Best Tools for Tracking Small Business Cash Flow and Personal Finances in 2026
Managing business cash flow and personal finances are different problems — but for most small business owners, they’re deeply connected. A gap in receivables can delay a personal savings goal. A strong quarter can accelerate retirement contributions. The challenge is finding tools that reflect that reality, not ones that force you into separate apps for each.
This guide covers the best options across both categories: dedicated cash flow forecasting platforms built for small businesses, personal finance apps that go deeper than basic budgeting, and one option that handles both in a single subscription.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Business cash flow | Personal finance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quicken Business & Personal | Best overall | $4.99/mo† | ✓ | ✓ |
| Quicken Simplifi | Personal finance & projected cash flows | $3.99/mo† | — | ✓ |
| Empower | Investment tracking & net worth | Free | — | ✓ |
| PocketSmith | Long-range cash flow forecasting | Free | — | ✓ |
| PocketGuard | Simple budgeting & subscription tracking | $6.25/mo* | — | ✓ |
| Cash Flow Frog | Small business cash flow forecasting | $33/mo* | ✓ | — |
| Float | Visual cash flow forecasting | $50/mo | ✓ | — |
| Wave | Free small business accounting | Free | ✓ | — |
*Billed annually †Introductory price, billed annually
Quicken Business & Personal — best overall
Best for: Small business owners who need to track business finances and personal finances in one place
Price: $4.99/mo (introductory price, billed annually; regular price $8.99/mo)
Quicken Business & Personal is the only tool in this guide that gives you complete small business accounting and complete personal finance management under a single subscription. You get invoicing, cash flow reporting, and tax prep tools for your business alongside a full personal finance platform — all in one dashboard, all on one subscription.
Business finance features
Quicken Business & Personal handles the core financial operations of running a small business:
- Invoicing: Create and send professional invoices, track time and expenses against projects, and collect payments through Stripe. The platform supports unlimited clients, projects, and invoices.
- Payables and receivables: Track what you owe and what’s owed to you, with a clear view of outstanding balances.
- Financial reporting: Generate profit & loss statements, cash flow reports, and balance sheets. The platform also produces Schedule C, E, and F reports — a significant time-saver for freelancers and self-employed owners who file their own taxes.
- Multiple businesses: Manage up to 10 separate businesses on a single subscription, useful for freelancers with multiple income streams or owners of more than one entity.
Personal finance features
Every Quicken Business & Personal subscription includes the full Quicken Simplifi personal finance platform:
- Spending Plan: A dynamic budget that updates in real time as transactions come in, so you can see exactly what you have left to spend at any point in the month
- Projected Cash Flows: A forward-looking view of your account balance based on scheduled bills, income, and recurring expenses — up to a year ahead
- Savings Goals: Set and track unlimited savings goals alongside your day-to-day spending
- Investment tracking: View portfolio performance using time-weighted return (TWR) and internal rate of return (IRR) calculations, with real-time price quotes across retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, and other holdings
- Retirement Planner: Model your retirement readiness using up to 15 variables, including income sources, spending scenarios, and investment return assumptions
- Reports: Create unlimited custom reports to analyze spending and income by category, account, time period, merchant, or any other dimension
Quicken Business & Personal connects to more than 14,000 financial institutions through three separate aggregation providers.
What to know
- Free trial: No free trial; comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee
- Billing: Annual only
Quicken Simplifi — best for personal finance and projected cash flows
Best for: Individuals and households who want a complete personal finance picture with forward-looking cash flow projections
Price: $3.99/mo (introductory price, billed annually; regular price $6.99/mo)
Quicken Simplifi is a dedicated personal finance platform built for people who want more than a basic budget. It connects real-time spending tracking, projected cash flows, investment analysis, and retirement planning in a single view — and it does all of this without requiring you to manage a business alongside it.
In March 2026, Simplifi was named Personal Finance App of the Year by the FinTech Breakthrough Awards, an awards program recognizing technology innovation in financial services globally. Time magazine recognized Simplifi as one of America’s Best Financial Services in 2026. CNBC Select named it the Best App for Planners for three consecutive years (2024, 2025, and 2026).
Key features
Spending Plan
Simplifi’s Spending Plan tracks your income and expenses in real time, automatically categorizing transactions as they come in. Unlike a traditional monthly budget that tells you what happened after the fact, the Spending Plan gives you a live view of how your current month is tracking — so you can adjust before you overspend.
