BankTree Review

Full review

BankTree is a UK-based software program for managing your personal finances, but as it supports all currencies you can use it wherever you live. In order to buy the program you need to first download the trial version and then activate the full version of the program. The free trial version of BankTree lasts 30 days.

Accounts

One of the benefits of using BankTree is you can view information from a number of different accounts, all in the same place. This makes it easier to see where your money is going, and to transfer money between accounts or pay bills from different accounts using the same interface.

Start by setting up the accounts you need to manage, which can be cash or investment accounts. Credit card accounts are not supported. Here you can add your bank details so you link directly to those accounts. Using the direct link you can import your bank statement from your bank or from another financial package like Microsoft Money. In the case that the link doesn’t work properly, or you prefer not to connect to your bank, you can add details of transactions manually.

BankTree supports multiple currencies but there are occasions when a link with a US or other foreign bank is problematic. It is not always easy to use BankTree to sync with US bank accounts, for example.

The investments account section allows you to add your investments, download the correct prices and keep a track of stock and shares movements within the BankTree program.

Budgeting

On the budgeting side, you can add your expenditure across different categories, splitting transactions between categories if you need to. BankTree has a list of existing categories and payment types but you can add your own or edit the existing categories to match your priorities. You add what you spend to each category and you can set budgets to affect weekly, monthly or even annual spend. If you want to edit the budget you can, simply by adding different figures to the categories.

Monitoring the budget over the month allows you more control over your spending. When you know you are below budget in one category you can spend a little more in other categories, for example.

Reporting

There are 10 reports to choose from, fewer than many of the other personal finance software packages. Using the reports feature you can choose how you filter the results, how you group transactions, and how you want to display the data. BankTree reports include net worth, income vs. expenses, budget reports, account balances, and transactions. The reports are, on the whole, very simple and there is not a lot you can do to customize them apart from choosing which payees, accounts, and categories to include.

Mobile app

BankTree Mobile is an app for Android and iOS, including iPad and iPhone. You can use the mobile app as a standalone or link it with the PC software. If you want to link, you’ll need Dropbox as the intermediary. Using the mobile app you can view your balances, check your net worth, add account transactions and delete them, and take photos of your receipts to attach to the BankTree transaction.

Security

It is wise to password protect access to this program if you are going to link your bank accounts with BankTree. This makes it more difficult for anyone else to access your data. The syncing between mobile app and PC is secure as it is driven by the Dropbox application.

Help & Support

There are a variety of tutorials and FAQs to look at, plus a Knowledge Base of articles. The only other way to get support for technical and other BankTree issues is to submit a support ticket, or pay for a premium support ticket.

Overall

BankTree is a good option for keeping track of your investment accounts alongside your cash accounts, putting everything easily accessible in one place. If you want a simple, easy to use system to manage your accounts, give BankTree a try.