If you don't have a Mint.com account (free), you're missing out on the best personal finance tool on the market. And now that Mint has a Windows Phone app (free), all the benefits of Mint are available to more people on the go. This particular version doesn't have quite as many features as you'll find in the Mint iPhone app or Mint Android app. Unfortunately, this is a common problem with Windows Phone apps. Even so, this app is a good start and certainly worth downloading if you're a Windows Phone user.

Mint is one of those solutions that instantly made sense as a mobile app. At its most basic, Mint gives you real-time access to all your financial account balances and transactions. Open the app, and you'll see how much money you have, as well as what you owe. Dig in, and you'll see recent line item transactions from credit cards. Really get into Mint, and you can log your cash spending, too.

You can add to your Mint account the value of other assets you own, such as a home, so that Mint can calculate your true net worth. The full Mint website has even more tools for setting up financial goals as well as budgets in different categories to help you keep track of your spending, which you can access (but not change) from the mobile app. Mint's Windows Phone app is the single most helpful app for telling you exactly where you stand financially.

Getting Started

If you're new to Mint, I'd recommend setting up an account on the full website rather than the mobile app because 1) it takes some time to set up and customize to your needs, and 2) not all the features of the full website are available in the app. If you already have a Mint account, you can simply log in, but your first stop thereafter should be the settings, where you can enable a four-digit PIN to keep your Mint app extra secure.

Newcomers to Mint will find that previous transactions import into the system automatically giving Mint a clear idea of what your spending habits have been like to date. In other words, you don't get to start with a clean slate, which is best for everyone involved. That spending history informs Mint of your habits, which it uses to figure out what kind of spending is normal for you versus unusual. And when unusual spending occurs, the app lets you know.

What's Inside the App

The app looks straightforward and clean, with legible fonts and a perky green and white color scheme. The main overview screen lists out all the financial accounts you've connected to Mint and their respective balances, broken down into applicable categories, such as "credit cards" and "property." My IRA account for some reason is lumped into the "cash" (checking and savings accounts) category, even though those funds aren't exactly liquid.

Swipe left or right, and Mint brings you to other sections of the app, including Transactions, Alerts & Advice, Budget, and Top Spending.

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My transactions show recent line item spending from the credit cards I have connected to Mint. Mint automatically categorizes each transaction when it is imported to the app, and those transactions tend to show up pretty quickly, in my experience. The categories are used for budgeting, and to help you see where you spend the bulk of your money. If Mint categorizes a transaction incorrectly—say you bought food at a family-owned grocer's, and it shows up as an entertainment charge—you can tap the line item and select the category field to change it. You'll see a list of available options in addition to a search function at the top, which didn't work as smoothly as I had hoped. The keyboard that appears takes up half the screen, making it hard to see more than about four options at a time when you're searching, as opposed to the 11 or 12 options you can see a time when you're not using the search function.

Transactions can be split using a little money icon at the bottom of the screen. For example, if you bought $75 worth of wine, but $50 of that was for gifts, you can divvy up the total and assign each part appropriately.

The Alerts & Advice section contains messages flagging your attention to large transactions, or whatever parameters you set in the main Mint.com website. Mine, for example, are set to notify me anytime a transaction happens that's in excess of $1,000. By default, Mint will let you know when your account balances are low, when large transactions occur, and when unusual spending happens based on your spending history.

Budgets help you stay on track with your money so that you don't overspend in different categories, and while you can see your state with different budget categories with the Windows Phone Mint app, you can't actually adjust the budget here. You'll need the full website for that.

A Top Spending screen shows the top categories where you have been blowing your hard-earned cash and how much you spent.

What's Missing From Windows Phone

As is often the case with Windows Phone apps, certain features that you'll find in the other Mint mobile apps are absent. For example, the Android and iPhone apps offer lovely bar graphs that show how your spending has changed month to month in different categories. A similar chart shows how your net income has changed month to month.

Also missing is an interactive pie chart showing your spending categories. When you click on the different colored segments, the chart rotates to display the name of the category and total spent in it for the current month.

Mint to Go

Sure, the Mint app for Windows Phone may be missing an interactive feature or bar graph here and there, but it's still the best, most thorough, and simplest personal finance management app you'll find. Mint does take an ounce of time and patience to fully customize and learn how to use properly for your specific needs, but it does a wonderful job of helping you keep an eye on your money and future money. For all those reasons, Mint is an Editors' Choice among Windows Phone apps.