Projected Cash Flows
Simplifi looks at your scheduled bills, regular income, and recurring expenses and builds a forward-looking projection of your account balance — up to a year ahead. This helps you avoid overdrafts, time large purchases, and plan for irregular expenses before they arrive.
Savings Goals
Create unlimited savings goals — an emergency fund, a vacation, a home down payment — and track progress as transactions come in automatically.
Investments
Connect your investment accounts and view portfolio performance using TWR and IRR calculations, with real-time price quotes. Simplifi consolidates retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, and other holdings alongside your everyday banking.
Retirement Planner
Model your retirement readiness using up to 15 variables, including income sources, spending scenarios, and investment return assumptions. The planner uses dynamic modeling to show how changes to one variable ripple through your long-term projections.
Reports
Create unlimited custom reports to analyze your spending and income any way you want — by category, account, time period, merchant, or tag.
Simplifi connects to more than 14,000 financial institutions through three aggregation providers.
Awards and recognition
- FinTech Breakthrough Awards 2026: Personal Finance App of the Year
- Time 2026: America’s Best Financial Services
- CNBC Select 2024, 2025, and 2026: Best App for Planners
- Engadget 2024, 2025, and 2026: Best Mint Alternative Overall
- PC Magazine 2025 and 2026: Reader’s Choice Award for Top Personal Finance Software
- PC Magazine 2024 and 2025: Best Overall
- CNET 2024, 2025, and 2026: Best for an Overall Snapshot of Finances
- TechRadar 2025: Best Overall
What to know
- Free trial: No free trial; comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee
- Billing: Annual only
- Business features: Not included — upgrade to Quicken Business & Personal if you need business cash flow reporting and invoicing alongside your personal finance tools
Personal finance tracking tools
Empower — best for investment tracking and net worth
Best for: Investors who want free tools to track net worth, portfolio performance, and retirement readiness
Price: Free (personal finance tools); fee-based wealth management available for qualifying accounts
Empower offers a free suite of personal finance tools used by more than 20 million people. The tools include a retirement planner, net worth tracker, budgeting and cash flow summary, portfolio analysis, savings planner, debt paydown calculator, and transaction tracking — all available at no cost.
NerdWallet named Empower the best budget app for tracking wealth and spending in January 2026. Forbes Advisor recognized it as the best budgeting app for tracking net worth in 2025.
The platform is built primarily around investment and retirement planning. Empower’s fee-based wealth management is available through its Personal Strategy service (accounts with $100,000 or more in assets under management) and its Private Client service (accounts with $1 million or more).
Empower does not include business cash flow features, invoicing, or forecasting for business finances.
PocketSmith — best for long-range cash flow forecasting
Best for: Individuals who want calendar-based budgeting and financial projections stretching years into the future
Price: Free plan available; paid plans from $9.99/mo (billed annually)
PocketSmith takes a calendar-first approach to personal finance. Rather than showing you what happened last month, PocketSmith projects your account balance forward — up to 60 years on the Fortune plan — based on your scheduled income, bills, and recurring expenses. More than 375,000 people use the platform worldwide.
The platform connects to more than 14,000 financial institutions globally and supports multi-currency tracking, making it a strong option for users with accounts in multiple countries or currencies.
Plans (billed annually):
| Plan | Monthly cost | Projection | Connected banks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 6 months | 2 |
| Foundation | $9.99 | 10 years | 6 |
| Flourish | $16.66 | 30 years | 18 |
| Fortune | $26.66 | 60 years | Unlimited |
Monthly billing is available at $14.95–$39.95/mo. All paid plans include a 14-day money-back guarantee.
All plans include calendar-based budgeting, cash flow forecasting, custom transaction categories, rollover budgeting, net worth tracking, and a safe-balance view that accounts for future expenses. PocketSmith does not include business cash flow features, invoicing, or business-specific reporting.
PocketGuard — best for simple budgeting and subscription tracking
Best for: Individuals who want a streamlined view of available spending money and visibility into what subscriptions they’re paying for
Price: $6.25/mo (billed annually, $74.99/yr) or $12.99/mo
PocketGuard is built around a simple concept: show you exactly how much money you have available to spend after bills, savings goals, and recurring expenses are accounted for. Its Leftover feature calculates this number in real time so you don’t have to. More than 1 million people use the platform.
The app connects to more than 18,000 financial institutions and includes a cash flow tracker, debt payoff planner, net worth tracking, subscription management, financial goals, and a bill negotiation service through Billshark.
