Empower Personal Dashboard Budget App Review

Empower Personal Dashboard is more of a net worth tracker than a budget app, but its simple approach may work for you. You can connect your disparate financial accounts (bank, credit cards, investments, loans and more) to get a complete view of your net worth and monitor spending against a monthly budget.

We downloaded and tested the iOS version of Empower Personal Dashboard and accessed the desktop tool on the web to learn about the features and figure out if it’s worth it.

Empower, the company, is a financial services organization that offers investment management and advisory services. The Empower Personal Dashboard app — formerly Personal Capital before Empower acquired it — is a free financial tool you can use absent any paid Empower services.

Unlike other budget apps we’ve reviewed, Empower combines net worth tracking and investment analysis features with regular budgeting. Core features of the dashboard include:

• Net worth tracking and an aggregate view of portfolio balances.

• Budgeting and cash flow views.

• An investment checkup tool to assess allocations, risk and fees.

• Retirement savings and emergency fund tracking.

This app might be a fit for you if you’ve accumulated multiple retirement accounts and/or individual brokerage accounts over the years. You’ll be able to see them in one place, and have a look at daily spending while you’re there.

Empower Personal Dashboard is free. There is no paid version of this tool. However, Empower offers additional tools for advisory clients.

The budgeting features of Empower Personal Dashboard are basic, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Note: We preferred navigating the web-based version of Empower Personal Dashboard in our tests. The app interface isn’t as sleek as some competitor budget apps, and viewing transactions and graphs was easier on a bigger screen.

The Empower app is designed to aggregate all your financial accounts for a big picture view of your money. As such, this app will be most useful if you feel comfortable syncing at least some of your accounts. Empower’s website says user credentials are encrypted and that its employees don’t have access to accounts.

The “cash flow” section is a good first stop. The app uses a cash flow graph to show money flowing in and out based on balance and transaction data of the accounts you have connected. It compares progress with the previous month.

• Tap or click the “income” tab to view deposits, interest and other income in both a list and graph view. 

• Visit the “expense” tab to see expenses organized by category in a similar graph that lets you compare spending from this month with last month. 

Use the “budgeting” section to scrutinize spending. Set a single monthly budget (i.e., a targeted spend limit of say, $3,000) and view total spending for the month against that limit. You’ll also see transactions from linked bank and credit card accounts automatically grouped into spending categories. Click into a category (e.g., groceries) to sift through individual transactions and change categories as needed.

Let’s say, for example, you buy groceries from Walmart, but the app categorizes those transactions as “general merchandise.” You can change one transaction to “groceries” and apply the new category to all like transactions.

What’s missing is the ability to create multiple budgeting categories (e.g., $500 for groceries this month) and track spending against each. This is a common feature in other, more robust budgeting apps.

Save an emergency fund. The desktop version of Empower Personal Dashboard has a “savings planner” feature that you can use if you have cash accounts linked. Set a target emergency fund and use the bar graph to see how the cash in your accounts measures up. A general rule of thumb is to aim to have three to six months’ worth of expenses on hand in a savings account.

If you have multiple, disparate investment accounts, Empower Personal Dashboard is a good place to add them for a real-time view of your total net worth. You can add loan accounts, like a mortgage, too. The dashboard supports connections with many financial institutions so there’s a good chance you can add your accounts (if you can remember your passwords). However, you may see an account error message if Empower has trouble connecting with one of your financial institution accounts.

Get an investment checkup. The dashboard includes a “checkup” feature that will assess your investments and give you tips for alternative allocations.

Know your fees. The app also analyzes the investment fees you pay on linked retirement accounts so you can make informed decisions.

Reddit is an online forum where users share their thoughts in “threads” on various topics. The popular site includes plenty of discussion on financial subjects like budgeting, so we sifted through Reddit forums to get a pulse check on how users feel about budget apps. People post anonymously, so we cannot confirm their individual experiences or circumstances.

Sentiment is fairly mixed among Reddit users who’ve mentioned Empower Personal Dashboard. Here are some pros and cons that rose to the top of our analysis.

• It’s a free service that offers basic financial tracking and net worth monitoring.

• It has good investment tracking and retirement planning tools.

• You can connect and view multiple financial accounts in one place.

• You can change the category of multiple transactions at once.

• There is less robust budgeting functionality compared to competitor apps.

• There is some frustration with the reliability of account connections.

• The mobile app experience is less reliable than the web version.

When it comes to budget apps, what’s better is typically a matter of taste. The simplicity of Empower may be appealing for some. Others may favor an app that lets you set more than one target budget amount.

YNAB, for example, is a decidedly more full-featured budget app that comes with a monthly cost. Honeydue, another app we’ve reviewed, works well for free financial management for couples. EveryDollar and PocketGuard are other budget apps that, unlike Empower, allow you to plan spending in specific expense categories for the month.