for that in a big way.

One of the last places that most people look when they are ready to track their net worth online is their bank. You will be hard pressed to find a bank these days that does not have a wealth of account information online. Most people get in the habit of checking the balance and fail to see some of the other services that the same bank has to offer. Look around at the options your banks website already has in place and at the same time do not be afraid to call them and ask. There is usually a whole host of extra data services that can be added by just clicking the mouse and at no extra charge.

If you want to track your net worth online, then do not be afraid to try out more than one service. You may be surprised how much information you can have available through your phone, computer or any other Internet device.

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