One of the apps that has been gaining momentum in recent months is Personal Capital. This is a web-based application that works kind of like Mint.com, but takes it up a notch.
One of the complaints that many people have against Mint is that it doesn’t work as well with investment tracking. If you have some investments, and you want a clearer, automatically updated, view of your finances, Personal Capital might be a product that you’ll want to give a try.
Overview Of Personal Capital
Like many web-based financial apps, Personal Capital can connect to your accounts, and pull information about your finances from various sources, including checking and savings accounts and credit card accounts. You can connect your brokerage account, and many companies that manage retirement accounts can also be connected. You can also add mortgage accounts and get updated information on your balance and payments.
By adding all of your account types you can get an overall view of what your total financial picture looks like.
While there are still a few bugs to be worked out with some of the account connections, and with some of the functionality, the process is mostly smooth.
Personal Capital is aimed at a population that is sort of “in between” middle class and upper middle class. It’s for people who have some investments, and maybe own more real estate than their primary residence. It’s aimed at those who have a more complex financial picture than those who gravitate toward Mint.com, but who also might not have a high enough net worth to warrant high-end asset management.
Personal Capital is great for those who have more assets, and a wider variety of assets, and want to manage it themselves.
Here’s a quick video look at what Personal Capital has to offer.
Personal Capital – Free To Use
Personal Capital is currently completely free to use for new users. It’s an easy sign up process, and you’ll only need some of your basic information to get started, including logins for any banks or brokerages you want to add to the software.
Get Expert Help
Even though Personal Capital is initially free to use, it does have costs if you want to “upgrade.” Personal Capital also offers an asset management service. If you have at least $10,000 in manageable assets, you can pay a fee to have the financial experts at the company manage your money.
For some of those who want a little help, but don’t have the number of assets that warrant attention from other management companies, Personal Capital can provide a service that can help. It’s also possible to get access to financial advisers, even if you don’t ultimately place your assets under management at Personal Capital.
Not only can you track your spending, and investment performance with Personal Capital, but the app will also provide you with advice. The investment fees you are paying are analyzed by Personal Capital, and the app can recommend different options that can reduce what you’re paying. Additionally, your asset allocation is prominently displayed, along with trends in your spending, saving, and investing.
You can also receive free analysis of your asset allocation, and how it matches up with your goals, as well as tips for tweaking your investment strategy.
Conclusion
Personal Capital offers one of the most comprehensive pictures of your financial situation, a more complete picture than some other sites like Mint.com are able to offer.
If your financial picture includes multiple investment accounts, and a variety of other accounts, Personal Capital can help you manage everything, since it is more than a budgeting app; it’s a true money management app.
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Last Edited: 11th March 2013
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
This is the second time I’ve read about Personal Capital (here and on another site). I think I might give them a try and see what they are all about. Currently, I’m a Mint user but I’m always on the look out for better products and services.
One thing I really enjoy about Mint.com is the weekly net worth snapshots. I don’t have the time or desire to constantly be logging into Mint to check my net worth so a weekly summary is quite useful and nice reminder that things are indeed (for the most part) going up.
Is there something similar with Personal Capital?
I know they have a net worth report on the website, and they’ll send weekly or daily summary emails if you want them to:
Personal Capital will send you a daily summary of your accounts and a weekly performance report depending on the preferences you have setup in the ‘Alerts’ section of your profile.
I’m not 100% sure if the emails have the net worth report on them though as my account i had the emails turned off.
Hi Guys,
Joe from Personal Capital here. We do have a weekly summary email which goes out with a summary of your net worth. We also have an optional daily email which you can turn on through your personal settings once your logged in.
Happy to help if you have any other questions/comments/concerns!
How is the $10 dispersed out? I added 2 accounts but it doesn’t mention anything about the $10.
When you click on the link to Personal Capital on this page it should give you a note about starting an account and getting $10.
As far as how the money is dispersed, I’m not really sure. I’ll have to check with their support to find out – I didn’t sign up through a referral link myself, so I didn’t get the $10 bonus. I’ll report back once I get an answer from support.
UPDATE: In reading reviews on other sites it appears that they may pay out the bonus via Paypal. I’ll report what they say when they email me back.
UPDATE 2: Personal Capital support responded back, “The bonus needs to be processed and approved by our team before we can send the payment to your account. This could take up to 10 business days to complete. It is distributed through PayPal. Please check back with us if you haven’t received your bonus 10 days after you initially signed up.“
Thanks Peter!
But this is for the US market/users only, right?
I believe it is US users only, however, I’m not sure about that. They do have a contact page where you can contact them if you have questions about whether you’re eligible to use their service. personalcapital.com/contact-us
I still have privacy and security concerns. Maybe they’re an honest company, but how do I know that someone else won’t be able to hack into their data? I manage mine in a spreadsheet of my own design… not as comprehensive, but it does the trick and it’s much more customizeable :)
Personal Capital is about as secure as they come when it comes to your data. In fact, I’ve personally found it a little annoying at times, more secure than a lot of other sites I visit. From their site:
They are also staffed by some well known people in the financial industry, so you know they’re not a fly-by-night operation. Their CEO is former CEO of PayPal and others on their management team come from places like Quicken, Passmark and Eloan among others. They’re got a solid team, and I assume they’ll be around for years to come.
I was wondering if PC has a way to print reports. I currently use Quicken desktop because I can print a report at the end of the year and provide it to my CPA. I tried Mint, but it doesn’t have any report functionality. Does PC offer this at all? I would like to move away from Quicken, but printable reports are a must.
Thank you.
Dan B.
Printing is a requirement for me. How will PC support this?