You can’t add in your cash transactions and the app won’t work as well for people with inconsistent income and expenses, but the company is working on adding features that will address those issues.

BILLGUARD This app started life as a security service that scanned users’ credit and debit charges for potentially erroneous or unauthorized transactions — a service Target shoppers can surely appreciate now. But last summer, it added a spending analytics tool and personalized savings alerts. The spending feature gives you a snapshot of your monthly spending, though you need be a heavy credit and debit card user for the numbers to have meaning. Every time you swipe a card, the transaction is automatically categorized. It did a relatively good job with the two cards I connected.

The analytics are informative, but one-dimensional. You can compare spending across all accounts with the previous month. You can compare spending across all accounts with the prior month, but the app doesn’t provide insights into spending relative to income. Those features and customizable alerts will be added in coming months. “It will be looking out for you almost like the perfect accountant in the background, letting you live your life and when you go beyond a certain threshold it will let you know,” said Yaron Samid, founder and chief executive. The company is also working on letting users add cash transactions, alerts when users are close to incurring an overdraft fee, and other analytics.

The app, which is available for the iPhone and will serve Android in February, also searches the Web for coupons that you are most likely to use based on your past spending. The app works for two linked accounts, but there’s a one-time charge of $9.99 for up to 10 accounts. Yodlee handles account aggregation.

MINT For several years now, I have had an on-again, off-again relationship with Mint.com, the automated money-tracking service introduced in 2007 and acquired in 2009 by Intuit for $170 million. If you want to get a better sense of where your money is going, keep tabs on your net worth and chart it all with pie and bar charts for different time periods, then Mint is still the most comprehensive tool on the market. LearnVest, which offers a human financial planner if you want one, has a similarly robust free tool, which I’ve reviewed in the past.

Mint’s budgeting tool sets up a starter budget for you — based on up to three months’ spending history — across various categories from groceries to mobile phones. You can add to the list and customize to your heart’s content. If you spend more than you’ve allotted, you can set it up to receive an email or a text message. LearnVest has its own budgeting tool, which also provides some guideposts: You should spend no more than half of your income on essentials and no more than 30 percent on lifestyle expenses.

Mint users, estimated at two million by the company, can now track their spending, income and net worth via the mobile app, but people will inevitably find something that doesn’t quite work for them. The app requires maintenance because its categorization is not flawless. It still irks me that Mint refuses to learn that the target-date mutual fund in my 401(k) is not Target, the retailer. The app is available for Android and Apple.