A 7-day free trial is available. PocketGuard does not include business cash flow features or invoicing.
Small business cash flow tools
Cash Flow Frog — best for cash flow forecasting alongside your accounting software
Best for: Small businesses already using QuickBooks, Xero, or another accounting platform who want dedicated cash flow forecasting on top
Price: $33/mo (billed annually); $55/mo billed monthly
Cash Flow Frog is a dedicated cash flow forecasting tool that connects to your existing accounting software. It syncs with QuickBooks, Xero, Sage Intacct, Zoho Books, FreshBooks, Excel, Plaid, and Odoo — pulling in your financial data to generate rolling forecasts of up to 36 months.
Features include scenario planning (model best-case and worst-case futures), actual vs. planned variance tracking, and customer insights that rank clients by sales volume and payment punctuality. Cash Flow Frog has earned strong ratings on third-party review platforms: 4.6 on the QuickBooks Marketplace, 4.8 on Capterra, and 4.8 on the Xero App Store.
Cash Flow Frog is a business-only tool and does not include personal finance features.
Float — best for visual cash flow forecasting
Best for: Small businesses that want clear, visual cash runway projections their whole team can understand
Price: $50/mo (Early plan); $85/mo (Growing); $115/mo (Scaling)
Float builds visual cash flow forecasts by connecting to your accounting software. It syncs with Xero, QuickBooks, and FreeAgent, and is designed to make cash flow data accessible to founders and operators, not just accountants. More than 1,200 businesses use the platform.
Plans:
| Plan | Monthly cost | Forecast window | Scenarios |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early | $50 | 6 months | 2 |
| Growing | $85 | 18 months | 4 |
| Scaling | $115 | 36 months | 8 |
A 14-day free trial is available with no credit card required. Float does not include personal finance features.
Wave — best free option for small business accounting
Best for: Freelancers and very small businesses that need free invoicing, bookkeeping, and a basic cash flow overview
Price: Free (Starter); $19/mo (Pro)
Wave is a free accounting and invoicing platform used by more than 350,000 small businesses. The free Starter plan includes unlimited invoicing, unlimited estimates, bill tracking, basic bookkeeping, and a cash flow dashboard showing income and expenses.
Wave Pro ($19/mo) adds automatic bank imports via Plaid, receipt capture, the ability to remove Wave branding from invoices, additional user accounts, and live customer support Monday through Friday. Wave Advisors, a managed bookkeeping service, is available starting at $149/mo.
Wave’s cash flow dashboard reflects historical data — it does not include forward-looking cash flow projections. Wave does not include personal finance features.
Also worth considering
QuickBooks Online is widely used small business accounting software, with plans starting at $38/mo (Simple Start, 1 user). It handles invoicing, expense tracking, payroll as an add-on, and a cash flow dashboard. The platform recently introduced Accounting AI for automated bookkeeping and transaction categorization. QuickBooks Online does not include personal finance features.
Xero is a cloud-based accounting platform used by 4.9 million customers globally, including more than 250,000 accounting and bookkeeping professionals. Plans start at $25/mo (Early), with no per-user fees on any plan. Higher-tier plans extend the cash flow visibility window from 30 days (Early plan) to 180 days (Established plan). Xero recently introduced JAX, an AI financial superagent for analysis and reporting. Xero does not include personal finance features.
FreshBooks is an invoicing and accounting platform used by more than 30 million small businesses. Plans range from $23/mo (Lite, up to 5 clients) to $70/mo (Premium, unlimited clients). The platform includes project tracking, time tracking, and expense management. FreshBooks received a 4.5 Excellent rating from PCMag. It does not include cash flow forecasting or personal finance features.
What to look for when choosing a financial tracking tool
A few questions to help narrow down your choices:
Do you need to manage business and personal finances together? Most tools handle one or the other. If you want to see your business invoices, cash flow, household budget, and retirement projections in a single connected view, Quicken Business & Personal is the only option in this guide that covers both under one subscription.
Do you need forward-looking projections or historical data? Many accounting tools give you a clear picture of the past — expenses recorded, invoices paid, account balances. If you want to see what your balance will look like 60, 90, or 365 days from now based on your scheduled income and bills, look for a tool with cash flow forecasting. Float, Cash Flow Frog, PocketSmith, and Quicken Simplifi all offer forward projections; the range and depth vary by plan.
