Empower Personal Dashboard™

This used to be an amazing app, but it has gotten progressively worse since Empower purchased Personal Capital and support is essentially non-existent. I understand it’s a free product, but if it were updated and some of the bugs patched out, and had responsive support that was actually able to fix issues, I’d gladly pay for a reasonable annual subscription. At present, Robinhood and Wealthfront accounts don’t link properly (underlying holdings are all wrong), the app doesn’t support Robinhood Credit Card, and accounts get unlinked with yellow dots for weeks with no way to refresh connections. Transactions very frequently get misclassified and are a pain to recategorize on mobile. There’s no way to view or edit reclassification rules, and the reclassification tools are extremely limited (eg the transaction description has to match exactly, can’t set up reclassification based on a description that contains certain words). There’s no way to edit historical data, or to reopen a closed account other than having to relink a the account fresh. Etc. For investment tracking, it’s still probably the best app out there, but Monarch and Origin are much better at linking accounts and categorizing transactions. I wish Empower would consider charging for the dashboard product but then really step up support and improvements for the app.

Been using Personal Capital for over 9 years and it is very useful to be able to see your financial history at your fingertips. I have bought 2 homes and sold 1, been through market cycles, tracked retirement accounts and other financial accounts, and everything is there to see in the app and online. There is also other useful features like the retirement planner which allows you to get a good high level view of your retirement progress and add future events like home renovations or vehicle purchases, and asset allocation analysis and budget tracking. Really powerful financial tools! They started out not offering additional advisory services but eventually moved into that space. It is optional, but they are somewhat pushy trying to get you to speak with their advisors (which is a paid service!). They will cold call about 1-2x per month. Luckily you can opt out of the paid advisory service and just use the financial tracking with the app which is still a useful benefit. I am sure they also get a handle on your “data” to understand aggregate trends of their customers (and who knows what else??). In any case, overall a fairly useful service!

I have been been using for over 2 years and I have to say I use it daily. The mobile app is fast to load and easily understandable. Having this quick access to all of my financial accounts make it easy. After having had-to replace several credit cards and having had someone apply for a personal loan in my name I decided to finally do something to decrease my vulnerability to scams and schemes. I good friend who is a cyber security expert recommended I implement a 3 tier plan. 1. Put a hold with all 3 credit agencies on releasing your credit scores. This then prevents thieves snooping to see if you have money and applying for loans in your name. 2. Sign up for a reputable password vault and use it. There several good ones. 3. Finally sign up for empower. It is free. They really are an investment company that wants you to use there services but provides this one stop view of your financial health and safety. Unlike Fisher investments who promised not to bug me when I signed up for some free literature bugged my secretary for weeks until she insisted I take the call and tell them to bug off. I have been contacted once by empowered. Quick sales pitch and when I explained investing was my hobby so no thanks she said it looks like I was doing it well and wished me luck. No further calls. That impressed me to the point that I recommended them to my wife in my “instructions for finances when I am demented or dead” note as she has 0 interest in investing.