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When financial issues start to spiral out of control, you may create a personal tool for tracking your budget. One that is tailored to your needs. Regardless of your income level, the ability to manage your budget often plays a decisive role in leading a stable life.
There are various tools available for such purpose. But what should you do if you want to have complete control over your finances without third-party services? The ideal solution is to create your own personal budget tracker using WordPress.
WordPress as the Best Choice for a Personal Budget Tracker
WordPress is a powerful content management system. It can be easily customized to suit your needs. Most importantly, the majority of changes and settings can be made without any coding for WordPress. This makes it possible to create financial tools even for those who have never written a single line of code.
A personal expense tracker will allow you to:
- Better control your monthly income and expenses,
- Plan large purchases,
- See your financial habits,
- Set financial goals.
Thanks to the WordPress plugin, you can easily organize all your expenses in a convenient format.
Of course, there are many ready-made services that offer personal finance management. In particular, if you are interested in budget software for personal use that works on macOS, check out the selection of the best personal finance apps for Mac. It contains an overview of solutions tailored to the needs of Apple users. These apps are easy to use. They support automatic import of bank transactions. They also have an intuitive interface.
Yet, if you are looking for complete autonomy, without dependence on third-party platforms, you may try to create your own tracker on WordPress. It will allow you to have complete control over the data and enjoy functionality.
Simple Solutions for Beginners
- WPForms and Formidable Forms
- Advanced Custom Fields and Custom Post Types
WPForms and Formidable Forms
WPForms is one of the most popular WordPress plugins for creating forms. Its free version has enough tools to create a basic financial form:
- Date,
- Expense category,
- Amount,
- Comment.
Formidable Forms is another plugin that allows you to visualize the collected data in graphs. This is very useful if you want to see the dynamics of expenses per week or month.
Both plugins allow you to customize fields without coding.
Advanced Custom Fields and Custom Post Types
This solution is suitable for those who want more flexibility. With the Advanced Custom Fields plugin, you can create custom fields for entries. In combination with Custom Post Types U, these fields form a separate post type. For example, Financial Transactions, etc. This is especially useful if you plan to add a recurring expense tracker feature.
Creating a structure
Your tracker should not just be a list of expenses. It needs to be structured into categories. For example, “Income,” “Products,” “Rent,” “Transportation,” “Investments.” This will allow you to quickly analyze where your money is going. You can add categories as a drop-down list in the WordPress form. This makes them easy to reuse.
It is also important to provide a checkbox for recurring expense tracker so that the system understands that certain expenses are repeated every month.
Data visualization
Charts are the most convenient way to see where your money is being spent. To do this, you can use additional modules for the Formidable Forms plugin. They allow you to generate graphs from the data you enter.
Alternatively, you can install the Visualizer: Tables and Charts Manager plugin. It allows you to create interactive graphs directly from your WordPress admin panel. All data is pulled from the WordPress database or forms.
Manage Your Budget From Any Device
For your tracker to be truly convenient, it should be adapted for mobile devices.
- Choose a WordPress theme that supports responsive design.
- You may also use a plugin that optimizes content for smartphones.
- In addition, you can install a WordPress mobile app that allows you to quickly add new expenses directly from your smartphone.
Data Security. Privacy
Financial information is always extremely sensitive. Therefore, when creating a personal budget tracker, follow the basic rules below.
- Restrict access to the tracker page to registered users only.
- Use an SSL certificate to encrypt data.
- Use security plugins. For example, Wordfence or iThemes Security.
- Back up your site regularly.
Takeaway
Building a personal budget tracker on WordPress will be a great choice for you if you value control and personalization. Without having to code for WordPress, you can create a system that tracks all of your financial activities. Moreover, it can help you see where your money is going. This way you can make more deliberate decisions about your future spending. Such an approach is completely flexible. You can start with the basic version and add new features later. So with WordPress, you can keep your finances under control even without programming.
