What Is Personal Financial Management (PFM)?

Personal financial management (PFM) is a category of consumer software that is designed for use🍬 in managing money. The category can include everything from home budgeting programs to mobile banking apps and bill payment systems.

Understanding Personal Fin🍨ancial Man꧋agement (PFM)

PFM has been around at least since 1983 when Intuit co-founder Scott Cook observed his wife struggling with the paperwork involved in paying bills and balancing a checkbook by hand.

Cook started to explore how to streamline the process. He teamed up with a programmer named Tom Proulx, who creဣated a simple check-balancing program that became an early version of the personal finance software program Quicken.

And that’s how Intuit (INTU) was born.

A Crowded Field

When Quicken was launched, there was already a crowded field of software-based bill payment programs. There were 46 other personal finance products out there, but many were clunky and not easy to use.

Quicken’s biggest selling point was its ease of use. Because it mimicked a paper check, the software was easy to learn for anyone who ever wrote a ch🔯eck.

Expanding Functionality

Listeꦆning to their customers revealed other ways that customers were using the product, and pointed towards further refinements and expansion.

For example, once the company found that a third of its customers were using the software for business expenses, Intuit developed 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Quickbooks, a version of Quicken that focuses on t✤racking expenses.

It also created a feature that allo🐭wed customers to download their brokerage statements and incorporate them into financial planning.

That set the stage for the 🎀creation of other PFM p✱roducts.

Today's PFM products include online tools focused on tracking 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:credit scores (think Credit Karma), phone apps tღhat allow individual investors to trade stocks (think Robinhood), and software that tracks spending and bill paying (thജink Prism).

PFM is the software that powers these apps, as well as many 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:mobile banking ♋tools that people use to check their balances, transfer money, and deposit checks.

Special Considerations

Banking and finance apps may share PFM software, but they are not all built the same. It’s important to define what your needs areꦺ to ensure that you are using the right system.

Some of these apps have free versi𝄹ons, although many have subscriptions to access advanced features. Some are built for Windows and others are built for Macs.

While mobile banking can help with bill paying, tracking deposits and withdrawals, and transferring funds between accounts, personal finance apps are often built with more comprehensive money management tools a🥃nd a greater abi🌜lity to personalize features.

Many not only allow you to pay bills and track deposits/withdrawals but also include broader options that give you the flexibility to t💯ake more control of your financial management goals.

Personal finance apps have evolved to become much more user-friendly and targeted to🌜 customers’ needs. Overall, these apps will allow you to be more orga🦋nized with your finances.

At the most basic level, thཧey will help you manage your budget, track your spending, and ensure that you pay your bills on time. If you have broader needs, then there are mꦜost likely apps for them, too—or soon will be.

The Bottom Line

Personal financial management (PFM) software has grown from a single application that helped people record their checks toꦍ a major software category encompassing money management, bill payments, money transfers, personal investing, accounting, and more.

And, of course, the product🐼s now live online, are available in mobile versions, and store their ꦺrecords in the cloud.