Are you layering on top of an existing accounting setup? If you already use QuickBooks or Xero for your books, Cash Flow Frog and Float are designed to work alongside those platforms, adding forecasting capabilities without replacing them. Quicken Business & Personal is a standalone system that handles both accounting and personal finance without requiring another platform underneath.
What’s your budget? Costs in this category range from free (Wave, Empower, PocketSmith’s free tier) to $115/mo or more for business forecasting platforms. Personal finance apps generally cost significantly less than dedicated business cash flow tools.
Trends shaping financial tracking in 2026
AI-assisted categorization and forecasting is becoming standard. QuickBooks has introduced Accounting AI for automated bookkeeping, Xero launched JAX as a financial analysis superagent, and PocketGuard uses an AI algorithm to automatically identify recurring merchants and schedule them. The expectation in 2026 is that routine categorization and pattern recognition happen automatically, without manual input from the user.
All-in-one platforms are gaining ground. The old model of separate apps for business accounting and personal budgeting is increasingly impractical for self-employed professionals and small business owners. Tools that bridge both categories — or integrate closely enough to create a unified view — are responding to how owners actually manage their money day to day.
Cash flow visibility is expanding beyond the finance team. Tools like Float are specifically designed to make cash flow data accessible to founders and operators, not just accountants. The shift toward visual, scenario-based forecasting reflects a broader expectation that financial information should be usable by anyone running a business, not just specialists.
Forecasting windows are getting longer. Business tools like Float and Cash Flow Frog now offer 36-month forecasting windows. Personal finance tools like PocketSmith project decades ahead. Long-range visibility is becoming a differentiator rather than a premium feature.
Frequently asked questions
What is cash flow tracking, and why does it matter for small businesses?
Cash flow tracking is the process of monitoring money coming into and going out of your business over time. It matters because profitability on paper and available cash in your account are two different things. A business can show a profit while still running short on cash if invoice payments are delayed, large expenses cluster in the same period, or seasonal slowdowns aren’t anticipated. Cash flow tracking helps you see potential shortfalls before they become emergencies, and spot opportunities before they pass.
What’s the difference between Quicken Business & Personal and Quicken Simplifi?
Quicken Simplifi is a personal finance platform for individuals and households. It covers spending tracking, projected cash flows, savings goals, investment analysis, and retirement planning — but does not include business accounting tools.
Quicken Business & Personal includes everything in Simplifi, plus a complete business layer: invoicing, expense and project tracking, payables and receivables management, profit & loss reporting, Schedule C/E/F tax reports, and support for up to 10 businesses on one subscription. If you’re self-employed or run a small business and want to manage both your business cash flow and your personal finances in one place, Quicken Business & Personal is the right choice.
Which tools offer a free plan or free trial?
Wave (Starter plan), Empower, and PocketSmith all offer free plans with meaningful functionality. PocketGuard offers a 7-day free trial. Float offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. FreshBooks offers a 30-day free trial. Quicken Simplifi and Quicken Business & Personal do not offer free trials; both come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Can personal finance apps help track business income?
Many personal finance apps — including Quicken Simplifi — can import transactions from business bank accounts and help you categorize business income and expenses alongside personal transactions. However, they typically don’t generate business-specific reports like profit & loss statements, track accounts payable and receivable, or handle invoicing. For complete business accounting alongside personal finance, Quicken Business & Personal covers both.
How far ahead can cash flow forecasting tools project?
It varies significantly by tool and plan. Wave’s cash flow dashboard reflects historical data. Xero projects 30–180 days ahead depending on your plan. Float and Cash Flow Frog each project up to 36 months. Quicken Simplifi projects personal cash flows up to a year ahead. PocketSmith projects from 6 months (free plan) to 60 years (Fortune plan).
Is Quicken Business & Personal a good fit for freelancers?
Yes. Quicken Business & Personal is designed for sole proprietors, freelancers, and small business owners. The ability to manage up to 10 businesses on one subscription is useful for freelancers with multiple clients, projects, or income streams. The Schedule C report is directly relevant to self-employment tax filing. The included personal finance features — Spending Plan, Projected Cash Flows, Retirement Planner — add value that standalone accounting tools typically don’t provide.
About Quicken
Quicken has been helping people manage their money since 1983. Quicken Business & Personal and Quicken Simplifi are built for the way modern financial life actually works — where business and personal finances often overlap, and where planning ahead matters as much as tracking what happened last month. Learn more at quicken.com.
Pricing information reflects figures published on each company’s website as of June 2026. Introductory pricing for Quicken products is subject to change.
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