The best mobile finance apps help you manage your money automatically while keeping an eye on it from anywhere. A new player in the personal finance app space, Qapital (for iPhone only), focuses on getting you to save every time you do little actions in your day. If you buy a latte every morning, Qapital can round up the price and stick the change in a savings account. Or you can set a rule so that if you come in under budget for your monthly commuting expenses, Qapital puts the balance into a vacation fund. It's a well-developed app that does a great job of gamifying savings. It even connects to IFTTT, the "if this, then that" app, to help you create more ways to save. The app's one big hurdle, however, is that to use it, you have to sign up for a new bank account. But once that's done, Qapital is a fantastic at helping you save.

How Qapital Works
When you download the Qapital mobile app, you create a basic profile and pick some savings goals, such as paying off debts or making a big purchase in the future. Pretty soon, the app asks you to authenticate one of your financial accounts so that it has at least one option for a source of funds to use to build up your savings account. Next, the app asks you to open an FDIC-insured Qapital account. The first few days I tested the app, I didn't see the terms and conditions of this new savings account, which made me feel uncomfortable applying. Then (after a small app update that revised the sign-up process), the terms and conditions appeared asking for my e-signature before I gave away any personal information. In the earlier version of the app, you had to provide your social security number before even learning the first thing about the bank account. The new process is much better.

If you have no qualms with opening a new account, you enter your name and mailing address, and then you verify your identity with your social security number. If you aren't ready to open a new account, you can try out the other features of the app in a dummy scenario. The app lets you create savings goals, go through the motions of setting up automatic deposits, and see how it would work if it were in fact connected to your bank accounts and a Qapital savings account.

Rules of Saving
Qapital has some neat prompts to get you to think about why you might need saved cash on hand. For example, in a Goals section, Qapital asks if you want to learn a new skill, such as photography or cooking. If you say yes, it will ask you to estimate how much money you need to do so. Then it will help you configure different ways to save little bits of money toward that goal, all of which will add up over time.

A Rules section of the app taps into the power of IFTTT. You can make sure money goes into your savings accounts as a reward every time you check off tasks in your Reminders app, or every day that you reach your step goal using a Jawbone UP tracker, such as the Jawbone UP3. My favorite rules are the ones that tap into your budget and reward you for spending within your limits, although I wish the rules were a little more configurable. For example, you can tell Qapital, "If I spend less than $20 per week at Trader Joe's, then put the balance into my savings account," but you can't swap out "Trader Joe's" for "all grocery stores." 

It would be really useful if the app could connect with Mint.com, an Editors' Choice personal finance app, because Mint does indeed let you classify which charges on your credit card are for groceries, for example.

Qapital lets you connect with friends and earn a little bonus boost in your account for referrals. An Activity Feed shows recent money transfers, helping you keep an eye on your earnings as well as the withdrawals from your other accounts. There's even a setting for sole proprietors to automatically set aside 30 percent of their earnings so that, when April 15 rolls around, money is already set aside for your taxes.

Not all finance apps focus so tightly on saving, but that's a good thing. Personal finance apps seem to do best when they specialize in one particular area of helping you manage your money. For example, the Editors' Choice app Mint.com is designed to give you insight into what's happening (or has happened) with all your financial accounts at present and in the past. BillGuard, on the other hand, monitors charges on your credit cards and other bills and looks for sneaky activity, like when you sign up for a free trial and end up getting charged without realizing it. I like that Qapital doesn't compete in these spaces but instead has its own niche.

Motivate Your Savings
Qapital entices you to save small amounts of money frequently with great hooks. It's easy to use and does a good job of convincing you to save. It has room to grow, too, and connecting with Mint would be a huge step forward. As it is, however, if you need help stashing money away for a rainy day, April 15, your next vacation, or anything else, Qapital can motivate you to automatically save a little bit every day.