The days of old book keeping are gone, thanks to digital age. Increased stress and tension results if one’s financial status are not monitored properly. Effective management of personal fiance leads to a fuller life. Moreover, it is always good to keep an eye on incoming and outgoing money. You never wants to end a spendthrift.

Since money is what drives most of us forward and tracking expenses leads to a disciplined life, there is always a scope for a brief review of different money managing softwares. Here’s a review of the fifteen I found interesting. If you are already using a proven and existing system, you can easily skim ahead, What follows should not lead you to confusion and chaos.

1. Buxfer

Buxfer combines beauty with dexterity. It makes money management a fun and easy affair. The white background with beautiful charts that can be displayed based on monetary transfers can make it appeal to the youth. Buxfer differs from other money management applications given its visually attractive design. It has a large number of useful features like importing bank statements directly, split bills, tagging transactions, settling accounts etc.

The account is also suitable on the move as the website offers update via Twitter and SMS. Any WAP enabled phone can also access the mobile version of the service. Buxfer is generally recommended for anyone. The one are where Buxfer lacks is the availability of advanced planning facilities.

2. Mint

Praised high and applauded much, Mint is what your personal finance assistant can do you, but for free. Mint has been the darling of most US residents. The refreshing interface, the simple usage of colors and large fonts makes using and configuring mint a breeze. All you have to do is to enter your account number and credit card details and mint synchronizes with your bank every night, updating credits and debits.

Using a patent pending algorithm, Mint analyzes your spending trends, can advice you on offers and deals. It alert you if your finance runs low. Mint is developed on the philosophy that a penny saved is a penny earned. Moreover, Mint offers all of its services free of cost. Much like Buxfer, Mint is able to display monetary details in a graphical manner.

3. Mookal

Mookal, short for Mortgage calculator is a simple and easy way to calculate your mortgages. Devoid of flashy designs and charts, Mookal delivers what it promises; a simple interface where you can enter your loan details. Mookal calculates the total interest to pay, the monthly pay, the payoff date and the total amount to pay. It is more like a loan tracker than financial tracker.

4. IRS Withholding Calculator

The IRS Withholding calculator is probably of any interest to US citizens only. It helps you calculate your taxes, displays the amount you will be left with after you payoff all your dues. It is a wonderful way to calculate taxes. It doesn’t require name or address to begin with.

5. Quicken Online

Quicken Online is a sort of the light version of the famed Quicken software for the Desktops. Quicken targets young people who are yet to develop complex financial needs and planning with its online service. Much like Mint, the program can update Credit Cards, bank balances etc. over night.

It can create and track personal budgets and offers high security for the data that you enter. Users of Quicken Desktop features are in for a surprise. The online version does not offer investment tracking, a serious tool for any businessman. It does not allow exporting data to the Quicken Desktop Software.

Quicken Online is a fantastic way to manage money online. Moreover, the most attractive feature is the cost involved. It comes for free. Recommended for the not so demanding personal money tracker.

6. IsDueOn

IsDueOn is a Mumbai based startup company which alerts the most absent minded. It is an alert service which alerts about all the things that are due on a certain date. You sign up for a free account after which you will be able to add your bills to a list. Once the due for bills is reached, you will get an email alert. The site also provides Twitter support, but it is an announced service and is yet to launch. For free users, the email alert is received three days prior to the due date.

Much more options are available for the Premium customer, including SMS updates and custom reminder schedules. But the Premium version is still under development. Is Due On can be thought of as Remember the Milk on steroids. It is not a financial application per se, but a multifarious application that can be put to many uses.

Recommended for the poor memory guys !

7. Spending Diary

Spending Diary is Web 2.0 upgrade of the old pen and paper way of recording expenses. It provides you with a worksheet like interface where you can add your expenses. As the name implies, you can record only the expenses. You can add a custom category name to the expense. The expenses are displayed in a nice notebook like format.

Another plus of the service is report making. Spending Diary generates charts and reports based on your spending. You can download the reports in CSV format as well. Apart from the default templates like :today”, “yesterday”, “last week” etc., you can create your own templates and generate reports.

Recommended for anyone who does not need complicated services, but still need a way to track money.

8. Wesabe

Wesabe brings together the best of online money management and a community based service. Like Mint, Wesabe can sync with almost all bank accounts and is a good choice. They are famed and well known for their security policy; which they advertise plentiful on their site.For the most paranoid of its users, Wesabe offers an opportunity to call the CEO directly and talk to him about security.

Wesabe offers standard features of any money management application. What differentiates Wesabe is its ability to integrate a community around the application. It can advice on the sending habits depending on the users from community. Wesabe is built on the belief that socializing minimizes your financial worries and separates you from money tracking.

Though relatively young, Wesabe has released a plethora of softwares, including portfolio management. It has received rave reviews from all over and is seen as a strong contender to Mint.

9. Xpenser

Xpenser is for the geekiest. Period. Don’t be shunned away by the demanding needs. Xpenser is actually a powerful application that geeks can put to the full use of. It is an expense list on the go. You can update the list form blackberry or even twitter. Introduced in 2007, Xpenser was quick to gain popularity and praise.

The interface is quick and refreshing and everything is documented properly. You have to sign up and create a account to use the service. An email with a password is sent to the email account and you have to activate the account to use your account. Xpenser is a free application; it doesn’t charge for any of its services.

Xpenser is a great tool for the spending guys on the run. It is primarily intended as a tool to update expenses on the go.

10. Moneytrackin’

Moneytrackin’ is another online service intended to solve all your financial tracking problems. It seems to be a bit outdated that it does not automatically pull out transactions from bank accounts. You need to manually enter each transaction. It is also based on a community design and provides tips submitted by the users to save money

Another plus is the nice cloud view available at the site. The colorful view allows one to keep track of the money spend in an easy and painless way. Moneytrackin’ uses space delimited tags, which may annoy some. It also allows export of CSV data only.10